Character Songs

In the world of anime and the fandoms associated with or related to it, there is a conceptual phenomenon called character or image songs. These are songs that are sung by the characters, which are often sung by the specific voice actors of the characters themselves. Their composition is intended to show something about the personality of the characters. Being that it has an anime adaptation, Pokémon is not excluded from this phenomenon, at least in some ways.

Quite a few of the characters in the anime have received character or image songs one way or another. May, Dawn, and Serena have received them, the second being notably involved in a duet with Ash for one of the opening themes for the Sinnoh saga of the anime, entitled "High Touch!". There is even a collection of character songs for the Kalos saga, for which the collection by now is hard to get and rather expensive.

One of the songs on the collection happens to be "XY&Z", the opening theme for the latter portions of the saga. It is sung by Ash (Satoshi) himself, who as anyone well-versed in Pokémon knows is voiced in Japanese by Rica Matsumoto. The fact that it's found on this collection firmly identifies it as a character song. Of course, aside from this, several of the past opening themes were also sung by her. And this leads to a small but profound implication.

That implication is that these past openings (for which the above applies) to some extent can also be considered "character songs" for him, even though artist information - in contrast to "High Touch!" above - do not explicitly state as such. The very first one is rather obviously implicative through its features, as I detailed in my write-up about it nearly half a year ago. But in others, there are other implications; as an example, in the first opening to the Unova saga entitled "Best Wishes", it's partially implicit that many of the sung expressions have a singular first-person subject, and therefore that subject is easily and accordingly guessed.

This conceptual phenomenon remains significant when considering anime and neighboring fandoms. With these songs, fans of certain characters and/or voice actors get treated to not only more songs from their favorites singing, but also some views regarding the characters involved. It's not hard to see that the phenomenon very much applies to the Pokémon anime as well, especially if one knows who and what songs to consider.

One year ago: "You Shall Not Pass" - Hard-to-Access Gyms and PokéStops
Two years ago: Alton : Food :: I : Pokémon