What's happening
ALI's "Funkin' Beautiful feat. ZORN" served as the opening theme for "Eren the Southpaw," the boxing anime that aired April through July 1, 2026 on TV Tokyo. ALI released a full collaboration music video for it, and the band brought that genre-blending sound — funk, soul, hip-hop, rock, ska all in one — to their Anime Expo debut at Crypto.com Arena on July 2. The pairing of a rapper like ZORN with an anime opening isn't a novelty. It's a lane that's been paved for years.
The bridge was always there
Anime and hip-hop have been in conversation for decades — samurai imagery in rap, Wu-Tang's whole mythology, Afro Samurai, the way a generation of MCs quote Dragon Ball like scripture. What ALI and ZORN are doing on "Eren the Southpaw" is the same dialogue running in the other direction: Japanese hip-hop threaded straight into the anime itself, as the first thing you hear every episode. The bridge carries traffic both ways.
Why a boxing anime fits
Put rap over a fighting sport and the match is obvious. Boxing and hip-hop share the same DNA — individual against the odds, mouth and hands both weapons, the comeback as the only story worth telling. An opening theme built on funk and rap doesn't decorate "Eren the Southpaw," it translates it. The genre is doing narrative work, not just vibing.
The culture read
For Black American fans, this intersection has never needed a footnote. The love of anime and the love of hip-hop grew up in the same bedrooms, off the same late-night TV, feeding each other. Seeing a Japanese act like ALI fuse those sounds and take them to a Los Angeles arena is the loop closing — the influence circling back, getting louder, becoming its own thing rather than a borrowed one.
What it means
The anime-hip-hop connection gets treated like a fun aside. It's actually structural — two art forms built by outsiders, obsessed with self-invention, that keep recognizing each other. "Funkin' Beautiful" is one more data point in a relationship that's been real the whole time. The soundtrack was never an accident. It's two cultures speaking the same language on purpose.
Sources
- Q&A With ALI on Music, Collaborations, and Spirited Live Shows — Anitrendz, 2026
- ALI releases new music video for "FUNKIN' BEAUTIFUL feat. ZORN" tied to Eren the Southpaw — AnimeTV, 2026
- Eren the Southpaw — Wikipedia, 2026

