I was BLOWN AWAY by this theme. It's absolutely crazy in all of the best ways! Which of the One Piece openings has been your favorite over the years?? Also, we've just added 48hrs to the Black Friday sale, so if you were considering picking up the entire course library at our biggest discount ever, this will be your last chance to do that!! As always, your support means the world to me, so thank you. cornellmusicacademy.com/blackfriday
"We Are" is of course a classic, but I love "We Go" equally if not more; the ending bridge/coda section is awesome plus I think you'd love the solos in the full version of the song!
On the Cornell Music Academy, is it a digital purchase only or are there physical books? For something normally valued at $700, I couldn't imagine not having that be included.
The theme for Ghost of Tsushima is amazing the way it goes back and forth between instruments that eventually start to work together. It sounds like what's going on with the main character as you play. Please do a video for it.
Well if he was just teaching the notes he would basically be a synthesia youtube channel 😂 But I get what you're saying, he's an amazing teacher indeed :)
@@yonaoisme What bar for education is higher than answering who, what, when, where, and why all in under 15 minutes? After watching the video, I know who wrote the song, when it was written, where it's from, what notes are used in the song, and why each note is used. And the video took one quarter the length of a single music class session to do it.
What I love about "We Are!" is that the whole song's composition just feels like expectation. All the chords feel like they're leading somewhere, and I'm just CHOMPING AT THE BIT to get where it's leading me.
I just got my sister into the anime after getting her on the bandwagon with the live action. While I was drinking in the victory of adding more to my love and cause I realized right? We're just finishing Alabasta? I am openly catching her humming tidbits of We Are! around the house. I am so happy I exist for this.
it's the highest selling graphic novel, of all time. even surpassing shakespeare and stephen king😅so im prettyyyy sure its mainstream, maybe just not in places you've seen before
I like that there are people pretending not to get what you mean. Yes, it's a top seller, record-breaker, but could you mention it in an office on those dreaded water fountain conversations? Come on, we have major movies releasing all over the world, a live-action at Netflix, even the anime is getting special treatment and there's also a remake on the way, it DEFINITELY feels different this time.
I'll happily skip any other theme than we are, listened to them all and the other themes just didn't sit with me, but we are is always a win and I'd never skip
"We Are" is the perfect introduction to One Piece. It's adventurous and so full of energy! "We Go" is the returning opening after the timeskip and my favourite theme! It captures the same spirit of "We Are" in a completely different way.
Hearing those wild drums at the opening of the song REALLY gives me "Drums of Liberation" vibes, a theme that only debuted in the anime THIS LAST YEAR, 24 years later! One Piece don't miss, and One Piece don't forget!
As someone who’s up to date on One Piece, hearing the OG first opening always makes me tear up a little bit. It’s such a good song and it’s so nostalgic 😭
@@dragonfruitreal Not really The Peak is pretty good as the arc-ending song that it is, but as for overall theme goodness, the We Are - We Go - Over The Top trio still trumps it
Just hearing you describe it, I think it matches the series itself perfectly. You're progressing from chord to chord (island to island), and you don't always know where you're gonna' end up, but it's always fun and exciting. Hiroshi Kitadana knew what they were doing when writing the perfect anthem for One Piece.
We gotta thank the legend Kouhei Tanaka for the composition and Takayuki Negishi for the arrangement, as well as Shoko Fujibayashi for such memorable lyrics
I personally think that he goes into too many sidetracks, and it makes it very hard to see (and worse, hear) any of his points. Sometimes I wondered whether there was a point to what he was saying or he just wanted to show his musical theory knowledge. This is my first video of his, so maybe this chaos is his style, but I am not surprised that it gets confusing to people.
Japanese sound design is insane. They have stuff from insane game music to crazy anemie themes. Love that you're checking this out, keep pumping out the awesome content.
Ah yes, the minor 251 or as gospel kats know it the 736. A lot of the Japanese go to chord progressions have roots in jazz but the instrumentation and catchy melodies make it “poppy” and accessible for broad audience. Great stuff!
The opposite idea is extremely common in Central American and Caribbean folk music too. You develop your first verse in the minor key, then go 473 to fall into major. Also part of a very popular bolero run that would go: iv VII III VI ii° V i - then you hit them with the I dominant major to repeat. So it happens that most 20th century boleros also have their roots in 30s big band and developed from there right along jazz.
I know like laughing and giggling and even some full blown WOOs. Completely indicative of the fun exciting adventure that is One Piece. Also my same reaction as I read this masterpiece story unfold 😭🥹
This song is so good it became the motif for the entire show! Time to say goodbye and sail off to a new adventure? This song kicks in without fail. Time to make the big bad look like a chump and swat them away like a fly after everything they put our heroes through? this song. Even when it normally wouldnt make sense for this song to work so well, it carries with it the weight of the journey and ALWAYS, without a doubt, makes the audience erupt in cheer.
I would ascend to the highest realm if you covered "Overtaken" from the OST of this show. The direction the bass goes at the melody's new section/start of the melody's climax is maybe the best I've heard in music in general.
The best thing about your channel, is that you cover such a wide range of music, from Gershwin to Undertale to One Piece. It's perfect, as it appeals to a large audience, and also gets them interested in the other music you analyze too!
The call back to this theme in the resolution scene with Sanji and Luffy during the Whole Cake arc hit like a Tsunami. Just elevated the whole thing from epic to legendary. The manga is amazing. But the soundtrack work in the anime is like adding just the right wine to an amazing meal. Elevates and gives it so much more impact.
I’m 30 years old and love anime, but have never been able to get into One Piece. My friends have showed me many fights and scenes, and they never motivated me to watch the show. A few months ago I decided to give it a try and THIS opening is what hooked me! Its AMAZING! I’ve heard so many banger anime openings, but this one is in a class all of its own and shows why One Piece is one of the pillars of anime. “Come aboard and bring alooonnng, all your hopes and dreeaaammss! Together we will find every thing that we’re looking fooooorrrr!!” 😂😂😆😁🙌🏾
The fights arnt even the highlight of the series anyway, often the who, where and why they are fighting is crazier then the fights themselves. Its strong points are the character and world building. Its rly a show where almost every sentence and even facial gesture often is important because u get to know the characters so so well you can feel and guess their next action, so just seeing them fight out of context, when the stakes are often very important, it isnt amazing most the time cuz the fights often arnt super amazing. The world is gigantic, its not earth, it doesn't play by the rules of earth all the time, so maximum suspension of disbelief. Which hearing how detailed and long it is, is for sure intimidating. The live action is very good if u wanted to dip your toe in the water. Its different but resolves events the same for the most part.
@@fivedudes awesome explanation of the show and thanks for explaining it all to me. What you said makes a lot of sense. My roommate in college always tried showing me the latest and greatest fight from the show and I’d always say “it’s cool bro. But it’s just not hitting for me”. In the time since then I’ve watched and come to love Hunter x Hunter. It’s very similar to how you describe One Piece. Less emphasis on flashy epic fights, and more on what everything means. I’m excited for this journey 😁
One Piece is, despite my attempts, is still not my favorite. There are other animes that trip my trigger more. However, there are indeed characters in One Piece that I get a kick out of. Sanji, Roronoa Zoro, and Tony-Tony Chopper are my three favorites. As for the music, "Binks' Sake" is one of the main songs that got me learning Japanese, even just on the phonetic level, so I can't diss One Piece altogether. 😅
What I think would be insanely fun is for Charles to grab opening cinematics from an Anime that he has never seen or heard of and have him write the opening to it. I'd be really curious what he would come up with when it's him using his knowledge about music and composition instead of diving into someone else's work (which is always fun to watch in its own right).
Dude, One Piece music is so good. There's a super important song in the series called "Binks Sake." I did a solo bass arrangement of it. It's this upbeat, Piratey, classical swing to it. So good
It’s composed by Kohei Tanaka who’s already a legendary anime composer by the time he did this for One Piece, so I highly recommend people check out all his other work! (Gunbuster, Sakura Taisen)
Nice! I was looking for someone to namedrop the composer. Just wanted to add he composed Jojo's first OP (Sono Chi no Sadame) and a personal favorite the Gatekeepers' OP.
This is a wild chord progression! I love hearing Japanese guitarists play melodies that outline progressions such as this - completely different to mainstream Western harmony!
6:27 the Dm7b5 -> G7 -> Cm always struck this sense of nostalgia and comfort in me, I stands out to to me in a way I don't really understand and I love it so much
This music and your channel both mean so much to me! AHHHHH!! Another song to check out isn't We Are, but also Bink's Sake. It was written by Oda originally and is used throughout the show at different tempii to convey wildly different emotions, it's glorious
the whole idea of "where are we going next?" in the melody is so perfect for what the show is, the melody of the theme song is a reflection of the adventure and feeling of being excited about finding out where we're going next in the show and that's just so cool omg PLUS that feeling of knowing we're going to resolve to certain chord but getting there in an unexpected way just like how we know Luffy is going to become the King of the Pirates but we don't know how just AAAA geeking out
I've been watching/reading One Piece for like 17 years. It's insane how I can listen to the songs or OST and get hit by insane emotions of nostalgia and childhood hunger for adventure. What a gift this story about a boy with a silly hat truly is.
The full version of the song is incredible, right after the end there's an amazing solo and the crazy harmonies are present throughout the entire song. Awesome stuff
I'm honestly crying. I love One Piece, I watched the first 140ish episodes in my mother tongue (no more have been translated) when I was little and then I started watching the anime in Japanese. The feeling of hearing the opening every time I got back from school was priceless. It was the best moment of the day. The first three openings have a special place in my heart.
I grew up learning piano and music theory, and this video tickled me! So much fun to watch you break down this song. Melodically speaking, We Are, Share The World, We Go, Hope, Kokoro no Chizu, Over The Top, and Dreaming On are my favorite One Piece openings. But One Piece has some amazing OSTs- To the Grand Line is so masterfully written and gives me chills every time. The way the music swells- and the different sections are so well done.
We actually just played an arrangement of this for tuba/euphonium ensemble at Auburn! One of the people in the ensemble arranged it with 4 euph parts and 3 tuba parts. It was so fun to play!
You should 1 million% check out Risk of Rain 2's OST. It has tons of cool time signatures, polyrhythms, and chord changes. Especially "…con lentitud poderosa" which is a direct homage to Prelude in E Minor (Op. 28 No. 4), but every song on that soundtrack is absolutely incredible.
the's why "We Are!" by Hirsohi Kitadani is still the best One Piece's opening of untill this day (1088 episodes for godsake), heck, they even used it again as the opening for the celebration of the 1000th episodes with updated opening video, it's the one that started all the adventures (anime of course), the "Romance Dawn"
The whole OST is superb. I would love to see an analysis on how tracks like To the Grand Line!, The Greatest in the World is Oden, sound so adventurous, tracks like Difficult and Overtaken sound so tense and anything else that catches your fancy.
Composed by Kouhei Tanaka, who in my opinion is one of the greatest composers alive right now. He also did the music for Sakura Wars (with full theatre shows, including pop, musical theatre, operettas), Gunbuster, the op for Overman King Gainer, GaoGaiGar, and one of the opening themes for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. He is a genre chameleon, you should check out more of his works!
Tanaka is verry good but sawano is the goat. The ost from one piece aren't even in the top 50! Aot alone has such extraordinary music that every ost in one piece put together is no match for any ost in aot fairy tail or Naruto and I say that as a fan of one piece! Nobody can compete with the best composer in history Hiroyuki Sawano, I invite you to listen to his unicorn project on mobile suit Gundam, his work on kabaneri guilty crown or 86! You'll see that the music for One Piece is nothing compared to King Sawano. You can't even compare one piece to 6 good ost! Overtaken or the very very strongest are really not crazy and yet very well known for not much! Just take bauklotze or barricades, they're just 1000 times better, not to mention vogel im kafig you see Big girl. Apetitan Call of silence Ninelie Otherwise any music by takanashi kajuira or sagisu.
It makes me sad. My music education never progressed past like... 1st or 2nd grade, learning do re mi fa so la ti do, the symbols for quarter/half notes and rests, and doing some really basic stuff with one of 25-30 recorders assigned to the class. We also covered the 3 basic time signatures - 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4, but it wasn't really covering time signatures as much as going "Can you do THIS with the beat? If so, it's 2/4. If not, try this other thing to see if it's 3/4 or 4/4." Like learning how to count from 1-10 but not how to extend that up to 20, or up to 100/1000/10,000. I tried my best, as I did with all classes. I didn't really enjoy it. It was the only class where I got a "P" for partial credit (elementary school report cards used a 3 rank system for no/partial/full credit - basically A / C / F scale), and I could just feel the disappointment in the teacher's voice when she listened to me try to play. Even now, I can't identify time signatures for the life of me. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6O8fDfDkyH4.html sounds like it's 14/8 to my brain. Sometimes It sounds like I can count 9 quarter beats, sometimes 12, rarely 13,, which is the accurate time signature. Mother 3 combos were basically button mashing until I got a beat that seemed to work. Of course, I've forgotten what little I learned about reading sheet music as a child. I think part of the problem is that I can't make out song lyrics all that well, and nearly all the music we get exposed to in pop culture over the last 60-100 years is lyrical in nature. My dad has the same problem with understanding lyrics. The last concert I attended was probably Raffi, when I was a little kid. I'm 35 now. I suppose this is how non-nerds feel after being pushed through the system in things like Math, physics, and astronomy. There's a whole world out there full of wonder and they just never got the foundation to appreciate it. :( They were more concerned about having us perform Fifty Nifty and Summertime for our parents than actually giving us a foundation in music
The emotions in the writing are so true to the story too. The excitement the danger the love the sincerity the joy the anticipation of more it’s just ahhh it’s all setting up an amazing story this theme is so important to the anime and geez, I love one piece
Even tho this was only the theme for the first “season”, they know when to just hit you with it again at the perfect moments. Like at the end of the Arabasta arc, or when Nami figures out how to keep the ship stable as they propel to the Sky Islands. (I hope there’s more. I’m new to the series and I’m still in Skypia)
Haha yea you got some amazing, goosebump inducing moments where it pops in to look forward too! So many epic moments where they just knew exactly what music was needed.
If you enjoyed this theme, the OST is full of incredible music. Some of my personal favorites are Over the Top and To the Grand Line. Highly recommend the series for so many reasons, but the music was the first thing that got me hooked
One time years ago I asked my good friends if it was just me or was this particular opening just incredibly awesome. They told me it was whatever, and that it was just me. So for all these years I thought I was just weird for liking it so much and just kept it to myself. It's really nice to know other people appreciate it as much as I do!!!
@@JoshKurien well none of those friends watched One Piece, is the thing. Nowadays, I have friends that watch it, and they like the theme; but those older friends didn't care for it.
I grew up watching one piece on tv and I've always cherished this opening. Watching you analysing it with such wonderful energy has brought me back very good memories from my childhood. As always, you are the best, Charles!
this song makes me cry like a baby and i thoroughly enjoyed hearing the harmonies fleshed out so beautiful where i could really savor and feel tham. thank you
Just got done watching the video, loved it! Most of your videos are on songs I didn't know about, and those are cool since I like hearing you explain stuff. But sometimes you release videos like this where you just help me appreciate songs that I already love so much more, and that's just a great feeling
WOW this channel is on a roll!!! I've always loved the One Piece OG theme for decades at this point but I never had the musical know-how to truly dissect it like you can, so I really appreciate Charles for breaking it down in small bits!! Epic content as always 😍
Man, watching you teach theory the way you do really reinvigorates my perspective on it. I've been playing mostly self-taught for 20 years, no "real" theory and no desire to learn. Just play by relative pitch, and learn techniques along the way. But watching you absolutely extract the emotions of one of the most memorable songs to me and name them in ways I've never heard, that are easy to understand no less, gives me a whole new ideation as to what I can use theory for personally. Awesome video.
"We Are!" might not be the BEST anime opening theme ever, but I'd say it's a fair tie with "Tank!" from Cowboy Bebop as the opening theme that most powerfully matches and instantly sells the show's tone. Just absolute adventure and comradery from the first moment, truly sells that "there's always room for you if you wanna be my friend", to quote the English version.
You should really check out the other two openings Hiroshi Kitadani has done called "We Go" and "Over the Top". They could all be on the same album but "We Go" and "Over the Top" are even more frenetic, fast-paced, and exciting than "We Are". I would love to see you do a video about One Piece’s OSTs. Especially Mother Sea, To the Grand Line, The Very Very Strongest, Difficult, and Overtaken. As well as all of the character themes used for the eyecatchers. To the Grand Line and Mother Sea always makes me cry.
This intro is of course a leitmotif to the whole show and the melody and chord-progressions are sprinkled throughout the soundtrack, most obviously in the tracks "Mother Sea" and "Set Sail".
I can't handle how excited you get over interesting movements and I want you to know it's infectious. Every time I watch a video of yours it makes me pull out my keyboard
I am so JAZZED you are finally doing some One Piece, I have loved its music and your content for so long, hope to see more, there’s so much great stuff in the rest of the OST!
That opening is sooo great! It just screams adventure Maybe you could also have a look at the bink's sake theme, and see if its a good topic for another video ^^ As always thanks for the awesome content
Hey Charles, i recently found your channel and i love your passion, it’s so contagious :) I’m wondering if you’d ever analyse the music in Kung Fu Panda, some of the scores are so emotional 🥲
BTW please please please check out the Katamari Damacy franchise soundtrack, it´s absolutely quirky, diverse, a freaking masterpiece. One of the best game soundtracks ever!
What I love about channels like this, as someone that knows close to nothing about the technical side of writing music, is how clearly it explains music concepts and how passionate the hosts are about the topic. Seeing Charles' reaction to every new part of the music made me smile. "We Are!" always brings me back to watching One Piece for the first time, so to have an explanation as to why and how the track works the way it does gives me a new appreciation for the song. Hoping you cover more One Piece openings (and/or endings)!
This is the 3rd time I watched this video. You have infectious passion for music and it's so cool to see you break down and share all these cool things.
You should also react to the insert song also in One Piece called "Overtaken." It's a bit more on percussions and brass instruments. I hope you like that as well.
The original One Piece opening is a masterpiece! I totally agree!! I'm also here to let Charles know, to please check out: Anomalie - Velours i think you would like it, and there is A LOT to break down! Cya in the next video where i'm gonna suggest this song again :)
Absolutely agree with everything you said! The One Piece themes are absolute gems. I would love for you to do a series breaking down all of the different opening pieces. Would definitely watch them all.
Wow, you're posting this when I just started my first One Piece binge two weeks ago This is an awesome coincidence (January 26, 2024) Edit: I've caught up about a week ago and I even caught up to the manga today. I've laughed... and OH god, I have cried (a lot). Safe to say that I'm fully converted to being a One Piece fan for life. I even watched the Live Action and it's surprisingly one of the better Live Action adaptations out there. It was filled with a lot of love both from the actors, Oda himself, and even the og Japanese voice actors.
I don't know anything about music theory, and frankly, in the politest possible way, don't care to. But I love to watch someone so passionate about something, so thrilled by all the little details, so completely invested in a world I'm not a part of. It makes the whole world seem bigger and brighter. Also, I love this song haha. Thanks for making this!
This theme always got me really emotional. I never knew why it did. Watching you break down the composition kinda made me tear up... It's really beautiful!
I don’t know anything about chords or anything, but ur explanations always make it so interesting and fun!! Luv ur enthusiasm and hype for every single note or chord progression for any song ❤️🙏🏽.
