"Yuji Ohno — World of Sound" — Animage December 1978 Coverage (Part 2)

 

 

Continuing off from Part 1 of Animage's December 1978 coverage of composer Yuji Ohno.

Part 1 can be read here:
https://translationmartyzone.blogspot.com/2025/05/yuji-ohno-world-of-sound-animage.html

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In the middle of playing music for
the Tokyo Kid Brothers Musical (Saramumu)

 

 

There's barely anywhere to sit
among the flood of records in Ohno's room

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—SF equals synthesizers was quite a big idea—   

Well then, when it comes to the theme of the new anime "Captain Future", how did your direction react to it?

Ohno
What I found interesting with this program is that the people over at NHK & Toei really want to make a human drama, more so than science fiction. When it comes to SF, there's a high likelihood of mecha running around. Warp technology and all of that... But no matter how much times change, humans never do. That's why it ended up becoming interesting, because they chose to focus on the heart instead. I thought that was interesting, too.

So, in order to present that in the sound as well, I tried my best not to make something SF-sounding. I needed to create it in the auditory world. That's why I chose the sounds of disco. It truly was just massive disco sounds, though on the lighter side.

Put simply, when I watched the foreign TV movie "77 Sunset Strip", I remember being really moved by the music I heard in it. I wanted to make others feel that. I wanted to make something that sounded as distant from current anime music as much as possible, to have them think, "I don't know what it is, but I want to see it every week". "There's something very modern and cool about it, isn't there?"—that's the feeling I wanted to go for.

That means that you never thought of using the synthesizer just because it was SF?

Ohno
I hate the "SF > Mechanical > Synthesizer" train of thought. In order to make a synth as mechanical as it can be, you need to use it as a hidden spice. I use a synth quite a lot, too. But I use it in the back instead, as a way to add more color to something else. If you do that, it sounds splendid.

Also, the reason you use a synth shouldn't be because it's a synth, but because there's no other instrument that fits the goal. "What I want isn't the oboe, it isn't the trumpet, rather it's something where the two are kinda mixed. Is there an instrument for that?" That's when you use a synth. If you do, the synth will sound naturally fitting. I believe it is, in no ways, an all-encompassing instrument. If you start thinking that way and constantly go along that train of thought, you're making a big mistake...

Isao Tomita's world is great because it's his. I love his musicality for the world that it is, but I have my own world, so I don't think there's even a smidge of a reason why I need to make everything like his.

(Note: Isao Tomita: composer, first user of the synthesizer. Greatest work: NHK "Shin Heike Monogatari" theme)

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(Top caption)
"If he was any thinner he'd look like Lupin"
-Ohno's manager

(Bottom caption)
Ohno mid-composing.
By his side is his stopwatch for measuring the song's length