More research on the music of the Pokémon anime

[Zhen Lin]

I found a veritable goldmine of information yesterday - certainly more information than I've ever collected before on the subject - on the website of a flautist who has performed in every Pokémon movie except M8 (so it seems).

People associated with the music of the Pokémon anime

Interestingly, some of these people have worked with other anime and games you may be familiar with. Cardcaptor Sakura, Final Fantasy, Princess Mononoke, among others.

Anyway. This flautist, Asahi Takashi, a.k.a. Otchan, has most recently worked on the DP (anime) soundtrack. His his report on the experience:

August 25, 2006. Went to Victor Studio 301. Today, we recorded Miyazaki Shinji's work, the music of Pokémon. "Pokémon DP" is written on the scores distributed today - this is an abbreviation of "Diamond & Pearl" - the new anime series that begins in fall. We only have Animal Crossing in my house, so I don't really know, but it seems that there's game titled "Pokémon DP" as well. Well, this time, it's that animated.

Ah, the truth is, for me, I feel that I've been waiting [a long time] for the recording today. That is to say, back in June when we recorded for the Pokémon movie, I had the opportunity to speak to the sound engineer Nakamura Jūji, whence I learnt that there will be another recording for Pokémon at the end of August, and where Mr. Nakamura lived in Kyoto. [...]

Which reminds me, before this recording, Mr. Miyazaki and I exchanged many e-mails - it seems that the [score] writing was very difficult! If I'm not mistaken, a week before the day, he wrote that "This won't do! The recording on the 25th... can't make it! ... that's how I'm feeling as I'm working on it." [...]

Anyway, I had a listen to what was so difficult about it after the recording. The music this time had 28 pieces altogether. Of those, 10 were original compositions by Mr. Miyazaki, of which one is for the title screen and two for the eyecatch. Then, 15 arrangements of the game music, and the remaining 3 were arrangements of the songs. [...]

Now, about those 18 arrangements - apparently, the score is first started by copying the music by ear, and when that is done, the countermelody (?), base, drums etc. are dropped, and as much as possible make it so that the main melody is easily perceived. From there, bit-by-bit, the image of the original piece is picked up, and that is where the arrangement starts, for Mr. Miyazaki. It's difficult work, isn't it... by the way, I wonder why he had to start with copying by ear. Could it be that the original score for the DS could not be obtained? Mr. Miyazaki explained that generally, when such game music is composed, no score is written. Even if there was one, it would be a simple sketch. Look, for this game console that fits in the palm of the hand, the kinds and number of sounds it can produce is limited, isn't it. [...]

Anyway, as I previously said, the number of sounds a handheld game console can emit are few, so how do they make it not sound "toothless"? If you think about the polyphonic ringtones of a mobile phone, to play a full orchestral piece with only 16 tracks, it would probably sound like something is missing, wouldn't it. The game music composers are always working to avoid that.

For example, in the case of the Pokémon DP game, there are pieces where it's like, "the tempo is absurdly fast", or "the key changes every one or two bars!", or "just as you thought the key changed, it changes back!", "jump!", "jump again!", "has it returned to the original key?", "oh, it hasn't?" - that is to say, there are pieces that are dizzyingly hectic in its changes. And also, despite all that, the main melody is clear and easy to hum - it really expresses a variety of feelings and scenes well. Mr. Miyazaki also said "it's done well, isn't it".

But, even though it's such good music for a [portable] game console, to arrange this for orchestral performance, there were many problems. First, that it was so full of modulation meant that the key could not be determined... and that such a rapid tempo could not be performed with real instruments... 70 to 80% of the pieces were like this! Mr. Miyazaki must have spent most of the time on this job troubled over "what to do? what to do?".

Thus, [...], since it must be such that the children think, "it's music from the game!" when they watch TV, and that Mr. Miyazaki felt that "since the original piece elicits such a feeling, I'd like to retain that as much as possible," changing the key or the tempo is not an option (since changing the key or tempo will produce a completely different piece) and so there were very harsh restrictions. The end result are pieces full of accidentals but also pieces that leave a completely different impression that reflects the skill of the arranger. [...]

Ah, let's see an example of his hard work... but no matter how I read it, I can't understand it, so I'll leave it as Mr. Miyazaki wrote it. For those who do understand it...

The tempo is about 130. Sixteenth notes, sharp accidentals, flat accidentals, auxiliary notes, passing notes (modulating in the next bar) - there were a number of bars with heaps of accidentals. And, for those instruments with weak flats (brass instruments etc.), they are changed to sharps; for those parts that are not, it is left as-is; for strings I think the pitch can be easily attained, so I thought of adding accidentals, but the result is a jumble... [incomprehensible example follows]

[...]

Well, back now to the day of recording. According to the sound engineer Mr. Nakamura, 28 pieces is not particularly many, but apparently since there were many long pieces, for him as an engineer there were many parts that were difficult. The parts I played beside the flute and the piccolo - there was a piece where I performed an ocarina solo, and another piece where I played the recorder in unison with the piccolo part, one octave below... it was unusual. I wasn't able to hear the playback - I wonder how it sounds? I look forward to hearing it on air! I'm really interested in how the piece with the recorder and piccolo will feel. I wonder, was that, as I thought, born out of the original piece from the game, a desperate last-resort arrangement?

Speaking of which, the recording today was, unlike the usually smooth running of the Imagine-related work, delayed up to an hour. The reasons included, "more mistakes in score copying than usual", or "this was meant to start at 8PM but since everyone is probably tired from performing other pieces..." or "I wonder if the coordinator miscalculated..." etc. etc. - there were many rumours flying about, but Mr. Miyazaki commented that "with the large number of accidentals as the cause, I think the mistakes on the score and in score copying are linked." And after that, "If there were more time to review, the damage could probably have been abated a little further..." [...] but it isn't mysterious given that he was writing right up to the recording, is it. [...]

Anyway, so far it's all been about the performers, but there are also the composers and the engineers and many other jobs. This time I was able to speak to the engineer Mr. Nakamura. Apparently, the music this time had very many synthesizer and percussion instruments, so the downmixing was also difficult. I cannot imagine how the situation could be that "Pro Tools doesn't have enough voices to do it all at once"... Anyway, the first day (that is to say, the day that we worked into the night), they worked until 5AM, and the next day (that is, after a few short hours of rest after working to 5AM the previous day) they worked until around 3PM on the synthesizer pieces. Evening that day was the deadline for the product delivery, so there wasn't any other way, but even then it was a terrible schedule.

[...]

The people present that day were:
Strings: Koike Strings (小池ストリングス), 6-4-2-2-1
Flute, piccolo, recorder & ocarina: myself and Kaneko Nami (金子奈美)
Oboe: Ishibashi Masakazu (石橋雅一)
Clarinet: Togame Masashi (十亀正司)
Trumpet: Mr./Ms. Terashima (寺島) and 2 others
Trombone: Matsumoto Osamu (松本　治) and 2 others
Horn: Minami Hiroyuki (南　浩之) and 1 other
Percussion: Kusakari Tomoko (草刈とも子) and Takada Midori (高田みどり)
Piano: Matsuda Masato (松田真人)
Conductor: Haishima Kōji (蓜島公二)
Engineer: Nakamura Jūji (中村充時)

I pity the person who had the, um, privilege of arranging the game music for the orchestral performances back in October.

 

[Argy]

Interesting. Thanks for the translation.

 

[Water Pokémon Master]

Silly Japanese peoples and their procrastinating.

I hate synthesizers!!!

 

[Trainer Lisa]

This is very interesting indeed.

Thank you so much for translating this, Zhen Lin!! ^_^


I love Mr. Miyazaki's music. <3

I always wondered how they made orchestral, anime versions of the songs from the Pokemon games. And now, thanks to this article I know how they did that. It's absolutely amazing!!!! :-D

 

[Dogasu]

This is why I get pissed off whenever 4Kids/PUSA replaces the music...they've obviously put a ton of effort into arranging this music, but all of that is thrown away because the dubbers don't want to have any non-battle music playing for more than ten seconds.

 

[Habunake]

Whoever does the New Ash Theme I luv u.

 

[Trainer Lisa]

Huh? What do you mean, Habunake?

Ash has his very own theme!?


First of all, since when did he get his own song?

And second, is this song a vocal or instrumental (BGM) song? If it's a BGM piece then I really, really wanna hear it!!!!!! O_O

*hopes someone will answer soon*

 

[Snake Bandage]

...he has a new musical theme. It was released on the same CD as the first D/P opening and ending.

 

[Habunake]

It also plays during the previews of Ash-centered episodes also.

Go to #PM and watch the preview to the Mukkuru/Brock episode if you want to hear it.

 

[Zhen Lin]

A chorus is credited in the M9 credits... hmm. (I wonder when they had their recording session?)

* VOJA
* Yasuhiro Kido (木戸泰弘)
* Hiyama Kiyoshi (比山　清)
* Naoki Takao (高尾直樹)
* Yoshito Fuchigami (渕上祥人)