| Everyone and their grandma loves Yuki Kajiura and Yoko Kanno. That's a given. But if you aren't an OST nerd, those are also the only 2 anime composers you've ever heard of (I know they were the only ones I knew about for a loooong time.) I don't know much about composers. I know Kaoru Wada and Kenji Kawai are supposed to be pretty damn good, and I do have some OSTs from either - Wada especially is one of my favorites with the Casshern Sins OST being in probably my top 10 and while I don't have the OST, I loved the music in Princess Tutu. However, my personal favorite composer of all time is one of the most brutally overlooked. Yoshino Yuuji is his name, and I first found out about him through Spice and Wolf, one of my favorite OSTs. I then found out he did the .hack//LEGEND OF THE TWILIGHT OST which I've owned for goddamn years having it come with the v1+box. I started finally listening to it then and realized it was a barrel of fun and eclectic joy. He also did Brigadoon, which I can't find the OST for, but the music in the show is simply great. Other than that he's only done Marie and Gali, as I only just learned. Kasamatsu Koji with the help of Jean-Jaquez Burnel made the hilarious and awesome Gankutsuo OST and Koji apparently did 'sound design' on shows like Boogipop, Lain, and Noiseman Sound Insect - I would have asked what the fuck 'sound design' was if I didn't know how crazy the audio in those shows was. J.A. Seazer. I just had to say it. And he's mostly done live-action though. ZETTAI! UNMEI! MOKUSHIROKU! It's also hard to list Nujabes or Fat Jon since they've only done the Samurai Champloo OST - same goes for the guys who did the Tezhnolyze OSTs and not much else. I wish Shoji Meguro would do anime music. I love his work for the Shin Megami Tensei franchise, so Id love for him to branch over. Tsuneo Imahori is fucking badass, having done the Trigun and Hajime no Ippo OSTs and playing guitar on some of Kanno's best (Cowboy Bebop, Arjuna, and Wolf's Rain). On that note, a shout-out to Taniuchi Hideki for his great work on Akagi and Kaiji and also Death Note, and apparently he's doing Aoi Bungaku now. There are some I'd love to mention like Sahashi Toshihiko, but I'm sure someone else will say a lot more about them than I can, having only heard 1 or 2 of their works. |
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| Ohtani Kou is probably my absolute favorite. I've been digging Audio Highs as of late with their work in Basquash/Gintama. Kagamata Eiichi for Gintama as well. |
| I can't think of any bad soundtrack that Ohtani Kou has composed. Love or hate Shana, one of the ones that stuck out at me was how nice and gritty the music was for the action scenes, which could have been taken from Shadows of the Colossus, while the slice of life moments were still calm. If you'd asked me this about 5 years ago, my answer would have been Taku Iwasaki, hands down. With his release of the two Kenshin OVA's, the work he's done for YKK, Getbackers, and Witch Hunter Robin, I was completely blown away by the awesomeness of his music. Then he composed the soundtracks to Yakitate and Black Cat and has been inconsistent ever since. So now, I've been mostly flitting between composers. Haketa's caught my ear for the time being with his slow, but graceful piano music. The Choro Club have also been good, though the lack of Takeshi Senoo on Ristorante Paradiso's soundtrack was quite telling. And Ottocycle knows I've been enjoying Sawano a lot as of late, but that's about it. Oh yes, I suppose Sahashi deserves a nod for consistency. I enjoyed his work on Gunslinger Girl and the FMP series. NegativeZero will probably cite his Gundam SEED works as being pretty awesome too and if the Symphonic arrangements of that OST is an indication, it's pretty solid all right. I just haven't listened to his work on Elements Hunters (which is his most recent OST IIRC) so I don't know how well he's done as of late. :P |
Anime Instrumentality - Anime music news and soundtrack reviews |
| I smell a top 05 coming on, though no order because i hate ordering lists. =/ Yoko Kanno - Omo said it, and i 100% agree. It does help that she's done scores for some of my favorite shows, and i've grown up with them since an early age. Still to this day i'm blown away by her Macross Plus work. Kaoru Wada - Along side Kanno, this is another composer i've grown up with. He scored the first anime i ever watched, Tekkaman Blade. Even with his latest works for D.Gray-man and Casshern Sins, i'm always brought back to my childhood. Kenji Kawai - Heh, Kawai. S.E.N.S. - It started off because of anime (their score for xxxHolic), though since then i've become a huge fan of theirs, and listen more to their studio works then anime ones. Still i say they belong in my top 05, because next to Yoko Kanno, i listen them to most. :3 Naoki Sato, Shinkichi Mitsumune, Toshihiko Sahashi, Ko Otani and Yasuharu Takanashi]. Yeah i cheated. Yuki Kajiura belongs on my list as well, though it's a shame a lot of her works are pretty much the same. Sure if you're into that, then you won't mind, though after listened to one of her albums for a while, then going onto the next, you just feel a little tired. Still, her work for Kara no Kyoukai is one of the best scores i've ever heard. |
| I have to go with Yuki Kajiura since I have listened to most of her music than other composers. I know that most of her music sounds alike. But still, she's the reason why I got into anime music. ^^ Although I don't mind listening to other composers like Nanase Hikaru (Phantom ~Requiem from the Phantom~, Shinkyoku Soukai Polyphonica), Haketa Takefumi (Someday's Dreamers, Vampire Knight), Shinkichi Mitsumune (A Little Snow Fairy Sugar, Rozen Maiden) and many more. |
My Candies : |
sherlock_marple said: Haketa Takefumi (Someday's Dreamers, Vampire Knight) Have you heard his score for Aoi Hana? I highly recommend it if you're a fan of his works. On and watch the show if you haven't already. :3 Funny, because i nominated a track from the album for this weeks relaxing theme. |
| Iwasaki is at the top of my list, for daring to experiment after he started to flounder in his distinct individual style, and then finally being vindicated in Gurren Lagann. Sawano is climbing really fast into my spotlight. Gigantic Formula and Sengoku Basara both have really fitting and outstanding scores. Masuda needs some love in my opinion. His Mushishi score punched me in the gut through the speakers, and his Naruto score gets the viewers pumping, and is extremely appropriate for the show indeed. I just stumbled upon something. Don't the above three compose stuff whose tone largely depends on the show they're doing it for? Iwasaki has only recently started doing it, shedding a fair bit of his old style for it too. -Kajiura's music seems to have evolved somehow, and I like where it's going. -Kanno has had a strong showing in MacF for me, and it's a continuing journey experiencing her work in DtB and Turn A Gundam among others. -Satou has got this knack for composing really epic stuff, and I look forward to how he develops in other areas (or concentrates on what he does best). - Senju has been getting increasing coverage here in this club as of late. Very attention drawing, his music is. I'll be keeping an ear out for him. ...where did Hayashi Yuuzo go after doing the H&C OST? |
| Someone slap me for forgetting Tanaka Kouhei. >_> He's got this tendency to score really really epic super robot shows, like GaoGaiGar, G Gundam, and Gunbuster. Doing it consistently, as shown by these three shows definitely earns points in my book. :) Any idea where he's gone? |
| If we're to believe ANN the last major work he did was for Rosario+Vampire OST's. He's still doing One Piece music and I think they are starting a new season of that soon as well. This season...doing the in-between animation for Kimi ni Todoke and Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood Wahhhh? Also carry over from Best OST of 2009 thread I am surprised no one has mentioned Muramatsu Ken. There was a real fascination with his Kurenai soundtrack when this group first started. His Umi Monogatari BGM was really good too from what I remember. Downloading the OST as I type to confirm that. |
takaNov 15, 2009 1:36 PM
taka said: His Umi Monogatari BGM was really good too from what I remember. Downloading the OST as I type to confirm that. At the moment i'm having a hard time deciding which one i prefer, though i've only been listening to the Umi score for about a week, so i guess that's understandable. :3 |
| With Muramatsu, I think I still like the music he composed to sketchbook a whole lot more than for Kurenai. The latter had some interesting pieces, especially on that second disc, but the first disc did sorta drag on and on. I do have high hopes for Umi Monogatari though, so we'll see how that goes. |
Anime Instrumentality - Anime music news and soundtrack reviews |
| So far I like the first disc of the OST much better. The first 4 Eikyuu no Nagisa tracks are really nice. I like the beach imagery the shamisen creates imo. |
zzeroparticle said: With Muramatsu, I think I still like the music he composed to sketchbook a whole lot more than for Kurenai. The latter had some interesting pieces, especially on that second disc, but the first disc did sorta drag on and on. I do have high hopes for Umi Monogatari though, so we'll see how that goes. Of the three, I still enjoy Sketchbook the most. Though I think the problem is that it's all variations of the same stuff more so with him. That being said, I think Umi Monogatari is more consistently good quality than Kurenai's OST (which had some great stuff, but too sparse IMO), but Sketchbook still beats both out. Everyone's said everyone that I would have said already at who my favorite composers are, so eh. I would add Kunihiko Ryu too, though I've yet to hear his stuff from Letter Bee or Saiunkoku yet. And of composers whose works I've been looking forward to, Conisch is a "newcomer" to that trend, as I've been enjoying his OST works from Hitohira and Linebarrels of Iron. |
 Drastic My Anime Blog - My anime blog. :3 |
zzeroparticle said: Oh yes, I suppose Sahashi deserves a nod for consistency. I enjoyed his work on Gunslinger Girl and the FMP series. NegativeZero will probably cite his Gundam SEED works as being pretty awesome too and if the Symphonic arrangements of that OST is an indication, it's pretty solid all right. I just haven't listened to his work on Elements Hunters (which is his most recent OST IIRC) so I don't know how well he's done as of late. :P Sahashi is fairly good, especially with the sort of martial, bombastic orchestral stuff which works so well in Gundam. My main issue with him is that he pinches liberally from classical pieces. It's actually really distracting at times. Listen to his Gundam SEED Destiny stuff and there's a few pieces (don't have track numbers off hand) where it's really obvious to the point of being distracting - you'll be listening along and suddenly you're listening to Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain" only it's not quite right. At least that's what it's like for me. Anyway, just throwing this one out there since it's fairly different in style from the bulk of what's been suggested here: I really, really liked the soundtrack for Air Gear. It was a once-off by an individual (or group) credited as 'Skankfunk' which I can find no mention of anywhere. It's pretty clear that they've based the music off of Hideki Naganuma's work for Jet Set Radio (some of my favourite game music, incidentally) and it's pretty much a perfect for the show. |
Shiroth said: sherlock_marple said: Haketa Takefumi (Someday's Dreamers, Vampire Knight) Have you heard his score for Aoi Hana? I highly recommend it if you're a fan of his works. On and watch the show if you haven't already. :3 Funny, because i nominated a track from the album for this weeks relaxing theme. Haven't really watched the anime, though I heard that it's good. But I'll download the OST. Thanks. <3 |
My Candies : |
omo said: i haven't tried vampire knight. is that any good? Yeah his score was pretty good for that, though shame i didn't like the adaptation. Listen to the score while reading the manga. :3 |
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