Flow

One thing I like to do every now and then is to highlight certain Japanese music acts that play a large part in the anime community. I've already covered Maximum the Hormone and I'm sure I've mentioned Hirano Aya a couple of times somewhere, but I haven't really mentioned anyone else.

So I'm going to talk about Flow this time. Flow is a J-pop rock band that was founded in 1998 and currently consists of two vocalists, a guitarist, a bassist, and a drummer. The two vocalist approach isn't seen very often in rock unless we're talking about vocalists that also perform instruments. Asakawa Kōshi does play the occasional rhythm guitar, but he is literally billed as "occasional rhythm guitar" on the Wikipedia page. 

Naturally, I was exposed to Flow through anime. A couple of anime, actually. In fact, I think that anime is pretty much how everyone comes across bands like Flow and Maximum the Hormone and that shouldn't be much of a surprise. If you don't watch anime (specifically anime that retains its original Japanese theme songs) then you might not know that certain acts can make a career out of creating anime theme songs and that quite of few of those songs can be good. Not all of them are (and a lot of what is good and bad depends on your taste of course), but I find myself enjoying quite a few. And if you really watch anime on a consistent basis then more often than not you'll enjoy a lot of the tunes. 

Flow has had three of their songs as Naruto theme songs with two of them being OPs in the first series and the third being an OP in Shippuden. So if you watch Naruto then you are already quite familiar with them. Of course, they aren't one trick ponies when it comes to anime. Flow has also had songs featured in Eureka Seven, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, and even the movie Dragonball Z: Battle of Gods. 

I've decided to post a few of their videos. Mostly my favorites from their catalog... and yeah, pretty much all of them were the ones I just listed that I could find official videos for. I have listened to other songs by them, though. I've got their album Microcosm on heavy rotation in Google Play. 

The one below is a cover of the classic Japanese OP to Dragonball Z. This cover doesn't touch the original, but I do like it. 

And this is probably their best songs. It's kinda tough to listen to as well if you've seen the sixth season of Naruto Shippuden. You not only get to have it as the soundtrack to the death of one important character, but two.