A talk with the music director of Be Forever Yamato REBEL 3199
What is the appeal of Yamato‘s music that has been passed down through the ages?
Interview with Akira Miyagawa & Shu Kanematsu
Music is essential when talking about Yamato. The theme song and background music touch the heart and bring out the greatness of the story, the beauty of the battleships, and the charm of the characters. And Be Forever Yamato REBEL 3199 is no exception, the music is also amazing!
Text by Ryosuke Kobayashi / Photos by Tomoaki Tsuruta (WPP)
See the online version of this article here
Akira Miyagawa
Born February 18, 1961, in Tokyo. Composer and stage musician. After graduating from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, he has worked as a musician for Takarazuka Revue Company, Shiki Theater Company, and many other musicals and shows. He is also known for composing the hit song Matsuken Samba II. His father is Hiroshi Miyagawa, composer of the Space Battleship Yamato series. He has been in charge of the music for Yamato works since Yamato 2199.
See his credits at Anime News Network here
Shu Kanematsu
Born on October 8, 1988, in Nara Prefecture. Composer, arranger, and pianist. Began working as a jazz pianist while studying composition at the Kunitachi College of Music. After graduating, he has been working in a wide range of genres, including soundtracks for TV dramas and movies, documentaries, commercials, game music, and stage productions. He is involved in a Yamato work for the first time with Be Forever Yamato REBEL 3199.
See his credits at Anime News Network here
Reconstructing his father’s music with new young talents
Among the many anime works, the music of Space Battleship Yamato is in a class of its own. The exciting theme song, the scat with Kazuko Kawashima’s beautiful voice, and the background music for the battle scenes were all created by Hiroshi Miyagawa. He is known for composing The Peanuts’ Vacation of Love and also composed many hit songs and TV show theme songs. He was involved in all of the music for Yamato before the remakes, and passed away in 2006 at the age of 75.
His son, Akira Miyagawa, has been in charge of the music for the Yamato remakes that began in 2012 with Yamato 2199.
“When I was in the second year of junior high school, I saw the first Yamato, the Iscandar series, in real time on a black-and-white TV on the second floor of our house. I was fascinated by it, and I started to feel proud that my dad made something amazing.”
Yamato is also an important work for Akira. At first, he was going to refuse the request, saying that he did not want to do a simple remake. However, when Yutaka Izubuchi, the director in charge of the first remake, visited Akira, he said, “I feel exactly the same way. I want to recreate the first 26 episodes with modern technology and interpretation. I’d like to use only the music from back then, but we need new music, so please help me.”
And so Akira became involved in the remakes based on the music left behind by his father.
“Anyway, Yamato‘s music is very difficult. Just recreating what Hiroshi Miyagawa left behind is hard. I listened to old tapes and wrote the scores.”
He started out with the intention of only working on the Iscandar series, thinking that he couldn’t leave it to anyone else, but before he knew it, he was working on all the remakes from then on.
“There’s no point in remaking it the same way, so I put it through my filter. I thought about various things, like how I would rewrite it, or maybe bringing in three trombones instead of four, but I tried to make it sound similar. On the other hand, I tried to tweak it a little bit, and made various fine adjustments.”
Now, for the production of the fourth work in the series, Akira called on musician Shu Kanematsu.
“This was just a gut feeling. Of course, I got that feeling after listening to Mr. Kanematsu’s music.”
Akira says that the first trigger was when he heard the background music for the 2019 TV medical drama The White Tower, composed by Kanematsu. He was fascinated and asked, “What is this? Who wrote it?”
(Listen to Kanematsu’s soundtrack to The White Tower on Youtube here.)
Kanematsu was born in 1988. Most of the Yamato works before the remakes were created before he was born.
“I think I got into Yamato through the music before anything else. What I remember clearly is that we all sang the theme song of Space Battleship Yamato in music class when I was in elementary school. I think it was probably around college that I learned about this anime as an adult and started watching it seriously.”
Thus, Kanematsu and Akira worked on both the remake and the new score.
While creating the music, Miyagawa said, “I wrote this, what do you think?” and they checked their progress with each other. The work was carried out in collaboration. On the other hand, Kanematsu laughed when asked about his impressions of Yamato, “I don’t want to talk about the story because I’m afraid to say anything about it.” However, he praised the music, saying, “It’s great that it has so much melody.”
The greatest feature of Yamato‘s BGM is that it always has melody
Mr. Kanematsu watched as many past Yamato works as he could. He found that there was always melody in the soundtrack.
“There is not a single piece that doesn’t have melody. It’s refreshing and surprising.”
Not only in anime, but in recent video works, there is little melody in the BGM. Mr. Kanematsu himself says that the number of requests for “good melody” has decreased in the last five years compared to ten years ago. Akira agrees, saying, “There’s a lot music that’s more like sound effects. I think there are a lot of people now who want music that sounds like an earthquake. If there is a difference, it’s the change of the times. In other words, I wonder if the reason why Yamato is so rich in melody is because Hiroshi Miyagawa was influenced by Western movies.”
Akira says that the BGM of Western movies from the 70s and 80s was very melodious. At the time, the images were generally blurred, with blacks bleeding, but “the melody allowed the imagination to be activated, and the blurred parts could be filled in with imagination.”
“But now it’s clear. Anime is clearer with the use of CG. In that environment, if the melody is too much, it probably gets in the way.”
Both men said that since melody doesn’t suit modern video works with a strong sense of clarity, the requests themselves have become dry. In that respect, Yamato “has great recording with excellent melody,” Kanematsu recalls.
The image quality has become more modern with the remake, but the melodious parts have been passed down through the generations.
“Of course, the previous directors and sound director Tomohiro Yoshida are like that, but they’re very familiar with the position of music in Yamato. They know all about what’s valuable.”
Music takes priority. Akira says that this is a tradition that has been passed down since the first producer and original author, the late Yoshinobu Nishizaki.
“Nishizaki loved music so much that he would say, ‘Let’s start with the music,’ and he would record a lot more than planned, including music that wasn’t used. I’ve heard that this caused a lot of trouble for people around him, but culturally it’s a good habit. From an artistic point of view, it’s a good thing they did it. Once the rails are laid, you have to ride them to make a Yamato film.”
Nishizaki, who was originally a music producer, was particular about music. When producing Yamato, he hired Yu Aku to write the lyrics, and the theme song for the second movie was composed by Katsuo Ohno and sung by Kenji Sawada. He also hired Akira Fuse and Hiromi Iwasaki, which was an extravagance that overturned the norm of anime works at the time.
The enemy army’s main theme was originally Akira’s work
At the beginning of the interview, Akira also shared the following story…
“I just found out that I was also involved in the original work. At the time, when I was retaking the entrance exam to enter the composition department of Tokyo University of the Arts, my father was composing the soundtrack for a movie, and he asked me to write a piece, too. That was Be Forever Yamato.”
When he was arranging music for this remake, he thought, “This melody reminds me of something.” It was the main theme of the Dark Nebula Empire/Dezarium army.
“I remembered licking my pencil, writing with headphones in a corner of my father’s workplace for several days.”
Together with Kanematsu, he arranged the original music created by his father and composed new pieces, which he painstakingly finished. After much effort, the music for the latest work was completed.
“The original material is very rich,” Kanematsu said. “I have a lot of original material, so I think it would be easy for me to create everything from scratch, but there were too many requirements.” (Laughs)
Akira says that he felt something like this toward his father.
“You did a good job. I really praise you.”
When watching the new work, please listen to the exquisite background music.
Yamato‘s music is very difficult
“The breath of the witch at the center of the galaxy that freezes the universe.”
The enemy in this work is the presence that the Bolar officers fear. The people of Earth anxiously watch the threat approaching. As the powerful enemy appears, the sinister and magnificent background music overlaps. We hope you will enjoy the background music that these two men created with great difficulty.