History LyricalDissonance / Anime

* The theme song for Anime/TenchiMuyo! (TenchiUniverse to some) is a happy, hoppy, techno song about how someone (presumably Tenchi himself) isn't quite ready for love. The English version of the song even starts with the words "Get ready/love will leave you crying". The song ends with the lyrics, "You're a broken man, poor you". The ending theme for the show is also similar in that it's a high-energy rock song that ends up being a big "screw you" to either Ayeka or Ryoko (depending on the episode, it switched every other one). The English lyrics start with "When you go fishing/You catch a boot/or some other trash/When you play at cards/you lose all your cash/you're so pathetic/you never win/and you never will/not the kind of girl/who'd make any guy/feel a thrill".

* The ending of ''SayonaraZetsubouSensei'' called ''Absolute Beauty'' is about lover's suicide -- set to a catchy tune with jazz-like instrumentals. This is pretty much a requirement for a song from this series - one of the ending songs in ''Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei" is a very dark song about the "despair restaurant" with a strong implication that it doubles as a brothel!

* Kallen Stadtfeld/Kouzuki's post-''Anime/CodeGeass'' ImageSong [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDXON8jAfcI One More Chance]] is an extremely catchy and upbeat pop song, but the fairly straightforward lyrics seem to be directed to Lelouch, [[BodyguardCrush whom she had loved]], thanking him for his love and [[spoiler:promising live on, as he had wanted her to, ''and'' to "live [his] share of life too'']].

* Kallen Stadtfeld/Kouzuki's post-''Anime/CodeGeass'' ImageSong [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDXON8jAfcI One More Chance]] is an extremely catchy and upbeat pop song, but the fairly straightforward lyrics seem to be directed to Lelouch, [[BodyguardCrush whom she had loved]], thanking him for his love and [[spoiler:promising live on, as he had wanted her too, ''and'' to "live [his] share of life too'']].

* Kallen Stadtfeld/Kouzuki's post-''Anime/CodeGeass'' ImageSong [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDXON8jAfcI One More Chance]] is an extremely catchy and upbeat pop song, but the fairly straightforward lyrics seem to be directed to Lelouch, [[BodyguardCrush whom she had loved]], thanking him for his love and [[spoiler:promising live on, as he had wanted her too,''and'' to "live [his] share of life too'']].
** As if an upbeat song about a girl promising the boy she loved that she will live on happily without him wasn't depressing enough, in the bridge of the song, she confesses that truthfully [[spoiler:she just wants to see him so he can hold her as she cries, implying that her seeming contentment as she promises to keep living without him is actually a front. Suddenly the song's title makes more sense, as she is essentially singing about wanting to have ''one more chance'' with the man she loves, who happens to be dead]].

* The theme song for TenchiMuyo! (TenchiUniverse to some) is a happy, hoppy, techno song about how someone (presumably Tenchi himself) isn't quite ready for love. The English version of the song even starts with the words "Get ready/love will leave you crying". The song ends with the lyrics, "You're a broken man, poor you". The ending theme for the show is also similar in that it's a high-energy rock song that ends up being a big "screw you" to either Ayeka or Ryoko (depending on the episode, it switched every other one). The English lyrics start with "When you go fishing/You catch a boot/or some other trash/When you play at cards/you lose all your cash/you're so pathetic/you never win/and you never will/not the kind of girl/who'd make any guy/feel a thrill".

* The [[MoodDissonance relentlessly cheery opening]] to ''{{Narutaru}}'', "Nichiyoubi no Taiyou" (the Sun of Sunday) has lyrics about someone sitting in a park waiting for someone who will never show up, with the implication that the other person is dead and the singer is deluding himself into thinking otherwise. This, of course, means that the lyrics fit the actual content of the series much closer than the music.

* From ''YoureUnderArrest'': the second ED ''Sora Wo Miagete'' ("Looking at the Sky") is very upbeat and catchy (and sounds somewhat similar to Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven is a Place on Earth"), but the lyrics describe someone mourning a lost love.

* In the 2005 version of ''GlassMask'', the upbeat credits song from Episode 14 onward is about the "warmth of our love," "the warmth of our skin," and how "Excitement is burning brightly like the sun." Okay, that's vague enough to be all right for shojo. Then the [[GratuitousEnglish Gratuitous Engrish]] refrain takes the song straight from passionately romantic to just plain perverted: "Make it make it naked! Make it make it naked!" The characters that appear in the ending credits (among sparkling pink stars, sparkling [[LoveBubbles shojo bubbles]], and glittering confetti and/or flower petals) are a pair of fourteen year-old girls.

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* ''KeroroGunsou'' plays with this a great deal. What sounds like funeral marches and burning courage is really about failing to do the household chores and the joys of building Gundam models.

* In the ''Manga/ElfenLied'' manga, Lucy/Nyu/Kaede starts singing "Elfenlied" in what is apparently a very sad voice. However, the lyrics are rather childish and innocent -- a far cry from what's happening at that moment. The anime ending ''Be Your Girl'' goes the other way; the song is sung by Chieko Kawabe, better known for ''Sakura Kiss'' from ''OuranHighSchoolHostClub'', and the tune is very catchy, but the lyrics themselves are about being desperately in love with someone the singer knows doesn't love her back and begging to be told she is loved, ''[[MadnessMantra even if its a lie]]''.

* ''GurrenLagann'' has [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT6LFOIofRE Libera Me From Hell]]. While the background of the song is a soft, vaugely sad melody, backing tearful opera singing, this is interspersed, and later on blended, with the triumphant and badass rap lyrics of Row Row Fight The Power.

** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyhKX3TaOu8 This song]] from VisualNovel/UminekoNoNakuKoroNi sounds like an insanely cheerful and [[EarWorm catchy]] song, right? Well, only if you ignore what the lyrics mean...

* In ''MaiHime'', [[http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=55143 Nao's character song]] is slightly upbeat, but in it Nao sings about her loneliness and despair [[spoiler:after her father was killed and her mother was left in a coma]], a part of her character that isn't touched on until late in the series.

** The song also shares it's name with the JohannSebastianBach song, which is about a man [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komm,_s%C3%BC%C3%9Fer_Tod,_komm_selge_Ruh seemingly praying for the peace of Death]] as he is tired of a cruel "torture chamber" of a world, and want's nothing more than to see Jesus and stand amongst the angels. [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial This is NOT]] [[RuleOfSymbolism in any way]] [[FauxSymbolism symbolic]].

* Taken UpToEleven in the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNjHxhljAck main theme]] of ''Manga/SchoolLive'', who would except ''that'' upbeat theme has subtile lyrics about corpses and zombies? And each episode has the opening goes FromBadToWorse. Justified, it's a ZombieApocalypse story in a comedy's clothing.

* "Moonflower", sung by Tomokazu Seki, is a cheerful little number about being soul-crushingly isolated and hiding it.

** Your Silver Garden (''Kimi no Gin no Niwa''), an ending theme for [[PuellaMagiMadokaMagicaTheMovieRebellion Rebellion Story]], easily counts as one, if you have watched this movie.

* ''ABC Starting With C'' from ''{{Kaiji}}'', in all its hard rock cheerfulness, laments how a young man's life in the modern world is wasted away meaninglessly.

* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiNoNakuKoroNi'''s first season ending has shades of this. The tune is oddly soothing, but it gets sadder when coupled with the revelation that the lyrics are basically [[OlderThanTheyLook Rika]] desperately begging for forgiveness for the sin of how she survived... [[GratuitousEnglish assuming you can understand the lyrics.]]

* Pick a ''GundamSeed'' or ''GundamSeedDestiny'' opening or ending. They all sound like poppy dance music. Almost all of them have incredibly depressing lyrics.

* ''MacrossFrontier'' has one as an in-show [[spoiler: ExecutiveMeddling]] -- Ranka's sweet, soothing love song "Aimo", set to a lullaby-like tune, the only thing that [[TraumaInducedAmnesia she remembers from her past]], [[spoiler: has its lyrics rewritten by her new manager [[BigBad Grace O'Connor]]. She managed to make it a victory anthem]] -- one more step to TheReveal, and certainly not a good thing in context.

* ''GuiltyCrown's'' two openings while seemingly very sad are about the singer's unwavering belief in the protagonist and how she will support him through Hell and back.

* Except for some oddly haunting bits, the melody of "Uninstall", the OP to {{Bokurano}}, could pass for an upbeat, soaring mecha series theme. The lyrics discuss how all human life is insignificant, and the main characters' plight of being trapped in a meaningless battle where the only escape from the pointlessness of their efforts is self-delusion or their inevitable deaths.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ-0XASP1-I ''Aura'']] from [[DotHackSign .hack//sign]] is a very ominous sounding song with very optimistic lyrics. It symbolizes that for abuse victims like Tsukasa, hope, and seeking help to get out of their toxic situation can be [[HopeIsScary scary]].

* The first hint that ''DaiMahouTouge'' is not a normal MagicalGirl series is when the opening ThemeTune, while remaining traditionally bubbly in harmony, suddenly mentions death and destruction halfway through the first verse -- and goes on in that vein for the next forty seconds.

* ''[[LightNovel/{{Bakemonogatari}} Nisemonogatari]]'' has for it's ending a song set to a peppy tune that is easy to get into, however ''[[http://suisei.kokidokom.net/2012/02/01/claris-naisho-no-hanashi-lyrics-translation/ the lyrics]]'' are about a girl who wants her crush to notice her when she has been with him for a long time and he only considers her a friend. That's right, and [=ClariS=], the singers who gave us the {{Tsundere}} anthem in ''LightNovel/OreNoImoutoGaKonnaNiKawaiiWakeGaNai'', have teamed up with {{supercell}} to give us the ballad of the UnluckyChildhoodFriend.

** A few of the character songs are like this, too. Have you ever heard the translation for "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqB-W6yWtKI Futari no Birthday]]"?