Suspiciously Similar Song/Anime

"Tension" music from Slayers. "Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Pt. 1" by King Crimson. You may notice a slight similarity.
- "Beginning", from Mobile Suit Gundam III sounds very similar to Crimson's "Prince Rupert Awakes". Observe.
Orochimaru's theme in Naruto borrows part of its melody from Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor.
- The opening to Sarutobi, the Third Hokage's Battle Theme Music, is an almost exact copy of Ozzy Osbourne's 'Bark at the Moon'...
The theme "Nunnally" from Code Geass uses the same melody, same lead instrument, SAME KEY, and a similar chord progression to the main theme from an obscure Ennio Morricone-scored film, Malena. Hear for yourself.
For whatever reason, Gojou Shioji from Excel Saga appears to have "Another One Bites the Dust" as his theme song, with a few courtesy notes thrown in.
- Similarly, Pedro's music is the guitar riff from "House Of The Rising Sun."
- The second episode uses a parody of Metallica's "Sad but True."
Nandemo Q was a children's television show which aired on NHK between 1995 and 2004 that featured educational Suspiciously Similar Songs of popular western songs that often featured Pun Based Titles such as "Hotaru California".
As mentioned in the entry for Full Metal Panic!, "Tokkou Yarou", a background theme used in that series is incredibly similar to the theme from The A-Team.
- Lampshaded with a Theme Tune Cameo as a cellphone ring tone and someone says it's sounds like an old American TV show.
- This one was definitely intentional, seeing as the series was called Tokkou Yarou A-Team when broadcast in Japan.
- Also, in Fumoffu, the ending song, "Kimi Ni Fuku Kaze" sounds VERY similar to Santana and Michelle Branch's "The Game of Love".
One of Sagisu Shirou's pieces ("Decisive Battle") for Neon Genesis Evangelion is suspiciously similar to a John Barry composition, "007," used in the early James Bond films.
- Another example ("Barefoot in the Park") is suspiciously similar to "The Girl from Ipanema" used when the characters are having a coffee break.
- Shinji's theme, "I. Shinji" is basically a minor-key version of "God Save the Queen" mashed-up with "The Godfather Waltz".
- More recently, on the soundtrack for Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance, the track "2EM05_KK_B09" sounds suspiciously similar to "The Third Man Theme" by Anton Karas.
- Another example of this, also from the soundtrack of "Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance", in which the track "L'Agresseur (2EM03)" [1] sounds pretty much the same like "Dennis steals the Embryo" [2] from the soundtrack to Jurassic Park.
- "Misato's Theme" also shadows parts of "Why Do Fools Fall In Love" which has been covered by artists like Diana Ross.
- "Komm, Susser Todd" or that song that plays when everyone gets turned into Tang - sounds a lot like "Hey, Jude."
  - The slide guitar solo at the end of the song owes a bit to the ending solo of Pink Floyd's High Hopes.
The Italian version of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, which composed all-new songs, made many of them sound suspiciously like the songs they were replacing. Try comparing Assoluto Amore, Sara's Villain Song, with its original, Return to the Sea, and see what we mean.
- A closer similarity is within the original version of the series itself, and intentional: Tsubasa wo Daite, Michel's Villain Song, and Ashita ga Mienakute, Michal's Image Song. Their names already matched, as did the names of their birds, and they couldn't be active at the same time... but when their songs matched, all bets about coincidence were off.
One episode of Gintama has a Suspiciously Similar Song to the Rocky theme. This gets lampshaded by Gintoki and Kagura.
- Speaking of Rocky, the boxing OVA Bewitching Nozomi featured a Suspiciously Similar Song to "Eye of the Tiger".
- Another Suspiciously Similar Song of the same often accompanied the Bear's appearance in Gakuen Alice.
- In Gintama, there's also a Supiciously Similar Song of Fist of the North Star's Ai wo Torimodose. Hilariously, the song lyrics only consist of the parts of "You Wa Shock" changed into "I Am Shock"
- Gintama's Dragon Ball parody ep introduced the song "Dondake" (basically a Japanese "WTF?"), a Suspiciously Similar Song to Hironobu Kageyama's Dragon Ball themes.
Soul Eater occasionally uses a music piece that sounds like that damn Milkshake song.
The S-Cry-ed theme "Reckless Fire" sounds slightly similar to Ricky Martin's "She Bangs".
Air Gear was inspired by the Jet Set Radio series, and has several background songs that are soundalikes to the music used in those games. Compare: Not Hummin' But Vibin' (Air Gear) vs. Hummin' The Bassline (Jet Set Radio); Sky 2 High (Air Gear) vs. Fly Like A Butterfly (Jet Set Radio Future)
- Air Gear also has a non-JSR example in "Rise Electric", which is suspiciously similar to Europe's "The Final Countdown".
The Training Montage in the first episode of Gunbuster uses a musical cue essentially ripped off from Vangelis' theme from Chariots of Fire. So much so, in fact, that Studio Gainax ordered the US distributors to replace the music in the North American re-release.
- Public Domain Example: The last episode uses a conspicuously-synthesised piece of music that sounds suspiciously similar to the Hallelujah chorus. Considering that the original song would later turn up in Neon Genesis Evangelion, this example's rather perplexing.
In an earlier example of ripping off Vangelis, the music from the first scene in the original Bubblegum Crisis OVAs is suspiciously similar to the opening theme from Blade Runner.
- The intros to "Victory" and "Akuma to Tenshi no Kiss" are derived from different parts of the intro to "Nowhere Fast", the opening theme from Streets of Fire.
- The guitar riff in "Say Yes" from OVA 7 resembles U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name".
- "Konya wa Hurricane" is very clearly an attempt to create a song in the style of Jim Steinman, particularly those from Streets Of Fire.
The opening theme to The Big O sounds suspiciously like Queen's Flash Gordon. This one was also replaced for the USA DVD re-issue.
- "Roger, I love you, but we only have 14 hours to save Paradigm City."
- The second theme tune is heavily inspired by Barry Gray's theme tune for UFO.
Battle Programmer Shiraise's opening tune bears an uncanny resemblance to, you guessed it, Rick Astley's "Never Gonna give You Up".
Kogarashi's Theme from Kamen no Maid Guy is suspiciously similar to of the Pirates of the Caribbean theme (or a pastiche thereof). This doesn't prevent it from being awesome.
An Imagine Spot in Lucky Star of a trip to the dentist as a Super Robot show is accompanied by a brief Suspiciously Similar Song to the Gunbuster theme "Active Heart".
- And don't forget the repeated use of an almost-but-not-quite "Gunbuster March" cue.
- And the 1942 beat used a few times... And 24, and... A lot of others.
The music from Mr. Lonely Chaser, theme song for the Transforming Mecha show Galvion sounds suspiciously similar to Michael Jackson's "Beat It". The lyrics, however are something else altogether.
One of the riffs from Clannad's Dango Daikazoku / Chiisana Te No Hira - Rock Version sounds like "Oh Come All Ye Faithful".
Nikopol, Viral's theme sounds a lot like Linkin Park's Points of Authority.
It's a lot harder to recognize than most examples, but Shinken from one of the Love Hina soundtracks is suspiciously similar to "Eye Of The Tiger".
The Trigun theme is eerily similar to Led Zeppelin's "Black Dog".
A recurring piece in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, from A's on, is suspiciously similar to the Metroid main titles.
- Don't forget Ace of Aces sounding a great deal like the Main Title from Chars Counterattack.
In Death Note, one of Mello's themes sound like the Terminator 2 theme.
- The Death Note soundtrack is actually quite notorious for this. For instance, L's theme sounds like Tubular Bells from The Exorcist.
"Ark" from Yoko Kanno's Brain Powered soundtrack starts off like the Terminator theme with bagpipes. Och, I'll be back, laddie!
Also by Yoko Kanno, "Jig" from Turn a Gundam resembles John Williams' "Letting Off Steam" from Far and Away.
Somebody in charge of Bleach's soundtrack seems to be a fan of Andrew Lloyd Weber...
Near the end of the Ah! My Goddess OVA, a Suspiciously Similar Song to "L'amour est bleu" shows up in the scene where Keiichi works several part-time jobs to buy Belldandy a ring.
On the soundtrack for Mobile Suit Gundam 0083 Stardust Memory Mitsuo Hagita directly copies, note for note, extensive parts of two pieces from James Horner's Brainstorm score: "The Battle of Solomon Sea" was Brainstorm's "Race For Time", and "Burn Down" was "Lillian's Heart Attack".
- "The Winner" (especially the English version sung by Ritchie Kotzen) from the same show, sounds somewhat like "Danger Zone" from Top Gun.
- Gundam F91 is full of Suspiciously Similar Songs to Star Wars pieces, most notably the Imperial March.
- And Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam Zeta Gundam]]'s dub theme had to be changed because one of the original openings sounded a little too close to George Michael's '80's hit "Careless Whisper".
  - The opening and ending themes in Japan were written by Neil Sadaka (for which he made Suspiciously Similar Songs to some of his past works).
"Rush! Issei and Yohshi" from the score of Giant Robo OVA 2 is a suspiciously similar to the How the West Was Won theme.
- "Vogler's Landing" from OVA 3 rips off a passage from Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring".
Yoko Kanno pulled this off again several times in Macross Frontier:
- "Big Boys" sounds suspiciously like "Will & Elizabeth" from Pirates of the Caribbean.
- "The Target" takes more than a few cues from the TIE Fighter theme from Star Wars.
  - By the same token, the TIE Fighter theme can be considered a modification of the magic spell from "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", which "The Target" also resembles.
Yuki Kajiura isn't immune from this either. The track "Sacrifice" from Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle shares many similarities with "Navras" from The Matrix Revolutions.
- Listen to Handel's "Sarabande", better known as the theme music to Barry Lyndon. Now listen to the main theme from the seventh Kara no Kyoukai movie. Notice anything?
Speaking of sorcerers, "Materialise" from Kuniaki Haishima's Mai-Otome 0~S.ifr~ soundtrack copies verbatim from the Eagles' "Journey of the Sorcerer", better known as the theme from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Episode 7 of Seto no Hanayome has a Suspiciously Similar Song to Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries".
- So does Ponyo; or rather, Joe Hisaishi reworks the Ponyo theme In the Style Of "Ride of the Valkyries".
- Seto no Hanayome also has a Suspiciously Similar Song to the Terminator 2 theme (the iconic metallic beat) because, well, one of the characters IS the Terminator.
"Daybreak Symphony" from Yakitate!! Japan sounds quite suspiciously like a certain other Britpop "Symphony"... with the "We Will Rock You" beat also thrown in just for good measure.
The opening theme of Tenamonya Voyagers is suspiciously similar to theme from Mel Brooks' Silent Movie. Both are played by marching bands.
Jessica's image song, Dokkyun Heart is a faster-sung and slightly cheerier version of Tsurupettan.
One of the BGM tracks in Coyote Ragtime Show sounds strikingly similar to the |Mission Impossible theme song.
The BGM track from K-On! called "Pinch Daisuki!" is suspiciously similar to the 1970s synthesizer piece "Popcorn".
- For that matter, Jean Michel Jarre's "Oxygène IV" sounds a bit like a slowed-down version of "Popcorn", which was released five years before.
  - ...which Jarre himself covered a few years earlier.
- And "Happy End" sounds a lot like "Daydream Believer".
- A Suspiciously Similar Song to Pachelbel's Canon plays during the graduation ceremony in K-ON!! episode 24, which is peculiar because, again, it's in the public domain.
- When the music store clerk tells the history of Sawako's guitar, images of Eric Clapton, Angus Young, Tony Iommi and Pete Townshend are shown, along with Suspiciously Similar Songs to Sunshine of Your Love, Thunderstruck, Paranoid, and Won't Get Fooled Again respectively.
The track "The Ebb and the Flow" in Dragon Ball Kai is a very blatant ripoff of "War" from the Avatar soundtrack. It is an almost note for note copy of what you might call the "Human Theme" (as opposed to the Na'vi Theme) from "War".
- "A New Foe Rears His Head" is just as blatantly a ripoff of the Terminator Salvation opening theme. In a way, this one is almost forgivable; even the original show had a song that sounded suspiciously similar to the Terminator theme, which was used in a scene that was lifted straight from the movie, in the middle of a story arc that was taken straight from the movie (the Trunks and Android sagas, of course.) Can you really blame the composer for thinking originality wasn't necessary?
- "Kamigami no Bolero" sounds like a tribute to Ravel's "Bolero".
The t=0m59s first opening of Wedding Peach lends some notes from 1960s singer t=1m52s France Gall.
- Sugar Sugar Rune's theme is based on the same song, only more blatantly.
The second opening of A Certain Scientific Railgun sounds sort of like Hong Meiling's stage theme. Take a listen.
One of the pieces of music from Read or Die sounds like the stock music piece "Valse Aux Champs-Elysees", which was used on Ren and Stimpy.
- That's minimal, Read or Die's main theme rips off from every musical aspect of James Bond's main theme... without actually ripping a note from it, and made a much more cohesive, surprising and captivating version, like Picasso (allegedly) said "Good artists borrow, great artists steal".
The opening song of the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX English dub sounds an awful lot like Blink 182's "Dammit" at times.
A track on the Baccano! soundtrack, "Yurumikatta Kannou no Dance", sounds distinctly similar to the famous "Habanera" from Suite No. 2 of Bizet's Carmen.
One of the songs from Axis Powers Hetalia , "Carrots and Sticks", is sung by Belarus and Ukraine. If you pay attention to the background music, it sounds like a pitched-down, remade version of t.A.T.u.'s All The Things She Said.
- To say nothing of the music cue for the opening titles, which strongly evokes "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (AKA the 2001: A Space Odyssey theme).
The Monster anime has "Over The Rainbow" played multiple times; it's even explicitly referred to as such. Except, it's instrumental and only vaguely sounds like it. The song isn't in the public domain. I don't know if the original Japanese version had this problem or not.
This parody scene of William Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet from Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt has a Suspiciously Similar Song to "I'm Kissing You" by Desiree.
The chorus of the song "Cendrillon" from by Kagamine Ren sounds an awful lot like the chorus of the Transformers Animated Japanese opening theme. Or is it the other way around?
In Ultra Maniac, a Suspiciously Similar Song to the theme song of The Powerpuff Girls plays whenever Nina's cousins arrive. The creator of the manga, by the way, loves the PPG.
In Bakemonogatari, the song Suteki Meppou by Kousaki Satoru has a jazzy piano chord progression and rhythm that sounds like Paul Desmond and the Dave Brubeck Quartet's Take Five There's also Hyouri, which sounds quite a bit like Tubular Bells, of The Exorcist fame.
The song "HARDBOILED" off of the Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo soundtrack sounds like it could have been an outtake from David Gilmour's solo album On An Island.
Momiji's song in the Fruits Basket anime is just a few notes off from "Momiji" (a folk song). Given the name, it's doubtful that it was a coincidence.
The Anger of Crimson Lotus from Fairy Tail sounds as if composer took Grass Theme from Heroes of Might and Magic IV, cut it in pieces, sew them randomly together, and added rock-style accompaniment over all of it.
- A little breakdown: first listen to this, then to this, then this, and for last one go to the first part.
- And this is far from being the only song in the soundtrack.
Toradora! has very short song that's suspiciously similar to Vangelis' Chariots of Fire in episode 8, when Taiga is practicing swimming for the competition.
There's a series of Youtube videos from a Japanese cartoon that are suspiciously similar to various western rock songs. NOT "Separate Ways" By JOURNEY, NOT "Don't Look Back" By BOSTON NOT "All You Need Is Love" by BEATLES, NOT "Europa" by SANTANA, and many others. They can be found on this Youtube channel.
The Ginga Densetsu Weed song "Dash!" sounds somewhat similar to the Digimon Adventure 02 opening theme.
The main melody in Panzer World Galient's opening song has some similarities to the Beatles song While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
Yoroiden Samurai Troopers' first opening theme, "Stardust Eyes", borrows heavily from "It's A Sin" by The Pet Shop Boys.
The Kodomo No Jikan ending "Hana Maru Sensation" sounds almost exactly like The Offspring's One Fine Day.
The opening song of the 4Kids dub of Ojamajo Doremi sounds suspiciously similar to "ABC" by The Jackson 5ive.

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