With 2022's anime spring lineup, Ya Boy Kongming! is yet another treat. While the premise of a historical figure being transported to the modern world is nothing new, especially in anime, this one has a certain style that it seems to make all its own. And part of that comes from its banger of an opening. While Spy x Family's "Mixed Nuts" is a mixture of cute and stylized, popping with color and energy, the second season OP of Komi Can't Communicate is appropriately light-hearted, and the OP of Kaguya-Sama - Ultra Romantic is appropriately jazzy, there's just something about Ya Boy Kongming!'s "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" by QUEENDOM that really slaps in a special way for catchy anime OPs.
For one thing, it's actually a cover of a Hungarian song, "Bulikirály", or "Ciki Ciki Bam Bam" by Jolly, known in Japan as "Chikichiki Banban". After listening to the original song, and given the anime's premise of Kongming, General of the Three Kingdoms--significant to those who know their Three Kingdoms lore--after a life of struggling in battles that built him into a brilliant strategist, but led him to wish to be reborn into a peaceful world upon his deathbed, now finding himself sent straight to modern-day party-central in Tokyo, Japan, it's an apt song to cover. As a Euro electronic dance song that sounds right at home on the Eurovision stage, "Bulikirály" has an almost quintessential party beat. And like most songs of the "eurobeat" variety, that party beat possesses a particular kind of catchiness, the kind that makes it hard not to nod the head or tap the foot, or both. And certainly makes it difficult to get out of one's head.
Mixing
But Ya Boy Kongming! also has the precedent of anime OP production on its side. There have been many catching anime OPs and EDs both, from the "Hare Hare Yukai" from Haruhi Suzumiya, to Toradora's "Pure Pare-Do" and "Silky Heart". And combining that with something like Eurobeat isn't exactly something new to the anime scene. The entire soundtrack to Initial D is a prime example of that, never mind how many eurobeat remixes of anime songs can be found all over YouTube that work as well as if not more than the original mix.
In fact, on top of remix covers of QUEENDOM's version, such as YouTuber fortiMiND's, that utilize the catchiness of the basic beat, there's already been at least one mash-up mix to "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and Jolly's original "Bulikirály", one uploaded by YouTuber Rookiezi, if only to demonstrate their beats syncing to each other.
Dance, Dance Revolution
But there's something else too. One half of the fun of anime OPs, and even EDs too sometimes, is the music. The other half are the visuals. And Ya Boy, Kongming! very smartly story-boarded an OP that plays like a fever-dream music video. Not only does this connect to the main plot of the anime, which involves Kongming, after getting acclimated to his new life in modern party-scene Tokyo, agrees to help aspiring popstar Eikio Tsukimi with managing and achieving her career as a professional singer, but as a style, it draws the viewer in with slick and color-popping visuals, complete with classic cars, quick-cut concert sequences, and members of the character cast coming in to show off their cool flowing dance moves that appear to be a fusion of traditional Japanese and modern dance styles, complete with an ensemble shot of everyone peering into the imaginary camera "filming" them from the ground.
Best of all, this is, so far, turning out to be one of those shows that not only has a great OP, but has, by all accounts, a good show to go with it, something that's not always the case. And while there are many a great OPs attached to terrible shows, and terrible OPs attached to great shows, and everything in between, having both be great always does something to give each a little extra respectively. Suffice to say, it's little wonder Ya Boy Kongming!'s "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" is such an earworm, but thankfully the kind that many would be happy to let live rent free in their brains, and will more than likely have people clamoring for the full version of the song once it becomes available.