Dancing Theme

Is this a dancing anime?

Worried about bait-and-switch writers who'll drop a drama bomb in your funny show? Look for dancing, because putting a dancing sequence during the show theme is a good way to indicate your show's overall goal of having fun. It's also a very quick way to show off the entire cast at once and make the Theme Tune more infectious by associating it in your head with dancing.

Because most shows use a more sedate song and static visual for endings, dancing there is usually done with simple — very simple — animation. If dancing is in the opening theme, this is often the most sophisticated bit of animation the show ever does.

An added source of humor is when, for the purposes of inclusion, a completely inappropriate character is included.

Some of these dancing sequences become popular enough that characters from other media are depicted copying the dances in fanwork.

Compare Five-Man Band Concert and Opening Credits Cast Party. For the Dancing Theme where they're in kimonos, see Ondo. Might overlap with Welcome Titles, where The Protagonist goes around —maybe dancing— greeting the cast during the Title Sequence.

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Examples:

Anime

• And Yet the Town Moves's OP, "DOWN TOWN", features pretty much the entire cast dancing. It makes a nice compliment to the Five-Man Band Concert ending.
• Downplayed with Assassination Classroom's Season 1 opening themes, which feature the eponymous class doing the endless loop.

• Bleach:
  • One of the ending themes, "My Pace", contains the Filler Arc characters Claude, Nova and Ririn (in their cute little doll forms), along with series mascot Kon, doing a rather psychedelic dance to the incredibly infectious track, intercut with more "serious" still shots.
  • The tenth OP, "Shoujo S," has Rukia and Orihime dancing throughout the song. Matsumoto is also shown with them, but mostly during the silhouetted parts.
• Done in a funky and incredibly catchy way via the ED of Blood Blockade Battlefront to the beat of "Sugar Song and Bitter Step" by Unison Square Park. While some of the characters aren't good dancers at all, everyone is still clearly having a great time.
• Despite its serious, romantic themes, Boys over Flowers starts with a peppy, upbeat, '50s-tinged dance number, "Ordinary Sunday (Steppin' Out)".
• Carnival Phantasm, the Gag Series spinoff crossover between Tsukihime and Fate/stay night really drives home how utterly different it is from its usually dead serious source material with "Super Affection," an ultra-genki song which, as well as showing the main heroines of each game dancing like idol singers, also featured about half the characters in the Nasuverse waving their arms in the air with huge smiles on their faces (except Hisui and Ren, who don't smile and Assassin, who's a cardboard cut-out).
  • A similar opening was made for Fate/Grand Carnival, which follows a similar concept as Carnival Phantasm and is based on characters found in the mobile gacha game Fate/Grand Order.
• Case Closed's 8th op has a dancing Conan. He wears a completely serious face almost the entire time.

• The ending credits of Crayon Shin-chan have the song Party, Join Us, with an animation of Shin and his dog Whitey doing a strange dance with street signs.
• Subverted somewhat in Dance in the Vampire Bund. The OP features a nearly-naked Mina dancing on top of a factory setting - until a railing breaks and Akira (who's been watching) dashes in and catches her inches from hitting the pavement. Considering how the series progresses, What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic? of their relationship?
• Death Parade has a very peppy and catchy intro full of dancing. It's also incredibly misleading as the anime is rarely anything beyond bittersweet and is often just straight up dark and depressing (it's called "Death Parade" for a reason).
• Dinosaur King had dancing closing themes for both seasons. They were incorporated into the dub openings.
• Dragon Crisis!'s ED, "Mirai Bowl" starts off with a Super-Deformed Eriko in a top hat and suit, and by the end features more or less all the main characters.
• Free! has the 5 male main characters dancing in what appears to be a gay night club in the pool of the Taj Mahal.

• The fourth ED of Get Backers featured more or less the entire cast in a line dance, drawn in South Park/paper marionette style. There wasn't really a surprise character (unless you count Fudou), but they did stick Kazuki with the girls. It was a pretty stark contrast to the previous ED, which was angsty yaoi fanservice from start to finish...
• Good Luck! Ninomiya-kun's ED "Hooray, Hooray, Pom-Pom!" features dancing in both cheerleading outfits and towels. Can you feel the Fanservice?
• Gugure! Kokkuri-san's OP half-way through turns into one big, groovy disco party.
• Haruka Nogizaka's Secret's ED "Hitosashiyubi Quiet!", featuring the entire female cast in maid outfits set to an actual dance done in Akihabara. Haruka's a secret otaku herself, so it was only fitting.
• "Kokoro Odoru", the second closing theme to SD Gundam Force. For those who are curious, this is a song in Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan (the pottery master stage), a cheerleading game (which of course includes dances).
• 200% no Jumon, the first ending theme for Tottoko Hamutaro (Hamtaro). So cute dubbers kept it largely intact. The 2011 re-airing, Tottoko Hamutaro: Dechu, was largely the same besides some new borders, episodes being shuffled around, and new theme music. The new opening theme was a somewhat trippy one with neon sunflowers, bouncing buildings, and lots of adorable dancing hamsters.
• The ending theme to the Happy Lesson TV series featured SD versions of the female cast (which is practically the entire cast) grooving along to the music, admittedly with a rather funny sense of timing in places.
• Several OPs and EDs of Haré+Guu have some form of dancing.
• High School D×D has pole-dancing (slightly NSFW) by the girls.

• Jewelpet:
  • The 2nd OP of Jewelpet Sunshine features the entire cast dancing to the music. The ED has Kanon and Ruby dancing to the first third of it.
  • The ED of Jewelpet Kira Deco! has a CGI Ruby dancing.
  • The ED of Jewelpet Happiness has EVERY Jewelpet getting a turn at dancing, plus all the humans, with the main trio dancing in maid outfits.
  • The ED of Lady Jewelpet has the main humans and Jewelpets dancing, with the Jewelpets shaking their Letterpens like glow sticks.
• The ED for episode 3 of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War has Fujiwara dancing and singing in the Student Council room. It also manages to cram in multiple references to the manga, and even has her strike the same pose that she does on the cover of Volume 2 at one point. It's also much better animated than the rest of the show, due to its use of Rotoscoping and being animated by a former member of Kyoto Animation (a studio well-known for both its high production values and its memetic dancing themes from Haruhi Suzumiya and Lucky Star).
• The Kakegurui anime adaptation's title sequence has the main character Yumeko Jabami pirouetting through dining tables with other member's of the cast laid out for her to "eat", climaxing with a tango between her and the series' Big Bad.
• The first season of Kämpfer has some dancing in the ending theme that is patently impossible for most humans to imitate due to the speed at which the characters move.
• Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens's OP, "motto Hade ni ne!", primarily features Nagi singing and dancing on stage. It doesn't have much to do with the actual show, but it looks nice.
• Kemeko Deluxe!'s ED, "Puripurin Taisou", featuring the almost-Gonk-ish Kemeko doing some sort of exercise routine.
• Kill Me Baby's ending dance is nearly impossible to replicate in real life. Not that that stops anyone from trying.
• The opening of Italian dubs of anime are rather fond of this (and putting scenes of the characters singing and playing a song). They went all-out with Kimagure Orange Road, where creative editing and syncing of anime scenes managed to make a dancer out of the cat.
• Most of the closing themes from Kinnikuman. Niku 2x9 Rock 'n Roll and Kinniku Mambo are probably the best examples.
• kissxsis features a fun dance by the twins as the ED, which is done in 3D animation opposed to the regular 2D animation style.

• Shin Koihime†Musou ~Otome Tairan~'s "Yuuki Rinrin" features lots of Super-Deformed dancing from its large cast.
• The ending theme of Lime-iro Senkitan consists of each of the main girls doing a different dance with maracas and shaking their butt. Very repetetive. Very easy to learn.
• The OP of Lucky Star ("Motteike! Sailor Fuku"), by the same production company as Haruhi Suzumiya, rendered in full in the final episode as a cheerleading routine.
  • In the Beach Episode of Hayate the Combat Butler the cast is forced to dance the above Lucky Star routine.
• Episode 17 of Macross Frontier featured a one-off opening theme with a Super-Deformed Ranka dancing.
• "Little Wish ~lyrical step~", the ED of the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha's first season, has a Super-Deformed Nanoha dancing in place while Yuuno runs around the place.
• Magician's Academy's OP, "MOSO Ranbu", has dancing by various characters, most noticeably Tanarot.
• Mahoromatic uses very simple dance steps in the 1st ED and 2nd ED.

• The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya's ending theme, "Hare Hare Yukai", and the dance the characters do along with it, proved wildly popular, spawning countless imitation videos and becoming a hit at conventions. A DVD special takes this one step further, eliminating all of the still-frames from the original ending, producing a single continuous dance sequence that covers the entire ending theme. It's been said by Word of God that the ending of Haré+Guu Deluxe was an inspiration for it.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable, has most of the main cast dancing in the first opening, Crazy Noisy Bizarre Town, meant to show a tone shift from the last part. Part 3 was a race against the clock to kill a vampire and save the world. Part 4, in comparison, focuses a lot on the daily lives and antics of a bunch of students in a small town in Japan. The only character not dancing in the OP, fittingly enough, is Jotaro, the protagonist of Part 3.
• Magical Witch Punie-chan's OP shows Punie performing an awfully cute little dance (including the YMCA hand gestures at one point), against a background of several well-known Japanese buildings burning bright against the night sky.
• Mitsudomoe's OP ends with the entire cast dancing in the schoolyard, with the triplets leading. It's also one of the few anime OPs mostly synchronized to the lips of its singers in the animation.
• MM!!'s ED, "More-more LOVERS!!", features Mio and Arashiko dancing on stage to the beat, and doing some simple dances against a backdrop before that.
• Moyashimon had dancing and bouncing CGI bacteria in its OP. (No, really.)
• My Bride is a Mermaid's OP "Romantic Summer". Both OVA OPs also have plenty of dancing.
• Naruto:
  • Bacchikoi, the ending theme of Naruto: Shippuden's Three-Tails Arc, features the three rookie kunoichi Sakura, Ino, and Hinata dancing to the song. Lee and Guy-sensei eventually persuade Naruto to join in.
  • Done, quite hilariously, in the 8th ED of Naruto Shippuden.
  • Also done even more hilariously out of place in the 10th opening of the show.
  • The end theme of the Spin-Off series Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth also has one of these.
  • The second ending to the anime counts. It has Super-Deformed versions of Ino and Sakura swaying and shuffling to the music while singing.
• The second opening for Nichijou has dancing from the main characters.
• Nyaruko: Crawling with Love! engages in a little of this during the second season's opening. True to its Reference Overdosed nature, one of the dance moves is Kamen Rider #1's transformation pose.
• Our Home's Fox Deity's second ending theme, "Shiawase no Kotodama", has the cast dancing at a festival in Super-Deformed style.
• Overman King Gainer's OP "King Gainer Over!", with Humongous Mecha doing the monkey just to show the audience that this isn't the usual Tomino series. It is especially weird in that in many ways it IS the usual Tomino series, with lots of angst, blood and fighting robots. Which makes the opening just seem more out of place (but still awesome.)
• The ED of Paradise Kiss has sketchy, super-deformed versions of all five main characters dancing (and occasionally being chased by motor vehicles) to a song by Franz Ferdinand of all people.
• Pecola: The English dub features the entire show cast dancing happily to the theme song.
• Many Pokémon: The Series endings feature dancing. Usually, it is the 'mon themselves that dance, but other characters also get into the action in their own ending themes, like Takeshi/Brock ("Takeshi no Paradise"), Team Rocket ("Nyaasu no Party", "Maemuki Rocket-Dan") and Best Wishes' ending "Mitte Mitte Kocchicchi" and the dance actually done in real life by the singer, Momoiro Clover Z.
• Popotan has two openings, both are pretty much the same, except one has slightly more dancing. dancing dandelions, one of which is shown having trouble keeping up with the others. The opening features the main characters dancing as well, but only briefly.
• The Pretty Cure franchise has been running on these for the past 10 YEARS.
  • Futari wa Pretty Cure started the tradition with its ED Get You! Love! Love!?
  • Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star second ED Ganbalance De Dance, Yes! Pretty Cure 5 and its second season did their own version of the song, ~Yume Miru Kisekitachi~ and ~Kibou no Relay~. It's a good thing it's such a fun song, or we might be a bit annoyed.
  • Fresh Pretty Cure! first ED You Make me Happy, made the jump from hand drawn animation to CGI, and H@ppy Together cemented it as precure's new type of dance ending.
  • HeartCatch Pretty Cure! brought with it Heartcatch Paradise! and the gospel-like Tomorrow Song ~Ashita no Uta~
  • Suite Pretty Cure ♪ went slightly disco with Wonderful Powerful Music!! and then turned to bubblegum pop with #Rainbow of Hope#
  • Smile PreCure! gave an individual dance for each of its cures with Yay! Yay! Yay! and Mankai*Smile!
  • Doki Doki! PreCure took the idol route with Beyond The Sky.
  • And finally, most All Stars movies also have a whole batch of DancingThemes Phew!
  • Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure gives the show its' first dancing opening, where the Cures and their friends dance at various points.
• The ED of Princess Resurrection (or Monster Princess, depending on who's doing the translating) includes a brief sequence of half-werewolf Liza Riza Wildman doing a bit of pelvic-thrust dirty dancing.
• Rosario + Vampire Capu2's OP, "DISCOTHEQUE". It is, yes, the six girls of the show disco dancing.
• Rune Soldier Louie opens with a fairly typical "everyone smiles and greets each other, then they fight monsters" opening credits to set up its ensemble of fantasy characters. Then intersperses it with cuts of minor characters in a modern recording studio singing the Theme Song.
• The Sakura Wars (2000) has elements of this in its opening, with shots of the cast performing a dance that goes with the franchise theme song "Geki! Teikokukagekidan," which the cast performed at pretty much all their live shows. There's also an ondo version used as the ending theme for a few episodes.
• Sengoku Basara's anime adaptation has "JAP", featuring the synchronized hip-hop moves of sengoku-era mooks in the background. They brought out the full version, which has since spawned a collection of real life re-enactments and is also performed at live events. Here's one of them.
• Sgt. Frog uses a number of these. Subverted in the ninth ending, "Kurutto Mawatte Ikkaiten"; the characters start out dancing in a line, but about halfway through Kururu gets bored and wanders off.
• The ending theme for Stars Align features many of the characters dancing. Not only is it well-animated, but it's also portrayed more realistically than most examples; nobody dances perfectly in sync with each other, and while some characters are excellent dancers, others are clearly struggling to keep up or not even trying at all.
• The semi-serious Tenjou Tenge has an opening sequence with some of the characters dancing along to the opening theme "Bomb A Head!" by MC A.T.
• The ED of Tokimeki Tonight features the main character dancing wearing nothing but a cape, and was also one of the earlier anime to use this trope. The dance would be subject to Memetic Mutation decades later.
• The first ending of Twin Princess of Wonder Planet is a rather more sedate ballroom dance.
• The ED of Ultraman Season 2 has the Ultra Brothers and the villains dancing with the jazz dance song, "Transcending Time", being played. This is the first time the Ultra Series ever had the main cast dancing.
• Several of the EDs to Urusei Yatsura feature a small figure of Lum dancing in place as the credits roll past. The series is quite possibly the Trope Codifier when it comes to anime.
• The two ending themes for the first season of the ×××HOLiC anime. The first, "Reason", contained Mokona dancing to the second half of the song (it was asleep during the first half), and the second, "Kagerou", consisted of Maru and Moro air-guitaring the song, accompanied once again by Mokona dancing.
• Ya Boy Kongming! has the main cast dancing with the song "Chikichiki Banban" being played.
• Yakitate!! Japan features afro-clad mentor Ken Matsuhiro disco-dancing in its second ED, "To All Tha Dreamers".
• Yo-Kai Watch has a dancing theme done in CGI for the first ending. The ending is especially popular in Japan. The ending was kept in the English dub, though translated. Several other intros and outros also feature dancing.
• The ED of Yuri Kuma Arashi features an adorable black bear dancing her heart out in the lower right corner of the picture. Then she suddenly going into full bear attack mode before going back to adorable dancing near the end.

Asian Animation

• Happy Heroes: The earlier intros include clips of the characters dancing to the song.
• Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: The opening to Joys of Seasons begins with the characters doing a short dance.

Fan Works

• PONIES The Anthology has Pinkie Pie dancing to the Fast Food song.
• Vaguely Recalling JoJo parodied the King Gainer monkey dance in the second episode of the Wheel of Fortune mini-arc. Nena, Grey Fly, Hol Horse, Ebony Devil, Rubber Soul and ZZ were the dancers. Unfortunately, DIO ruined their fun and dragged Ebony Devil and Hol Horse off.

Films — Live-Action

• All three Austin Powers movies have a dance sequence in the opening credits.
• Psycho Beach Party opens with this and a similar dance to another song is done with the ending credits.

Live-Action TV

• The opening titles of the sixth and seventh series of British sitcom 2point4 Children had main character Ben dancing in the foreground, with the rest of the cast dancing across the screen while holding hands behind her.
• The Armstrong and Miller Show
• Each intro from Blossom included her doing very 80s-90s dances with a big goofy smile on her face through the whole thing. And while the first season was just one long shot, it expanded into several small vignettes over the years.
• The end credits of Bottom features the silhouettes of the main characters Eddie and Richie dancing, which, predictably, ends in violence.
• Chousei Kantai Sazer-X ED. It falls somewhere between Dancing Theme and "exercise routine."
• The Cosby Show had several intros for different seasons, and all of them save season one had the main characters do a short dance.
• The Drew Carey Show, which used three different Real Song Theme Tunes.
• The Bruce Campbell vehicle Jack of All Trades had possibly the best intro sequence ever.
• Kamen Rider Den-O's "Climax Jump" shows the main Imagin cast dancing on the corners of the screen at the end of the song.
• In the Lizzie McGuire opening, the characters dance and play with balls. (That was not supposed to sound that way.)
• Madan Senki Ryukendo turned its first OP into a Dancing Theme for the final episode.
  • Its Spiritual Grandchild Tomica Hero Rescue Fire does straight this with its second ending, although it's interspersed with exercising.
• The opening titles of season two of Moonlighting did this.
• In the first seasons of Nickelodeon GUTS, if an Aerial event was on first, you could see the spotters doing a synchronized dance of sorts on the Aerial Bridge.
• The opening of Peacemaker (2022) where everybody is dancing in a straight face. Since the show is created by James Gunn, you know what kind of show is it despite being set in the DC Extended Universe.
• The Telemundo Spanish Soap Opera Perro Amor has a dancing intro.
• Strangers with Candy ended every episode with a dance party. Yes, this includes the last episode. The best known is the "King of Glory" liturgical dance solo by Stephen Colbert - what fewer people know is that this ended a two-parter about a dangerous cult.
• The ED of several Super Sentai series.
  • Kakuranger, Abaranger (with the Mooks), Dekaranger, Magiranger, Gekiranger, Go-onger (this one in several different versions), Goseiger, Go-Busters, and Kyoryuger all have this type of theme.
  • Kyoryuger deserves special mention for two reasons. Firstly, videos of fans doing the dance were shown during the ending credits for the second half of the series, and occasionally included "special guests" like the Hurricanegers, Team Gaim, and Kenichi Suzumura and Hiroshi Kamiya. Secondly, the movies had guest stars along for the ride: the Summer movie had the cast of Kamen Rider Wizard (whose movie was on a double billing), and Kyoryuger vs. Go-Busters had all the returning Sentai characters — not just the Go-Busters, but the Abarangers and Zyurangers.

• Nigeru wa Haji daga Yaku ni Tatsu has its famous "Koi Dance".

Toys

• The Monster High line of dolls' theme song qualifies. Points for it being a live action dance with the dolls themselves as animated characters inserted into the dancing sequences.

Video Games

• Bayonetta has an after-credits scene like this.
• P.N.03, the spiritual predecessor to Bayonetta, has a thirty-eight second attract video that shows Vanessa performing all her in-game animations like a dance, and the ending credits also have a similar, much longer scene.
• The second and third Disgaea games. The second doesn't have a full dancing theme, but the third makes up for that in spades with an opening that probably owes something to Thriller.
• Final Fantasy X-2 had Yuna actuality Leblanc Disguised as Yuna singing and dancing on stage for its opening.
• The Playstation 2 game God Hand had most of the characters (friend and foe) dancing in the ending credits.
• Kirby does a short dance at the end of every level, usually splitting into 3 clones.
• Kwik Snax for the ZX Spectrum had an intro showing Dizzy and his egg-shaped pals playing in their band.
• The Updated Re-release for Persona 4 (entitled Persona 4: The Golden) was given a new opening sequence with the main characters dancing to upbeat j-pop. Pretty cheerful for a game centered around a bizarre, supernatural murder mystery.
• Persona 5 has the main characters performing figure skating jumps and spins through the city streets in the opening animation that plays before the title screen while the J-pop song "Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There" accompanies them.
• Plants vs. Zombies' ending featured every single character in the game dancing. Despite the fact that most of them are plants and don't have legs. But they try.
• Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge had Guybrush trying to scare away some monkeys that were determined to dance all the way through his serious, dramatic intro.
• Not quite a theme song, but the door-opening dance from Mother 3 has to be seen to be believed. Trust me, you will never laugh harder at an old man shaking his butt.

• Although not full dancing themes, the opening sequences for both Touch Detective games feature scenes of Funghi dancing as a clue that their presentation as serious detective dramas shouldn't be believed.
  • There is actually a fan-made Flash animation of Kumatora doing the same dance
• The credits to Yo-kai Watch 2 ends with a song and a dance sequence on the bottom screen.

Web Animation

• Bonus Stage only ever had two ending themes: The first was a fast-paced chiptune track, the second was a slower, jazzier track, the sequence to which featured several of the characters dancing.

Western Animation

• The opening of The Backyardigans uses this. Jusified since singing and dancing is the Backyardigans' entire premise.
• The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show had him and Daffy doing an on-stage song-and-dance intro in the style of the cartoon "Show Biz Bugs" - the sequences between cartoons were all set 'on stage'.
• The second season of The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show has a dancing theme.
• Family Guy has the characters singing and dancing.

• Lilo & Stitch: The Series does this, showing both main and recurring characters hulaing in the opening credits. Including Cobra Bubbles, wearing a grass skirt on top of his suit. Not to mention series bad guys Gantu and Hämsterviel as well.
• The Real Ghostbusters used this for the ending theme, with a Tickertape Parade for a backdrop. The move in question was taken from the original Ghostbusters theme's offical music video, where musician Ray Parker Jr. and the actors of the movie did the same half-walk, half-dance.

• The introduction for South Park seasons 14-15 has the characters singing and dancing ^note during Stan and Kyle's lines in the theme song, due to it being a Title Montage, they use a clip of "Do What You Wanna Do" from "Elementary School Musical", with the lip syncing reanimated because of the theme song being sung.
• The opening of Unsupervised shows the four main characters dancing to a hip-hop beat.
• The opening of Waynehead shows the three main characters dancing to a hip-hop beat.

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