If you’ve seen popular anime such as Attack on Titan, The Seven Deadly Sins, or Guilty Crown, you have heard the music of Hiroyuki Sawano. Born on September 12, 1980, in Tokyo, Japan, Sawano is best known for his role as a music composer for many action anime. He owns a Spotify and Youtube channel you can listen to that features many of his best songs: You See Big Girl / T:T from Attack on Titan, Dora Gong4n from The Seven Deadly Sins, and Bios from Guilty Crown.
Hiroyuki Sawano’s style of music is very distinct. Once you hear his unique style, it’s very recognizable regardless of what genre he composes for. His music is what many can only describe as “epic,” typically featuring orchestral music mixed with electronic sounds. With Sawano’s music, he evokes the very emotion he is aiming for. Whether it may be despair, hope, or valor, many of the works his music is featured in perfectly encapsulate the emotion of the scene. His music covers a wide variety of genres in the anime industry. His soundtracks have been featured in sci-fi (Mobile Suit, from the Gundam franchise), fantasy (Dora Gong4n from The Seven Deadly Sins), and zombie-horror genres (Kabanerioftheironfortress, from Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress).
Hiroyuki Sawano says he draws influences from many different genres and many different composers. One of his biggest influences was encountering Joe Hisaishi and Yoko Kanno back in high school, both of which are talented individuals in the anime soundtrack industry. He was also inspired by Chage and Aska, a popular j-pop music duo at the time when he first started. He pursued music and debuted as an anime composer in 2006. He also recalls Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer as a large sources of inspiration. With regards to his style, Sawano has stated “I’m not very conscious of my own style, but I think that my pursuit of my favorite sounds, chord progressions, rhythms, etc., may be what makes people feel that way” in an interview. While Sawano may feel he doesn’t have a style, his music is unique and distinguishable to the point where he has his style. Sawano uses the idea of collaboration in many of his works. He draws inspiration from contemporaries and past influences to create a new style. Sawano demonstrates a high level of convergent thinking, able to just take sounds and combine them in such a way to produce an epic piece of music. He states that the human connections are what draw him to produce these pieces for projects.
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend listening to some of his music. I find myself listening to many of these tracks while I work out. These tracks are best appreciated on the big screen alongside the scenes they were made for.
https://hiroyuki-sawano.fandom.com/wiki/Hiroyuki_Sawano
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2417890/
https://myanimelist.net/people/8509/Hiroyuki_Sawano
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2021/02/12/music/hiroyuki-sawano-soundtrack/
One of the things that makes AOT so iconic, I think, is its absolutely PHENOMENAL music, especially in its opening credits. Its the music I listen to at the gym, and it really gets you in the right mindset to run or lift for your life. It's remarkable that anyone is able to write the music that completely transforms the way you're experiencing the world, and this composer certainly has that power!
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