Image song

In Japan, an image song or character song is a song on a tie-in single or album (often called an image album or character album) for an anime, video game, drama, manga, or other commercial product

Character version#

A related sub-type is a character version, where a voice actor or actor sings a song from the series as the character. Famous examples of this include the various versions of Neon Genesis Evangelions theme songs, redone by the voice actresses of Rei Ayanami, Asuka Langley Soryu and Misato Katsuragi. They are usually identified by a version tag at the end of the name (e.g. “Cruel Angel’s Thesis, Ayanami Version”).

Character song#

Similarly, a character song can also be a song about a character, but not necessarily sung by the character’s portrayer. For example, while Mazinger Z includes songs about Kouji Kabuto and his friends, they are not sung by their voice actors. Nevertheless, they still provide some insight into the character’s persona. In the Pokémon television series, Dawn and Serena’s image songs were not originally sung by their voice actors either, although their voice actors’ versions were later introduced.