Giorgio Vanni (born August 19th, 1963) is an Italian songwriter and guitarist. Along with Cristina D'Avena, he is well-known for performing many alternative theme songs in the Italian dubs of animated series, especially anime, for Mediaset channels.
He gained prominence in 1999, after he wrote and performed the theme songs of Pokémon (first season) and Dragon Ball (a redub of the original series). Both theme songs, along with their respective anime, became immensely popular with the Italian audience. In the following years, he also wrote and sung other theme songs for the sequels of both franchises, with his opening of Dragon Ball Z becoming his ultimate signature song, and one of the most popular Italian openings in general.
Between 2000 and 2008, he and fellow musician Max Longhi wrote over 50 theme songs for animated series on Mediaset, sometimes sung by Giorgio himself (Naruto, Case Closed, Yu-Gi-Oh!), sometimes sung by Cristina D'Avena (Hamtaro, Ojamajo Doremi), sometimes by both of them together (One Piece).
Some of the theme songs sung by Giorgio Vanni:
- Bakuten Shoot Beyblade
- Bakusou Kyoudai! Let's & Go!!
- Captain Tsubasa Road to 2002 (with Cristina D'Avena)
- Cyborg Kuro-chan (with Cristina D'Avena)
- Case Closed
- Doctor Slump (with Cristina D'Avena)
- Dragon Ball
- Dragon Ball
- Dragon Ball Z
- Dragon Ball GT
- Dragon Ball Super (unofficial fanmade version)note
- Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai
- Hungry Heart: Wild Striker
- Kodocha (with Cristina D'Avena)
- Lupin III
- My Hero Academia
- Naruto
- One Piece (with Cristina D'Avena)
- Pokémon: The Series (with Cristina D'Avena from third season onwards)
- Sgt. Frog (with Sara Bernabini)
- Yu-Gi-Oh!
- Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
- Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds
- Zoids
His works provide examples of:
- Alternative Foreign Theme Song: He wrote and sung many alternative Italian theme songs for animated series in the 2000s.
- Bragging Theme Tune: If the anime is a Fighting Series, you can expect Giorgio Vanni's lyrics being about invincible and heroic protagonists living epic adventures.
- Europop: While the songs Cristina D'Avena has been singing since the 80s were usually just pop, Giorgio Vanni's songs leaned more towards Eurodance.
- Expository Theme Tune: The lyrics of his theme songs usually describe the main charcater(s) or the premise of the show.
- Gratuitous English: He just loves to insert random English lines in the Italian theme songs (Dragon Ball, bursting through the clouds! Dragon Ball, fighting on the ground!) , usually unintelligible for Italian kids.
- "The Hero Sucks" Song:
- Most of his theme songs are Bragging Theme Tunes, but if the anime/cartoon is more comical, you can expect the lyrics making fun of the main character. An obvious example is his theme song of Sgt. Frog where the lyrics make it very clear that Keroro is incompetent.
- The lyrics of Oggy and the Cockroaches are from the point of view of the cockroaches, who praise themselves and are obviously against Oggy (referred to as just "the cat" in the lyrics). The Italian version also removed the name Oggy from the title initially, though later seasons and other reruns added it back.
- Non-Appearing Title: A strange case with the theme song of the Doctor Slump remake, and later, the redub of the original anime. For the sake of Gratuitous English, the anime is renamed in Italy, What a Mess Slump and Arale (though most Italians ignore this title and refer to the franchise as just "Arale", which is not the real title either). However, the lyrics of the theme song don't feature the line "what a mess" at all.
- Singer-Songwriter: He writes, composes (along with Max Longhi), and performs his own theme songs.
- Softer and Slower Cover: He included in his album - as well as in his concert where the cover was first heard - "Giorgio Vanni Project" this kind of cover of another song of his, "What'snote my destiny Dragon Ball" (opening/ending song for Dragon Ball Z, as the earlier Dragon Ball anime had another theme song, still sung by him). The long time that's passed between the original, dance-y version of the song and the way more somber version of it made the cover quite sad.
- Spear Counterpart: Cristina D'Avena has been the queen of Italian theme songs since the 80s (in fact the 80s are consided by many Cristina's golden era) but since 1998/99, she got a male counterpart in Giorgio Vanni. From that point on, Giorgio started singing theme songs for anime aimed at boys, while Cristina's songs were more targeted towards girls or children. Occasionally, they joined their forces and sang a duet for the same series.
- Spelling Song: The theme song of the first Dragon Ball series ("D-R-A-G-O-N Ball!"). Using the pronunciation of the English alphabet, not the Italian one.
- Title Theme Tune: As a rule, his theme songs repeat several times the show's title in the chorus.
- Truncated Theme Tune: For years, the Italian openings had a length of about 2 minutes when airing on TV. Around 2003, the standard format became 1 minute, and many 2-minute theme songs were abruptly shortened to fit the new format.
