Tag Archives: Hiroyuki Sawano

Music Spotlight: Hiroyuki Sawano – OUTSIDERS

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This is not the first nor will it be the last time that I talk about how amazing Hiroyuki Sawano’s music is. This is just one of his songs that played on my Spotify and I simply couldn’t contain myself when that melody begins. You’ve really gotta turn up the volume on this one!

The song “OUTSIDERS” is the 11th single by Hiroyuki Sawano’s artist label SawanoHiroyuki[nZk] which features two members from the Japanese boy band JO1: Junki Kono (河野純喜) and Sho Yonashiro (與那城奨).

This song was actually used for the ending sequence to the anime Fanfare of Adolescence (群青のファンファーレ) by Aniplex and Lay-duce. Sadly, I never even heard of it before now, but it appears to be a sort of coming of age story within the setting of jockeys and horse racing. Pretty interesting. I’m not familiar with any other anime series with such a setting.

What’s kinda interesting is that they got Kou Shibusawa from Koei Tecmo Games to work on the horse modeling and movement.

The voice cast is also littered with some heavy duty talent. Here’s just a small taste of who you’ll be hearing in this show:

And for anyone who would like to hear a taste of what the soundtrack is like for this show, you better check out the video below. One of the things that Sawano loves to do with his music is to incorporate vocals into many of his tracks, and this soundtrack is no different. There are so many epic tunes here!

▶︎ Links on Spotify

▶︎ Related Links

Reminiscing: Honey and Clover

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Oh boy! Reminiscing about old anime and manga gets me thinking about the music that I’ve come to love because of it! Below Rekka’s gonna gab a little bit about the Honey and Clover TV series from 2005. Wow! Has it really been that long…???

▶︎ Overview

Honey and Clover is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Chica Umino. It was serialized in Takarajimasha’s shōjo manga magazine Cutie Comic from 2000 to 2001, before being transferred to Shueisha’s josei manga magazines Young You (2001–2005) and Chorus (2005–2006); its chapters were collected in 10 tankōbon volumes. The series depicts the lives and relationships of a group of art school students who live in the same apartment building.

An anime television series adaptation by J.C.Staff was broadcast for two seasons on Fuji TV. The first 24-episode season aired from April to September 2005; the second 12-episode season aired from June to September 2006. It is also the first show to premiere on the Noitamina programming block. The series was also adapted into a live-action film premiered in July 2006, and two separate live-action television dramas in 2008, one broadcast in Japan on Fuji TV from January to March 2008, and the other broadcast in Taiwan on CTS from May to August of the same year.

Wikipedia

Speaking of the TV drama, I remember watching this as well, although I thought that the anime told the story much better. Still, I was a fan of Toma Ikuta at the time, so… yeah. He was also in another drama with Satoshi Ohno from ARASHI, a series that had the soundtrack composed by none other than Hiroyuki Sawano! You can find the soundtrack here on Amazon.

I’m finding so many weird connections right now, it’s not even funny…!! We’re gonna have to reminisce about multiple things in this post, but let’s get back on track first with Honey and Clover.

Looking at the cast list again, I realized that Hiroshi Kamiya played the role of Takemoto, the lead character, but this was before his motorcycle accident, so his performance feels quite a bit different here than after. He has such a great voice, and his older performances feel somehow unique and young (obviously). Plus, Tomokazu Sugita played the role of Mayama.

▶︎ Music by Spitz

▶︎ SPITZ – Yoru o Kakeru

It was this show that got me really into music by SPITZ, and I especially loved the vocals by Masamune Kusano. He has such a gorgeous voice, I can listen to him sing for hours. And back when I was still living in Nagoya, I went to one of their concerts and absolutely sobbed when they played the song below, “Yoru o Kakeru”.

https://open.spotify.com/track/6cJXx1rxJKNWxobeGWSb8A?si=37ab809bcf884cc2

▶︎ SPITZ – Sakana

▶︎ SPITZ – Supika

▶︎ SPITZ – Gerbera

Another song of theirs that has remained a favorite of mine, although I’m not sure if it played in the Honey and Clover anime, is the next song below, “Gerbera”.

▶︎ Other Music

▶︎ SUNEOHAIR – Waltz, Honey and Clover ending theme

▶︎ ARASHI – truth, opening theme song to the 2007 drama 魔王 dEVIL

I found the first episode on YouTube, so I’ll share it below. Just watching a little bit of this again after such a long time away made me remember how funny of a show it was. I really miss it. Maybe I need to watch the whole thing again sometime soon!

And regarding animation production artwork, I managed to snag this gorgeous set many years ago of one of the best scenes between Morita and Hagu. So happy!

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Today’s Nostalgic Songs

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Ever feel like you’re getting wrapped up in such deeply nostalgic feelings when you listen to some music and just can’t stop? Yeah, that’s me right now! Let me share a couple of these absolutely awesome songs that I just can’t help but jive along to…!

In no certain order, here are a couple songs that instantly swept my late afternoon sleepies away! And since I’m also on a huge Hiroyuki Sawano kick right now, let’s start with some of his amazing work on the XenobladeX soundtrack:

XenobladeX – Uncontrollable
XenobladeX – Don’t Worry
XenobladeX – In the forest

I thought I had some other nostalgic songs in the rotation, but I guess this was these were the only ones!

Kotani Kinya – Glaring Dream (Gravitation)
Suneohair – Waltz (Honey & Clover)
PornoGraffitti – Melissa (Full Metal Alchemist)
PornoGraffitti – Agehachou
Linked Horizon – Guren no Yumiya (Attack on Titan)

And since it seems like I’ve sort of stumbled upon a bunch of other nostalgic songs from 2002, let’s have a listen to this playlist. Really brings me back!


So, what did you think? Are any of these songs nostalgic for you? I guess some of these are really that old, but they still give me those great nostalgic vibes! Let me know in the comments below!

New “Solo Leveling” music video performed by Hiroyuki Sawano

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The aniplex official YouTube channel released a gorgeous music video of 2 tracks that will be appearing on the Solo Leveling original soundtrack, due out on March 27! Check it out!

▶︎ Other amazing tracks by Hiroyuki Sawano

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Music Video for the “Solo Leveling” opening theme ‘LEveL’ released

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Along with the release of the single CD, Hiroyuki Sawano also released a music video with some awesome dancing mixed in with sword fighting and a bunch of cool special effects! Check it out!

For anyone, like me, who’s slightly freaking out over this series (aka really enjoying it), here’s something new for you to chew on: the official music video to LEveL by Hiroyuki Sawano & TOMORROW X TOGETHER. It’s such an up-beat song to begin with that adding the cool dancing and sword action into the mix bumps it even further up the hype train. I still have yet to pick up the actual CD, but I’ve been listening to this a lot on YouTube, which you can watch below!

▶︎ Related Links