Death Note
Religious iconography and a death-metal scream, for a series about a student with a notebook — one of the most tonally committed openings in animation.
One opening sequence is catalogued for Death Note, covering season 1.
It arrived on Nippon TV in 2006, when Hajime no Ippo, Nana and Ouran High School Host Club were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
No usable clip kept. Every well-ranked upload is an AI-upscaled 60fps creditless version, which is a reconstruction rather than the broadcast picture. This is the normal state of anime openings on YouTube and the reason several entries here are empty.
More animation opening titles from the 2000s
1 sequence
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Four elements demonstrated in turn by four benders, then a narrated history — a world explained completely in about a minute, every week.
- Season 1
1 sequencePhineas and Ferb
A theme that lists everything the characters intend to build over the summer, at a tempo that leaves no room to breathe.
- Season 1
1 sequenceAmerican Dad!
A CIA agent singing about his morning routine, in a sequence that varies its final line to suit the episode.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Boondocks
Aaron McGruder's strip animated in an anime register, opened by Asheru's theme over ink-wash stills.
- Season 1
1 sequenceNaruto Shippuden
Twenty distinct openings across a decade, changed roughly every cour — one of the largest rotations of title sequences any series has produced.
- Season 1
1 sequenceBleach
Fifteen different openings across its original run, each one a complete restyling — a long-running series that treated its titles as a rotating commission rather than a fixed asset.
- Season 1