leave it to shuki

Composers for anime rarely makes me sick to my stomach. in fact, i cannot recall one time this has happened. i am not immune when it comes to the subject of tasteless music, but i suppose i like all music as long as it has complex chord progressions, as it is interesting to my ears and restores some harmony within me, or just a simple ressonant melody.
But the kind of music i enjoy the most is orchestral music. Symphonic music.
And there are a lot of really good orchestral music made to compliment anime and video-games.
however…i have sampled so much music from anime, and there are also a lot of scores that i did not find particularly inspiring. like pokemon, digimon, sailor moon (even though i like that show, scince it was the first time i ever saw japanese animation, on swedish tv) just to name exactly three 🙂
but today, i was watching tv, wich i never do, but today i did, and they we’re showing digimon on tv. maby disney channel or something, i don’t know…and i watched it for a little while.
they are so cute, those digimon…but hey…what? Is the radio on? what is this orchestral music?
it is so engaging…huh? it’s coming from the TV? it’s…digimon? I don’t remember hearing music like this when i sampled the score for the series many years ago??
So i had to do some research. and i found out, something wich undoubtedly a lot of you allready knew, that they not only rewrite dialogue and record english voices for the american dub of certian anime…they actually compose all new orchestral music for the show.
so…a japanese anime that didn’t have any decent music what-so-ever, suddenly has, like really hard and brutaly decent orchestral music.?! it’s odd.
I didn’t know they took it so seriously. i mean, the respective composer, took is seriously.
wich in this case is Shuki Levy. And also the first pokemon movies. great, great scores…
but guess what, only the american versions.
Ok, suprisingly great, is what i mean.

umm…i should probably just have blogged this, or just kept to myself, scince i am the one that is late in this realization, but i might aswell just post this.

i tink it is very cool how animation spawns such great orchestral music, and the few times it doesn’t…some other composer just re-does the whole thing.
i understand that first and foremost, the idea is to make it easier for americans to get, scince japanese music can sometimes feel a little strange and "internal" to people not used to it, but it turns out so fantastic.

that’s it.

good-bye 🙂

i think it is very cool how animation spawns such great music

That’s part of what makes video game music so exciting, too. When done well, it not only stands on its own as an artistic achievement, it also dignifies–or maybe "elevates" is the better word–something that we feel passionate about and have to defend so often. Video games still haven’t shrugged off their reputation for being child’s play. But good music has the power to help in that effort.

and the few times it doesn’t…some other composer just re-does the whole thing.

That can be interesting and inspiring, too. The Sonic CD soundtracks are just one example of that happening with video games. Example: Tidal Tempest (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMcB8zvZdq8) (American) vs. Tidal Tempest (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWif8r_D6BM) (Japanese)

If you could dig up some examples of what you’re talking about, I think that would be interesting for others to see.