My impression (before it aired) was that a hugely popular manga from Shonen Magazine had been turned into an anime with all the fanfare. Kuroiwa Medaka Is Immune to My Charms. That OP probably left first-time viewers stunned and bewildered, and even fans of the original couldn't help but throw up a question mark. It went seriously viral on social media, so even people who haven't seen the manga or the anime have probably heard the name at least once. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'd really love for you to close this article for now, with zero bias intact, and go watch the anime. Personally, sure, there have long been plenty of anime with characters dancing in the OP or ED (Showa-era anime seemed to have a lot of EDs with some "○○ Ondo" where characters did a Bon-dance kind of thing), but it felt like ever since around The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, there was a sudden surge in incredibly high-quality stuff that wowed you with its art and movement. With Kuroiwa Medaka Is Immune to My Charms' OP dance, though, it was like the art alone was Reiwa quality while the movement was Showa-anime quality, and my brain glitched out.
The sight of the main characters performing what's been dubbed the "bug dance" on social media, moving like bugs flipped onto their backs, has come full circle, and you start spotting people taking it positively: "it's actually kind of addictive," "I bet they're doing it on purpose." So let's just call this a success in its own right.
In the first place, as I mentioned at the outset, Kuroiwa Medaka Is Immune to My Charms was a popular manga to begin with, holding rock-solid popularity even within Shonen Magazine's crowded field of rom-coms, so maybe it's more accurate to say it won't be shaken by something like that.
According to Wikipedia, famous cosplayer Enako and rapper Hannya are among those championing this work. You can tell it's been embraced across an incredibly broad range.
An Orthodox Score With a Touch of Nostalgia
Now, the score for this work has many tracks with a very energetic feel.
Early in episode one, there's a scene where the heroine Mona Kawai trots off to school. The score playing here is a refreshing, lively-feeling track that evokes the good old gal-game (galge), exactly. It's not old-fashioned, of course; the approach in the timbres and so on is rather modern. The way it keeps things to merely a hint of that good-old-days mindset feels like the work of a pro, and it's wonderful. What surprised me even more was the score that plays at the start of episode one's B-part. Astonishingly, it has vocals and a melody. It's an unexpected touch that overturns the common knowledge that scores are basically instrumental, and though short, the lyrics read as if the protagonist's inner voice of "I'm aware I'm cute" were leaking out. The fact that, on first listen, it sounds like music you'd hear on a children's TV program, is perhaps meant to express her childish way of thinking.
The composer is Shuko Tateyama, who has also handled scores for the likes of Kemono Friends and Laid-Back Camp. Being a sought-after composer who handles not only anime scores but production work as well, the result is an extremely steady score that matches the world of Kuroiwa Medaka Is Immune to My Charms exquisitely.
Please, do check out not just the OP that went viral on social media but the main anime itself! It's a very easy-to-watch, entertaining work.
Quoted from the official site https://monaxmedaka.com/#visual
