Are Anime OPs Pandering to Tiktok?

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]Are anime OPs and EDs trying to create TikTok [music] trends? Well, based on this tweet, a good chunk of Twitter seems to think so, but is it actually true? Obviously, the internet would never lie to me, but I still had to check myself, which is why I watched every single intro and outro from the Spring 2026 anime season, all 134 of them. It took 3 and 1/2 hours, and I've been hearing J-pop in my nightmares, but I have results. Out of all of those 134 intros and outros, there were a total of 11 that had an extended dance scene, seven from the openings and four from endings. And I was being very generous with what to count. Like, I really don't think that musical school anime having a full ballet for the ED was there to encourage TikTok dances. But even with counting stuff like that, it's not even one in 10. Anime dances and anime fans doing those dances have been a thing for a very long time. And honestly, besides maybe the Chika Dance, I don't think any of the newer ones have managed to be as iconic as the Haruhi Dance, and that was all the way back in 2006, which is what? Wait, two decades ago? It is true that stuff like Bling-Bang-Bang-Bling-Bang-Bang-Bling-Bang-Bong and Chika no Noka Noka Noka Kush Tan Tan were massive TikTok trends, and I'm sure there are some cases of companies trying to replicate that, but honestly, this kind of dance sequence is just one of the many, many OP and ED tropes in anime. It's not really new, and it's also [music] not more common than other tropes like the ED being a video game or everyone fighting the air in an action show. And now, once again, we know that Twitter was wrong, and also, I'm old.