After watching so many openers I have become much more conscious of many of the openers to shows I enjoyed in my youth. The first thing I noticed were shows that didn’t have any vocals in the opener. Perhaps this was done on purpose to make internationalization easier? I also noticed that the only shows that seemed to have opening songs with lots of vocals were made by the big studios like Disney and Warner Brothers. They also seem to be the only studios that were able to afford to have most of their songs translated into multiple languages. Shows with heavy vocal openers that are not by Disney or Warner, like The Real Ghostbusters or Thundercats, tend to not re-sing the songs when they aired them in other countries. Also, the Disney and Warner Brothers openers that were heavy on vocals were typically light years ahead of the competition in terms of musical quality.

Another interesting thing that I’ve found out is it is almost impossible to find Hanna-Barbera openers in other languages on the net. Were these shows not aired in other countries? I wanted nothing more than to hear the Flintstones, Yogi Bear, Scooby Doo or Jetsons theme songs in other languages, but I couldn’t find a single one. If you know how to find them please help. It is also difficult for me to find openers in languages that use different alphabets, like Cyrillic, because I can’t search for them.

Anyway, for your entertainment here is a collection of all the great international cartoon openers that I have found on YouTube. Everything is in alphabetical order for ease. If you find any others, feel free to post a link in the comments. Also, I do not speak most of these languages. I am sorry if anything here is wrong, let me know and I will correct it. I mean no disrespect to your country or language. Also, I put a * next to the ones I think are the awesomest.

Alvin and the Chipmunks – English
Alvin and the Chipmunks – German
Animaniacs – English
Animaniacs – Finnish
Animaniacs – French
Animaniacs – German
Animaniacs – Hebrew
Animaniacs – Portuguese
Animaniacs – Spanish
Bonkers – English
Bonkers – Swedish
COPS – English
COPS – German
Darkwing Duck – Dutch
Darkwing Duck – English
Darkwing Duck – French
Darkwing Duck – German
Darkwing Duck – Russian
Darkwing Duck – Spanish (Latin)
Darkwing Duck – Spanish (Castilian)
Darkwing Duck – Swedish
Dragonball – English
Dragonball – Galician*
Dragonball – German
Dragonball – Greek
Dragonball – Spanish
Dragonball – Japanese
Duck Tales – Dutch
Duck Tales – English
Duck Tales – Finnish
Duck Tales – French
Duck Tales – German
Duck Tales – Norwegian
Duck Tales – Portuguese
Duck Tales – Russian
Duck Tales – Spanish
Duck Tales – Swedish
Dungeons and Dragons – German
Dungeons and Dragons – English
Freakazoid – English
Freakazoid – Spanish*
Garfield and Friends – English
Garfield and Friends – German
Garfield and Friends – Spanish
Gargoyles – English
Gargoyles – German*
Gobots – English
Gobots – French
Goof Troop – Dutch
Goof Troop – English
Goof Troop – Hebrew
Goof Troop – Norwegian
Goof Troop – Swedish
Gummi Bears – Dutch
Gummi Bears – English
Gummi Bears – French
Gummi Bears – German
Gummi Bears – Hungarian
Gummi Bears – Polish
Gummi Bears – Russian
Gummi Bears – Spanish (Latin)
Heathcliff – English
Heathcliff – German
Heathcliff – Hebrew
Macron 1 – English
Macron 1 – Hebrew
Mighty Max – English
Mighty Max – Hebrew
Pinky and the Brain – Arabic
Pinky and the Brain – English
Pinky and the Brain – Hebrew*
Pokemon – Cantonese
Pokemon – English
Pokemon – German
Quack Pack – English
Quack Pack – French
Quack Pack – German
Rescue Rangers – Dutch
Rescue Rangers – English
Rescue Rangers – German
Rescue Rangers – Swedish
Sailor Moon – English
Sailor Moon – German*
Sailor Moon – Japanese
Sailor Moon – Russian
Sailor Moon – Spanish
Sonic Underground – English
Sonic Underground – French
South Park – German
Super Mario Bros. Super Show – English
Super Mario Bros. Super Show – German*
Super Mario Bros. Super Show – Italian
Tale Spin – English
Tale Spin – Swedish
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – English
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – German
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Hebrew
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Italian*
Tiny Toons – English
Tiny Toons – Hebrew
Tiny Toons – Spanish
Tiny Toons – French
Transformers – English
Transformers – French*
Transformers – German
Transformers – Japanese

EDIT: BoingBoing is now discussing this subject, and many other videos are linked in their post and comments. http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/27/1980s-cartoon-intros.html

Thinking about this later led me ask a very important question. What is the definition of old school? Here is the top definition from the urban dictionary.

old school

Anything that is from an earlier era and looked upon with high regard or respect. Can be used to refer to music, clothing, language, or anything really.

Personally, I feel this definition is not accurate nor is it specific enough. If someone were to try to submit that shoddy definition to a real dictionary, like the OED, it would be instantly rejected. Where exactly are the borderlines between eras? Also, old school is often used to simply refer to things that are old, but not necessarily deserving of respect. Custer’s Revenge is an old school video game worthy of no respect whatsoever. Let us try to come up with a new definition of old school in order to put an end to many geeky debates.

Let us first look upon the words that combine to form the phrase. Old means something that has existed for a long time. It is not an absolute measurement, but a relative one. Depending on the context something from five seconds ago could be considered old as well as something from five centuries ago. The only thing that can not be old under any circumstance is something from the present or future.

A school is an institution of learning. That can mean a physical building or set of buildings in which schooling takes place. But old school as we mean it is not referring to ancient university buildings. The definition I think we are looking for is the sixth one listed in a more official dictionary. To paraphrase, school can refer to a group of people who have a common origin, influence or unifying belief.

So what does old school mean? It means that something is of an older school of thought. This is most apparent in art and more recently comic books. Artists, feel free to pummel me if I botch this, but in older times they had different ideas about art. There are many schools of art such as impressionist, abstract, expressionist, realist, etc. Some of these ideas of art are very old, from the renaissance or earlier. Therefore, works of art created from these schools can be correctly described as old school.

Let us look at video games, an area in which the term old school is used quite often. In my eyes, the current school of 3d game design began in the 1990s with Mario 64 and Quake. Therefore, I have to say it is wrong to refer to these games as old school. Games like Mario 3, Pac-Man, and Final Fantasy 1 came from a prior school of thought in game design, therefore they can be correctly categorized as old school. The next school of game design that I see includes games like Guitar Hero, DDR, Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii Games. If and when the games from that school of thought come to dominate the industry, you will be able to refer to Half-Life as old school.

So, what is my definition of old school? Old school is a phrase you use to describe anything which originates from or is influenced by of a set of ideas or beliefs prior to the modern one. That’s not a perfect defintion, semantically speaking, but it gets my point across. A comic made in the golden or silver age style is old school. An anime made in the 70′s style of Astroboy or Tetsujin 28 is old school. Sailor Moon is not old school, because it is cut from the same artistic cloth as the anime of today.

Let us all work together to reach a unified definition of old school and to propogate it throughout the geek world. Perhaps if we try hard enough it eventually will be put into the real dictionary.

It’s definitely animated in the typical Gonzo fashion. It doesn’t have any crazy special CG stuff like Gankutsuou did, but it is fairly typical of newer high quality anime. It is a bit dark, but that fits the show. The audio is very good. The opening song from Duran Duran is excellent, especially for children of the 80s. And the score during the show included one very good track that every one knows by ear but doesn’t know the name of. The closer was a bit weak, but it wasn’t annoying and has potential to grow on you.

The show is called “Speed Grapher” because it’s about a badass photo-journalist named Saiga. The plot seems to be about him and his quest for awesome photography. It becomes quickly apparent that he takes the very dangerous jobs. This results in the show being very action packed. I would actually say they slightly overdo the sex and violence, but that’s obviously just to jack up the ratings with the target audience. What the show lacks is character development. There is no hidden pasts to find out or coming of age stories here. The few actual characters in the show are very straightforward. The show keeps you mostly concerned about the action right now, and not on any mysteries or intrigues. Even the one time in the episode there was foreshadowing and potential for the future, that future comes within about 2 minutes.

Despite the lack of character development, this show seems to have everything including kitchen sink, minus pirates. Just in the first episode we had yakuza, gunslinging, police and detectives, ninjas, superpowers, cults, philosophy, corruption, insanity, politics, evil corporations, war and something that could arguably be a lovecraftian Mothra. Oh, and a freaky plot/goddess chick, but what anime doesn’t have one of those? So like I said, everything but pirates.

Speed Grapher doesn’t look like it is going to be an A+ anime here. My guess is it will be just as entertaining as Noir. What the show lacks in shallow violence it makes up for with plenty of weird shit going on and cool action. And while it may not be the best anime I’ve ever seen, so far I haven’t seen any other shows coming this season that even peak my interest. I’ll watch it simply because there’s no other anime to watch. Whether I’ll buy it on DVD after its inevitable licensing in a few months remains to be seen.

Since this is my first episode review I just have to let you all know that Fullmetal Alchemist is the best new anime out right now. In fact, its the only new anime out right now that’s worth watching. It will be on cartoon network in the fall, so never fear. If you’ve already started watching you can keep watching fansubs if you truly intend to pay for the DVDs. Otherwise, hold out for the pro. No matter what you do, watch this show!