The Spring 2025 anime season has given me my largest seasonal watchlist in years, and on top of that, it also has so many standout opening and ending animations. From bundles of creativity and cool persistent motifs to enjoyable color palettes and absolutely joyful animation, these short works of art may not necessarily represent the visual style or even the narrative content of the series they belong to, but they are still to be celebrated.
Witch Watch Opening
Storyboards and unit direction by: Megumi Ishitani
Ishitani is still with Toei Animation, but she became involved with this opening after receiving a request from a Bibury Animation Studios producer (most likely Hidehisa Taniguchi, given the surname Ishitani mentions and Taniguchi being Witch Watch’s animation producer and the opening’s co-production assistant). The opening delights with Ishitani’s great eye for visuals and match cuts, and it captures various moods effectively. The excellent drawings and character animation do such a stellar job at portraying the characters — whether the shot requires them to be adorable goofs or badasses — that the whole thing had me smiling with pure contentment.
The opening is also insanely inventive. Diegetic credits are always a welcome sight, but this goes above and beyond by doing things like dragging a character into a manga dimension and putting staff names in said character’s speech bubbles. Even the anime’s name gets to be presented in multiple creative ways — who says you can’t spell out a title with bread and pastry on a picnic table?
Black Butler: Emerald Witch Arc Ending
Storyboards and unit direction (and more) by: Oka Okazaki
Okazaki’s ending features some absolutely beautiful stills, but it’s when the tempo rises in sync with the song’s (Ryugojo’s “WALTZ”) progression that it engraves an indelible mark on your heart. The dance radiates raw, emotional intensity as Ciel begins as a forlorn figure trapped in a white limbo of silhouettes of the past that throw him off balance. After Sebastian swoops in, the backdrop changes to a warm and tangible environment, and his dance partners become the loyal Phantomhive household servants, who happily lend the sound of their claps to the scene. I was easily held in the thrall of this ending until its conclusion.
The Apothecary Diaries Season 2 Cour 2 opening
Storyboards and unit direction by: China
A mask motif, various first-person shots offering multiple perspectives of Maomao, and character acting define this opening. For added flair, there’s a momentary trip into stylized animation territory that feels like you’ve been thrown into a painting. It’s very good. My personal nitpick is the mask looking like an awkward photoshopped presence — I think it works thematically, but it can be a bit distracting from an aesthetic beauty sense. The shot of Maomao with her eyes obscured by the show’s title (specifically, the word “Apothecary”) while petals drift around her, however, deserves to be framed as a picture.
My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Opening
Storyboards by: Nobutaka Yoda and Kenichi Suzuki
Unit direction by: Kenichi Suzuki
This opening loses a bit of steam during the chorus, but the comic book-inspired sections of its other parts make up for it. The striking colors and shading, panels, and the typography of the English-translated credits do a great job at immersing you in the realm of comics. And while I’m not sure if Pop Step’s dance sequence will have the virality of Mash’s moves in Mashle’s “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” opening, it’s successfully engineered to get your head bobbing along to that part of the song (“Kekka Orai” by Kocchi no Kento).
Apocalypse Hotel Opening
Storyboards and unit direction by: Kana Shundo
The robot staff and alien (?) guests of the hotel Gingarou show us why we ought to stay over by putting on a peppy performance, with humanoid manager Yachiyo as the star performer. The opening gets off to a nice start as Yachiyo’s timed descent down some stairs syncs with the piano chords playing, a spotlight shining right on her, but it’s when the dancing starts — and almost never stops — that you realize that you’re really in for a treat.
It’s a top-notch display of dance animation, with movements so compelling and (ironically) alive that your feet and legs threaten to move on their own. Even the shot where the light temporarily escapes Yachiyo’s grasp, shrouding her in forlorn darkness, can’t permanently keep Yachiyo and the opening’s sense of joy locked down. I wish we could have gotten a clear view of Yachiyo’s footwork at the end, but this is still a fine piece of animation.
Anne Shirley Opening
Storyboards and unit direction by: Naoko Yamada
Anne Shirley’s more abstract and stylized Takashi Kojima-animated ending, which is also helmed by Yamada, deserves a huge shoutout too, but it’s the opening (with Kojima on animation director duty) that has my heart. Its snapshot of Anne’s life radiates so much joy and personality, reminding me of Yamada’s last film, The Colors Within, and the bewitching animation makes every step and little gesture a pleasure to watch.
One Piece new Egghead Arc Opening
Storyboards and unit direction by: Wataru Matsumi
Matsumi’s Bonney and Kuma-focused opening blesses the eye with, well, a lot. The character drawings and visuals already make a strong case for the animation, and then there are interesting transitions, cool character posing shots, first-person perspectives, and a very impressive multi-stage transformation that occurs in the span of a few seconds. All the best bits are arguably before and after the chorus (where the OP sequence seems to lose its momentum), but even at its “worst,” the opening has solid direction steering it and good production values to keep it afloat.
One Piece new Egghead Arc Ending
Storyboards and unit direction by: Sho Matsui
More relaxed and less dense than the opening, the new One Piece ending at first seems to be going for a purely stylized approach with character stills rendered in neon lines. These are nice, but it’s the very good-looking shots that follow that quietly take your breath away. I find myself returning to the stretch that starts with the mesmerizing blues of the underwater shot aimed at the sun and ends with Bonney being propelled through the air with beams of color blasting outwards alongside her.
Yaiba: Samurai Legend Ending
Storyboards and unit direction by: Atsuko Nozaki
Yaiba’s opening is good, but I warmed up to the ending more with how its picturesque scenes provide a soothing balm to offset the loudness and hyperactiveness of the main protagonist. And, of course, it looks good too, with picturesque stills that deserve to be collected into an artbook.
Fire Force Season 3 Ending
Created by: Jinkai
While Fire Force Season 3’s opening felt at odds with the song it was accompanying, the ending is much more in sync with its companion tune (Umeda Cypher’s “Urusiren”). Oh, and it’s depicted through eye-grabbing inky animation. If you like Jinkai’s ink drawings, the illustrator and animator has a portfolio and various social media presences.
SHOSHIMIN: How to become Ordinary Season 2 Opening
Direction by: Kyohei Ishiguro
Mixing a multitude of visual styles and some mixed-media flavor, SHOSHIMIN Season 2’s opening is as singular as its two protagonists. It’s a delightful and unpredictable parade of experimental-feeling imagery that would belong in a fancy art exhibition. I don’t entirely understand it, but I’d happily allow myself to be lost in it for eternity. I wasn’t expecting something like this to spring from the mind of Ishiguro, the director of Your Lie in April and Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop.
Umamusume: Cinderella Gray Opening
Storyboards and unit direction by: Kotaro Tamura
Umamusume: Cinderella Gray’s opening employs visual effects that mimic the look and impression of an actual camera, with some shots even going for a shaky handheld look. It’s not the first opening/ending to go with this sort of approach, but it’s a good fit for the show’s subject matter, which, when you ignore the horse girl aspect, is basically just good ol’ sports.
By making it feel as if we’re really observing them through an actual lens, the visual style immerses viewers into the world of the Umamusume and Cinderella Gray’s protagonist Oguri Cap, especially during shots of arduous training and actual racing. The storyboards are also paced quite nicely with Alexandros’ “Koeru” — the slow-motion scene isn’t the most stylish display of animated slow-motion, but it’s a fitting running partner for the song’s slower pre-chorus and ends up standing out because of that effective pairing.
Umamusume: Cinderella Gray Ending
Storyboards and unit direction by: Kengo Matsumoto
Run, Oguri Cap, run! After opening with an entrancing first-person running animation, the ending animation, which is solo key-animated by Matsumoto, shows the childhood of our protagonist in a manner that makes me feel like I’m inside a shifting box diorama. It also emphasizes the limited mobility of young Oguri by showing us the changing seasons through a window while we’re stuck inside a dark room.
When Oguri develops the strength to run and brings us outside again, we get to see an unwavering Oguri run on and on as the colors of the trees and clouds that roll across the screen change in accordance with the season and the time of day. This chorus section has a pleasant dreamlike quality, helped by the way the backgrounds are painted, the quick passage of time, and the slightly jerky progression of the clouds. It’s almost a shame when the song ends, taking this scenery with it.
Special mention: Mono Ending
Storyboards, unit direction, and key animation by: Yasuhiro Irie
Irie’s ending is cute and charming, but its biggest claim to fame is the sequence from 0:38 to 0:52. It’s a single cut made to look like we’re watching through the lens of a selfie stick-mounted camera that’s being passed between the characters of the show.
The 360-degree movement and the mimicking of the camera perspective are already plenty impressive; then, you notice that it has 2D background animation as an additional power move. It’s simply an incredible sequence.
