Published October 18 on V-Storage. See the original post here.
The lyric video for Reach for the Star, the ending theme song for REBEL 3199 Chapter 2 sung by Daisuke Ono has been released! Daisuke Ono talks about his thoughts on the song, which he wrote the lyrics for himself! The video features footage from the Yamato Remake series, and the song is close to the feelings of the main character, Susumu Kodai.
Interviewer: Takuya Watanabe composed and arranged the song, and you wrote the lyrics. How did you come to work on this song?
Ono: When it was decided that I would sing the theme song, the first person I thought of was Takuya Watanabe. My music team also unanimously agreed that we should ask him. The reason is that his songs are the starting point of my music and at the core of my songs.
I’ve been a music artist for 17 years now, and Takuya Watanabe’s songs have been there since the beginning. It’s no exaggeration to say that my musical career has been a journey together with him. If I’m Susumu Kodai in music, then he’s like Shima Daisuke. So I asked him to do the music because I thought he would be absolutely right, but when I thought about the lyrics, I naturally said that I wanted to write them myself. That was surprising even to me.
Interviewer: Is this because you’ve been playing the role of Susumu Kodai for 12 years?
Ono: This song is the ending theme for Chapter 2, and I thought it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to be entrusted with such a big job. I didn’t mind if this was both the first and last time, so I decided to do my best.
In Yamato, I am Susumu Kodai before I am a singer. When I thought about what it meant for me to sing the theme song, I wanted it to be Susumu Kodai’s song. That’s why I think it was natural to think about writing the lyrics myself.
As I accumulated the experience of Kodai for 12 years inside me, Susumu Kodai and Daisuke Ono became very close. When I looked at each of Kodai’s thoughts and feelings, and each of his actions, I thought I could say with confidence that I understand him better than anyone else. So I thought it would be a lie if I didn’t write it myself, and had someone else do it instead. I thought it would definitely be better to write it with my own feelings.
Interviewer: You’ve been a music artist for 17 years. Twelve of those years overlap with the time you’ve played Susumu Kodai, so it seems surprising that you haven’t done a Yamato theme song until now.
Ono: There is the theme song called Space Battleship Yamato, and many artists have sung it. Kenichi Suzumura, who played Daisuke Shima, participated in it, and I think there was a question of whether I would participate as well, but I had a strong feeling that I was Susumu Kodai.
Interviewer: Did you have a stronger feeling that you were a voice actor rather than a music artist?
Ono: Yes. I think I was carrying too much of the role of Susumu Kodai. If anything, I thought I couldn’t carry it any more than that. That’s why I never participated in the songs. I didn’t have the confidence to sing as Daisuke Ono, and I might have ended up singing as Susumu Kodai. I was in a dilemma with myself about singing as Daisuke Ono, even though I participated as the voice actor for Kodai. It’s also my pride as a voice actor, so I think that for the past 12 years, I’ve just been thinking about fulfilling the role of Kodai and living it to the fullest.
Interviewer: What caused the change in your mindset from that?
Ono: It’s not something you can say lightly that you and your role are one and the same, and Kodai is the only one I can think of that way. Ever since I was given this role, I’ve always thought that it was like me, but after 12 years of playing it, everything has become synchronized: my way of life, my emotions, everything.
Interviewer: So it really just fell into place.
Ono: That’s right. I wanted to try it now, and I was actually able to sing it, and even wrote the lyrics. I’m really grateful to all the staff. When they asked me to do the ending theme song, more than being moved that I could sing it, I felt confirmed that the staff trusted me. That was what made me happiest. After all, an ending theme song isn’t just about singing, it’s about carrying the work on your shoulders. I felt like they were saying, “You’re the one for the job.”
Interviewer: I’d like to hear about the thoughts you put into the lyrics.
Ono: When writing the lyrics for the theme song, I thought I had to follow the story and focus on where the story ends, and the theme I really wanted to convey. So what is it that Yamato wants to convey? What impresses me about REBEL 3199 is that because you can’t change the past, you have to live in the present, doing your best and struggling to survive.
Many difficulties await us, but we can’t go back and change the past. That’s why we have to live our lives fully in the present, without forgetting the past, and cherishing those feelings. I think that will ultimately lead to the future.
I think that for Kodai, Sasha is that person. When I think about what we’re living for, we’re not living just for ourselves, but to hand hope to the future. I think that’s what Sasha is to Kodai. He has doubts, but halfway through he realizes that he has to do what he can now for the sake of the future.
In the first chapter, Kodai was caught up in the whirlpool of fate and separated from Yuki, but in the second chapter, further tragedies pile up. Director Fukui told me, “Around this second chapter, Kodai is at the very bottom of despair. He is at his most depressed right now. But on the other hand, he has reached the very bottom, so from here on the only way to go is up. So please endure it for now.”
After the voice recording [for Chapter 2] was finished, I thought Kodai would gradually move toward the future, and that’s when I was approached about this ending theme song. So instead of singing about Kodai being at the bottom of despair, I wanted to sing about him reaching out and continuing to think and hope, even if it was a wish that would never come true. That’s the image that came to my mind. I wanted to make that into a song.
I also wanted to put the things I’ve felt in my life as Daisuke Ono into the lyrics. A lot has happened in Yamato over the past 12 years. There are scenes in the story where people are separated from their loved ones and lose them, but I also had to say goodbye to people who were important to me. That’s true for the role, and for me as a person. There were really tough times, and I think I was always looking down at those times.
But at some point, you have to look up, you have to move forward. So, although it’s very simple to put it into words, I think Yamato is life itself. It’s not just us who are making it, but the people who watch it are also walking through life with Yamato. Many different people have been involved with Yamato and become its crew. I think the ship has progressed to this point.
So the opening line of the lyrics, “Since then, I’ve seen many shooting stars float by,” expresses exactly that. That’s the first line that came to my mind. I kept writing and erasing, erasing and writing over and over again, and all those feelings are condensed into that line. I never want to forget the past, and it’s because those people were there that we have a future.
Interviewer: I thought that it was about entrusting to the future not only the feelings of this remake series, but also the feelings of the people involved in the original work. I thought it was a very Yamato-like theme.
Ono: As you say, it’s a universal theme of Yamato that has continued since I was born, when Kei Toyama (the previous voice actor for Kodai) was in charge. I think Yamato‘s mission is to carry the feelings of the people who have been involved in it into the future.
Interviewer: You commented, “I hope that this song will pass on the passion carried by the Yamato crew to the next generation,” and that’s where it connects.
Ono: Actually, that’s something I’ve been thinking about since before I wrote the lyrics. I think it linked with my own feelings when I got here. I’ve been active as a voice actor for a little over 20 years, and what I think now is that I have to guide the younger generation. I want to teach them all kinds of things, and I want them to pass on what we have conveyed to even younger people. I really feel that way now.
I might not have been able to write these lyrics if I had tried it five or six years ago. In fact, I might not have been able to write them even two or three years ago. There was the COVID-19 pandemic, and I’ve had a lot of experiences in my life, and when I thought about what I could do as a voice actor, I was in a period where I strongly felt that I had to give something to others. That’s why I’m glad that I was given the chance to write the lyrics for the theme song now.
Interviewer: How did you approach the recording?
Ono: When I’m recording, I try not to think too much about technical things like, “I’ll sing in a whisper here.” Since it’s the ending theme song, you’ll listen to it while immersed in the afterglow of the story’s end. I think it would be more of a hindrance to try to make my own emotions heard there. If I were a viewer, I’d rather have this song be a part of the work, a single element, rather than Daisuke Ono, the voice of Kodai, taking the spotlight.
Interviewer: Speaking of Yamato‘s music, there are many great songs, but which ones have made an impression on you?
Ono: It has to be Cosmo Tiger (Wan・Dah・Bah). In particular, Kodai is a fighter pilot, so when I hear this kind of music, I get excited. For me, Akira Miyagawa’s soundtrack is Yamato, and it’s something that was passed down to him from his father, Hiroshi Miyagawa. I think there’s a universal appeal in that aspect as well.
Interviewer: I think the remake series is also a history of directors passing the baton from one to the next.
Ono: It’s true that directors have been passing it on from one to the next, starting with Yutaka Izubuchi of 2199. They really…they all really love Yamato. (Laughs) I think there was a path where they could have said that the old Yamato was good and continued to love it, but that’s not the case. Everyone thought that since it was such a wonderful work, it had to be passed on to the next generation. I think that’s a very precious thing, and a very wonderful thing, and I simply love it. If I had to sum it up in one word, I guess it would be love. That’s also the theme of Yamato, so I definitely wanted to include “love” somewhere in the lyrics.
In that sense, the image that immediately came to my mind was Kodai reaching out his hand to Yuki. And then he holds hands with her. But there are many scenes where their hands separate. It’s even depicted in this work. They hold hands and then they separate. There are so many times when they miss each other. As an actor and as a fan, I find that really frustrating. (Laughs)
The image of holding hands came to me right away. I thought I definitely had to include “holding hands” somewhere. That’s true not only for Kodai and Yuki, but also for Kodai and Sasha. The two of them are like family, so I want them to hold hands somewhere someday. Even more so, I want it to lead to Earth and Garmillas, or for nations to hold hands. The more I wrote the lyrics like that, the more it made sense to me that Yamato was depicting these things.
Interviewer: In a sense, writing the lyrics was also an act of reaffirming Yamato for yourself.
Ono: That’s right. We look back on the past in the first two lines of the A-melody. I was thinking about the Yamato crew. When I came up with the composition of depicting love in the D-melody, it felt like everything came together after that. I wrote and erased, wrote and erased, and in that sense, I actually got a hint from Takuya Watanabe. The title of the music file that Watanabe sent me was actually Reach for the Star. It could have been “Yamato Theme Song (tentative).” But it was Reach for the Star. I thought that was a really good phrase.
Reach for the stars even if you know it won’t come true. The image of those hands meeting one day popped up from that. I was able to write more and more from there. I thought it was a good thing. At first, I just thought it simply meant “Reach for the stars,” but it was actually an English idiom that means “to have high hopes.” It might not be taken in a positive way, but I thought it was okay to have high hopes. That also means “to keep on hoping without giving up.”
Interviewer: Please give a message to those who are looking forward to Chapter 2.
Ono: When the song was completed, Harutoshi Fukui listened to it. He said, “This may be rude, but it’s much better than I thought.” He also said, “With this song, we can end Chapter 2 very beautifully. Thank you so much.” That made me happy. More than anything, it made me feel like I was a part of Yamato after all. I truly felt glad that I had continued to play Susumu Kodai. At the same time, I felt relieved.
As I said earlier, Chapter 2 is actually very dark and heavy. It may be the most difficult chapter in REBEL 3199. You can’t see the future, and it’s hard to find hope. To borrow Fukui’s words, rock bottom. It’s a very serious and heavy story. But there is always hope in it. And it’s precisely because we don’t know what the future holds that we have no choice but to embrace the past and live in the present. That’s why I think we live so desperately.
I took on this second chapter as Susumu Kodai with those feelings in mind. I hope that everyone who watches it will feel like taking on challenges just like him, and even if they encounter hardships, they will find hope somewhere. And I hope that they will have that positive feeling, like they’re moving forward toward the future. I think that’s why the song Reach for the Star exists, and I hope that when people listen to it, they will carry the feelings they received from Yamato into the future, and that they will continue to love Yamato forever.