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After watching a few series I realised that some of them use different
opening/ending songs in each episode (e.g.
[Oreimo](http://myanimelist.net/anime/8769/Ore_no_Imouto_ga_Konnani_Kawaii_Wake_ga_Nai)).
I noticed that it must've been quite expensive to do this, and some other
animes like [Love
Live](http://myanimelist.net/anime/15051/Love_Live!_School_Idol_Project) use
the same song sang by different people every episode.

What was the first anime that has done this, and can you list the animes that
has done this?

**Clarification** : If the anime has 12 episodes, there has to be **12
different endings** , not less than that.


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tropes theme-song
What was the first anime that uses different ending/opening songs in every episode?


I don't know what is the first anime to have done this, but I can name one
anime older than both _Oreimo_ and _Love Live_ that has done this: [**Neon
Genesis Evangelion**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_Genesis_Evangelion)
(2003 Renewal DVD1). According to
[Wikia](http://evangelion.wikia.com/wiki/Fly_Me_to_the_Moon):

> Every episode has a different "Fly Me To The Moon."

Let's see if anyone can beat me to the Moon.

* * *

1 Thanks to **mivilar** for the correction. Detailed information about all the
ED versions in the different releases of _Neon Genesis Evangelion_ can be
found [here](http://wiki.evageeks.org/Fly_Me_to_the_Moon).


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**tl;dr** [Shōnan
Bakusōzoku](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=731), an
OAV from 1986 with 12 episodes and 12 endings (ended only in 1999).

### Intro

I took up Gao WeiWei's suggestion and used ANN's
[API](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/api.php) to create a
duplicate of their database and then search for all titles that have as many
OPs/EDs as they have episodes. If anyone is interested in the code for this
(it's not nice :P) and all results, go
[here](https://gist.github.com/JonasR/613b4d3f9d1918f48e5a).

### Assumptions

I restricted the analysis to titles that have at least 6 episodes. ANN's
episode field sometimes contains additional information such as '10 (+2
Specials)' in such a case I only take the first number and ignore the rest.
There are no checks for the title or anything like that, if ANN lists an
ending twice or if the same ending appears multiple times with different
artists, those all count as separate. Most importantly, the relevant date is
the start date (because that is less parsing work and because often there is
no end date given).

### Result for EDs

Below are the results. With the above restrictions, ANN has 30 animes that fit
the bill and the oldest of them is Shōnan Bakusōzoku. Note though, that the
final episode is from 1999! Among the first few, _Iczer Reborn_ ended in
1991-02-25 already, so maybe that's your winner? See
[here](https://gist.github.com/JonasR/613b4d3f9d1918f48e5a#file-
ed_list_absolute_urls-markdown) for the full table.

[code]

    ╔════════════╦══════╦═════╦═════╦═════╦════════════════════════════╗
    ║  Vintage   ║ Type ║ #EP ║ #OP ║ #ED ║            Name            ║
    ╠════════════╬══════╬═════╬═════╬═════╬════════════════════════════╣
    ║ 1986-09-10 ║ OAV  ║  12 ║   3 ║  12 ║ [Shōnan Bakusōzoku](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=731)          ║
    ║ 1987-02-25 ║ OAV  ║   8 ║   6 ║   8 ║ [Bubblegum Crisis](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=201)           ║
    ║ 1990-09-25 ║ OAV  ║   6 ║   1 ║   6 ║ [Iczer Reborn](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=682)               ║
    ║ 1992-06-15 ║ OAV  ║   6 ║   0 ║   6 ║ [Blue Girl](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=473)                  ║
    ║ 1997-11-25 ║ OAV  ║   6 ║   2 ║   6 ║ [Saber Marionette J Again](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=211)   ║
    ║ 1999-07-25 ║ OAV  ║   6 ║   3 ║   9 ║ [Ten Tokyo Warriors](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=1600)         ║
    ║ 1999-10-06 ║ TV   ║  12 ║   1 ║  12 ║ [Seraphim Call](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=850)              ║
    ║ 1999-12-18 ║ OAV  ║   6 ║   7 ║   7 ║ [Sakura Wars 2](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=1015)              ║
    ║ 2002-06-15 ║ OAV  ║   8 ║   8 ║   8 ║ [Angelique: Twin Collection](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=4469) ║
    ║ 2002-10-02 ║ TV   ║  13 ║   1 ║  13 ║ [Sister Princess: Re Pure](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=1824)   ║
    ║ 2003-05-08 ║ TV   ║   6 ║   1 ║   6 ║ [Saint Beast](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=81)                ║
    ║ 2005-10-21 ║ TV   ║  26 ║   1 ║  26 ║ [Mushi-Shi](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=5923)                  ║
    ...
[/code]

**Huh, more endings than episodes?** You may have noticed, there are titles
with more endings than episodes: They can all be considered to have as many
endings as episodes. For _Ten Tokyo Warriors_ , _Sakura Wars 2_ and _Heaven's
Lost Property_ those are caused by some kind of inconsistent annotation in
ANN. For _Akikan!_ they list an extra ending for a special but don't count the
special towards the episodes. _Katanagatari_ got an extra ending for the
[noitaminA rebroadcast](http://myanimelist.net/anime/6594/Katanagatari). For
_Highschool of the Dead_ and _Maken-Ki! Battling Venus_ they count the OAV
ending towards the anime.

**Almost made it** I thought it would be interesting to also check which ones
cut it very close. Here's an addtitional list sorted by `#EPs/#EDs` and then
sorted by vintage. I left out all that have a quotient of 1 or less, since we
already know those from above. The full list can be found
[here](https://gist.github.com/JonasR/613b4d3f9d1918f48e5a#file-
ed_list_quotient_urls-markdown).

[code]

    ╔═══════╦════════════╦══════╦═════╦═════╦══════════════════════════════╗
    ║ EP/ED ║  Vintage   ║ Type ║ #EP ║ #ED ║             Name             ║
    ╠═══════╬════════════╬══════╬═════╬═════╬══════════════════════════════╣
    ║ ...   ║            ║      ║     ║     ║                              ║
    ║ 1.04  ║ 2007-04-08 ║ TV   ║  24 ║  23 ║ [Lucky Star](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=4443)                   ║
    ║ 1.09  ║ 2010-07-07 ║ TV   ║  12 ║  11 ║ [Strike Witches 2](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=4443)             ║
    ║ 1.09  ║ 2010-10-01 ║ TV   ║  12 ║  11 ║ [Heaven's Lost Property Forte](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=4443) ║
    ║ 1.11  ║ 2006-02-10 ║ OAV  ║  10 ║   9 ║ [Hellsing Ultimate](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=4443)            ║
    ║ 1.17  ║ 1990-01-26 ║ OAV  ║   7 ║   6 ║ [Be-Bop-Highschool](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=4443)            ║
    ║ 1.2   ║ 1990-06-15 ║ OAV  ║   6 ║   5 ║ [Devil Hunter Yohko](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=4443)           ║
    ...
[/code]

As ʞɹɐzǝɹ already mentioned _Lucky Star_ should qualify for the previous list,
having 24 episodes and endings, but ANN is missing the ED for ep22. And so on,
you can already see, this DB isn't perfect either ;)

**Overview** Finally, here's a barplot showing the distribution of the number
of endings among all animes that fit the assumptions described initially.

[![ed_plot](https://i.stack.imgur.com/IFTXx.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/IFTXx.png)

### Result for OPs

There are only two result for `#EPs = #OPs`, and those are already shown in
the list above ( _Sakura Wars 2_ and _Angelique: Twin Collection_ ). The
results for `#EPs / #OPs` are
[here](https://gist.github.com/JonasR/613b4d3f9d1918f48e5a#file-
op_list_quotient_urls-markdown). OPs are generally not as diverse:

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/T1m5M.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/T1m5M.png)

### More OPs than EDs and vice versa

As per Gao WeiWei's suggestion: There are 221 animes with `#OP > #ED`, among
those 115 have no endings listed in ANN at all, which is probably a mix of the
truth and missing annotations ([full
list](https://gist.github.com/JonasR/613b4d3f9d1918f48e5a#file-
more_ops_than_ed_urls-markdown)). The other way around, there are 781 animes
with `#ED > #OP`, 82 with no openings at all ([full
list](https://gist.github.com/JonasR/613b4d3f9d1918f48e5a#file-
more_eds_than_op_urls-markdown)).

### Outro

This is not _the_ definite answer either of course, ANN doens't provide an XML
schema, so I might have overlooked something, and even if everything went well
in my parsing, we already know they have a different opinion on the number of
EDs e.g. for NGE (see GaoWeiwei's answer for that discussion), and there are
several errors mentioned above. Answering a [different
question](https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/17003/has-there-been-a-
anime-that-used-its-op-as-ed-and-or-vice-versa) I realized I should have
probably made sure the endings are unique, that doesn't affect the main result
here though.


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