Definitely brave song from angel beats, I absolutely love how the characters begin to fade in and the group grows while the powerful song plays in the background until they are all together, it sends a chill down my spine every time
This was not an easy decision to make. There are so many brilliant Key endings. The Little Busters endings, Dango Daikazoku, Brave Song… Towa no Hoshi e also deserves a mention… but in the end, I decided to go with Song for Friends. The vocals, the instrumentals… it really is an amazing song.
I need to listen to to the Tomoyo After and Kud Wafter ending songs sometime actually, haven’t got round to it yet.
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Little Busters has amazing endings - Song for Friends might be my favorite based on song alone, Saya’s Song doesn’t need any explanation, and the Little Jumper version of the main theme is the perfect coda to the epic that is the story, ending on ecstatic (no pun intended) hope for the future and closing the book by giving the happy ending Riki and pals deserve.
And while I don’t know if I’d ever call it the best song, Brave Song manages to bring the most emotion out of me every time I listen - it’s hard for me not to hear it without picturing the animation and tearing up.
I’m gonna need some time to think of what to actually vote for.
The song itself isn’t one of my favorites (there’s something about its production that bugs me, I don’t know why) but the main melody is probably the most beautiful Maeda has wrote. Every song in the OST with it is absolutely stellar.
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Seeing all these people praising Saya’s song… I’ve actually never listened to it. I’ll wait for ME TL to listen to it, because seeing CGs and listening to songs is like a spoiler for me, it wouldn’t have the same impact if it wasn’t the first time I was listening to it.
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That’s definitely a good move. I have very much the same opinion as you with things like that, I’ve always tried to tell people to not listen to it until they hear it in-game because it was quite an impact for me!
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Ame Nochi Hare hands down. There are many amazing Key EDs, Song for Friends another close contender, but that song just feels so relieving. Like, we’ve overcome the worst, everything is gonna be okay from now on. It’s a wonderful piece of music.
Brave Song is way too high imo. Dango Daikazoku is completely overshadowed by Chiisana te no hira, yet I still really like watari no uta. And I never really got into Yami no Kanata e for some reason.
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Even though I am so in love with the Charlotte ED, I have to go for the best, Song for Friends. It made a huge impact on me for my experience of Little Busters!, and I just love the song to death.
(I watched the anime first too and it was used heavily in the later episodes of Refrain lmao)
This was REALLY hard, but in the end I had to go with Regret. It was a big toss-up between that and Chiisana Te no Hira. While I will say that the scene where Chiisana plays in the anime makes me tear up every time, Regret really just hit me. It’s different in every way from everything else on the LitBus soundtrack and the “I just royally fucked up” feeling I got in my gut when it strarted created an awesome lead-in for the Refrain Route.
A lil off topic, but my favorite ED ever is Close Your Eyes from the Akabeisoft2 VN G Senjou no Maou. It’s another very emotional one with perfect timing. I read that VN after Clannad and Little Busters hoping to give my emotions a break. That didn’t really work out haha
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Give it up for Song for Friends, woop woop.
I’d say give it up for Little Busters all together… Forty percent of the votes as of me typing this are of Little Busters. (Followed by the next thirty percent being Rewrite…)
Not Yuki No Hane, Toki No Kaze?
It’s unfair to bring up G-Senjou though. That VN actually had a large focus on the ost.
But with EDs, most of the time stills or minor animations are all you get. Hell, all that happens when Song for Friends, which is winning this poll right now, plays is scrolling credits. Anything beyond that is really just a bonus.
In terms of both OPs and EDs, of course the best song may not have the best video/art to go with it, and the one with the best video/art might not have the best song. So if all you really care about in an OP/ED is the music, then you’ll choose the one with the best song. If you’re some weird psycho who doesnt care about music, then you’ll choose the one with the best video/art.
But I at least consider both when Im deciding this, and whichever OP/ED I end up choosing as being “the best” might not be the one that I think has the best song or the one that I think has the best video/art. It’ll be the one that I think uses the best combination of both to either open or end the route, episode, story, etc.
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I’m quite surprised at Chiisana Tenohira not even getting a single vote so far. It’s a pretty solid second place for me.
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When I decided on Brave Song I took both the song and visuals into account, out of all Key EDs it had the most impact on me. If I were to choose only based on visuals I’d actually have to with farewell song, I really love the simple ocean landscape and the sudden transition to sky were Kana is flying, it’s absolutely stunning. The song is ok, in fact I like it quite a bit but it’s nothing on brave song.
Being second doesn’t get you a vote.
I also considered both, the one who had both good visuals and song, still not the best of those individually, but overall the best OP imo.
And not that I think like this, but it’s wrong to call someone who gives much more value to visuals a psycho. People have different opinions, this doesn’t make them psychos. The same way some people can give little value to visuals, others can give little value to music too. Both are forms of art, none of them is superior; everyone identifies him/herself better with one (or the two) of those.
This is why I love to see AMVs: they combine special visual moments with great songs. The two complete each other. If I saw the video mute, I could like it, but not the same with the song. Same thing applies to the song. I feel a lot of things when I listen to a song I like, but the exact same thing can be said when I look at a beautiful picture. If you think otherwise, I respect your opinion, and I understand people can have different perceptions when it comes to art. But please don’t ignore that other people can think differently from you unless they are psychos…
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I’ll go for Yami no kanata e. I love the instrumentals and its jazzy sound. Next would be Koibumi, 'cause dem feels.
I feel like I need to be the douche to point out how dominating Dango Daikazoku is.
11. Dango Daikazoku (CLANNAD anime)
1 vote (2%)
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I don’t think I can give just one song for my favorite. Alicemagic, Little Jumper, Song for friends, and Brave Song are all fantastic songs that I still get sentimental when I hear.
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I think Brave Song should be first 
The lyrics to Brave Song just hits home for me, so the combination between AB! feels and personal feels makes Brave Song special. I love the lines “itsuka hito wa hitori ni natte” and “mou nanimo kowakunai” because they’re so simple yet so powerful.
Similarly I love the “mou nakanai” in Last Regrets.
