Today anime fans say goodbye to Ryuichi Sakamoto, who lost his battle with cancer last week at 71 years old. He was famous as the first Japanese music composer to make his mark on Hollywood and win an Oscar. But he also was the first influential musician to become an anime composer. Let’s learn more about what he did for anime!
What Did Ryuichi Sakamoto Do for Anime?
Born on January 17, 1952, Ryuichi Sakamoto began studying music at ten years old. His career took off when he formed the band Yellow Magic Orchestra with fellow musicians Yukihiro Takahashi and Haruomi Hosono, the latter notable for being the grandson of the only Japanese passenger of the Titanic. Sakamoto is most famous for his Hollywood film work, which included 1990’s The Last Emperor and 2015’s The Revenant. He also composed the music for Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence and had an on-screen role alongside David Bowie and Beat Takeshi.
(Oh, and he also composed the Sega Dreamcast startup sound, a reader tells me.)
Growing up, Ryuichi Sakamoto was influenced by manga and anime, especially Hi no Tori (a.k.a. Phoenix). He said (in an interview) he would write music to go with the story he was reading on the page. His first efforts to work with animators were a struggle: Isao Takahata described his music as “too dark” for children’s anime and fired him.
Ryuichi Sakamoto and The Wings of Honnêamise
But Ryuichi Sakamoto would go on and do a lot for anime. The first-ever Gainax project was Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise, a high-budget film about a fictional country on an Earth-like planet trying to launch a rocket and put the first man into orbit. It’s a gorgeous film, with some incredible work by Gainax creators Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and Hideaki Anno, who would go on to make Aim for the Top: Gunbuster, Nadia of the Mysterious Seas and Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Why is Gunbuster the only sci-fi anime you need? Blog post here!
Wings of Honnêamise is one of my favorite anime films because of its similarity to 2001: A Space Odyssey in terms of the scale of the story it tells and the meticulous way it does so. It’s a long — overly long, to be honest — and uber-detailed story about Shirotsugh, a man who joins his country’s new space program because he’s sure it will be an easy life since there’s no way a backward country like his could actually succeed at launching a rocket into space. One thing leads to another, and he ends up realizing his dream of reaching orbit. It’s the best example of world-building in any anime, and every frame of the film is gorgeous.
I hope you watch all of Wings of Honnêamise, but even if you don’t, make sure to at least check out the final battle and rocket launch scene, which has to have been the most expensive six minutes of animation in the history of anime.
He Influenced Gainax Composer Joe Hisaishi
The rise of anime composer Ryuichi Sakamoto to international fame caused another composer to take note. Mamoru Fujisawa had made his first collaboration with Hayao Miyazaki, creating the soundtrack for Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. But he got the idea of changing his name to one that might befit the work he saw himself doing in the future. He decided on 久石譲 Hisaishi Joe, using kanji characters that were a phonetic homage to a musician he respected, Quincy Jones. He would then become the John Williams to Miyazaki’s Steven Spielberg. And the rest is history.
Thanks for reading this blog post about the life of anime composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, who did a lot for anime. Have you watched Wings of Honnêamise, and if so, are you a fan? I hope you sample his music in the embedded YouTube videos above!
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