Crunchyroll Expo 2022

Making Anime Music ft. Kevin Penkin and Hiromitsu Ijima

Kevin Penkin and Hiromitsu Iijima have a list of enthralling soundtracks from series like Tower of God, Made in Abyss, and The Rising of The Shield Hero on their resume. Joining the list of guests at Crunchyroll Expo, Penkin stood out with his “university lecture” for their panel. The composer-producer duo were eager to demystify the secret sauce that goes into making music for anime.

The two reflected on their 7-8 year relationship, and Penkin joked how he is now a little more successful but a lot more tired. He promised to make the discussion easy to follow for those who aren't music students. Starting off with Made in Abyss, Penkin explained how the descent and the ascent from the Abyss works, as well as the dark and twisted aspects of the series. However, with this comes beauty and rich color, which lends to a “visual approach to texture.” What it means is that he prescribes word painting, a technique where the music and lyrics are working in parallel.

To play with this idea of making a musical metaphor out of visuals from the show, Penkin thought of recording a small number of musicians in a large room. He showed a picture of the Synchron Stage Vienna, which can house 135 musicians at once. But he contemplated how he could shape it to more closely fit Made in Abyss. The actual recording space ended up being about the size of the Crunchyroll Stage, but with a small number of musicians, and microphones all around the room to capture the ambient sound. This way, it creates an echo-y effect that makes it seems as if there were more musicians than there actually were. Then, he showed an aerial map of how the mics and musicians are arranged, explaining that the array mirrors how he believes the Abyss would sound like. He's grateful that Iijima allowed him to do that, but Iijima interjected that the “costs are very high.”

But what does that mean for practical composition? What does it mean to take the core characters of the show and have that represented in a compositional aspect? For Penkin, he experimented with having a musical line for every single soloist. He showed sheet music that displayed each line with its own notes and phrases. Some of them have harmonies, but none of them are playing the same notes at the same time. Similar to the ecosystem in the Abyss, where each individual does its own thing and occasionally comes together.

In the case of TV anime, he explained with image music—music based on a concept—you write music that doesn't synchronize with the animation itself. But in a movie, like the Made in Abyss film, it is synchronized with the picture (or called film music). In the TV anime, he describes the image music as typing out an Excel sheet where one row is M for “Main Theme”, M2 for “Main Theme Happy Version”, or M3 for “Main Theme Dark Version”. When coming up with ideas, Penkin says that he doesn't need much direction in terms of the characters if you're given visuals from the manga or concept art. He plays music from the first episode, which he composed while brainstorming what would happen if the Crimson Splitjaw decided to attack the characters. The movement is a “sonic metaphor” of the room that they're recording in and the sound they want to portray.

Penkin thanked Iijima for encouraging him to look into analogue sources on reflecting the characters themselves. When creating a piece that would represent the physicality of Reg, Iijima suggested a combination of acoustic instruments and a synthesized instrument called the Luminist Garden. He used 50/50 electronica and 50/50 acoustic flute and clarinet to show the character's human and robotic-likes. Closing off the Made in the Abyss section, Penkin showed what it means to synchronize pictures after you make music and add vocals. Once he composed the music for Made in Abyss in a general sense, he, Iijima, the sound director, and the series director ultimately decide where they want to place the music in the scene.

Switching over to Tower of God, Penkin envisioned as a watercolor art style from the concept art—in contrast to Made in Abyss, the visuals for Tower of God are much simpler and minimalist. His first impression of the Webtoon series was how it used minimal color but in a dramatic way. He was particularly impressed by the use of silhouette in the anime, and latched onto the concept of color into the composition.

To visualize his thought process for the audience, Penkin pulled up a project file. To show the composition inside a DAW, which is a composer's rough draft, he broke out the chords for the harp section in the file. He confessed the midi file he played included the “liberal use of a harp” where he was “badly playing on the piano, take after take” to get it to a form that he could put in a musical score. The challenge was to try and make the entire recording sound as if it's underwater or flowing through water to match the anime's setting. To help the audience understand the difference between the midi and a live orchestra, he played the same piece but with a real harp player and a string orchestra. Penkin and the anime staff wanted to portray the spiritual process of climbing the Tower, because characters dedicate their lives climbing each level. With that in mind, he and Iijima decided to go to Prague and use an ancient classical music concert hall as a backdrop for the string orchestra.

Lastly, the panel moved into the composition of The Rising of The Shield Hero music. Unlike the two aforementioned anime series, Shield Hero makes references to real-life cultures and countries. Iijima and the anime staff requested Melromarc to have a Spanish influence in its music to create a link to the location that it's based on. Iijima explained that for season two, the Spirit Tortoise is generally based on Asia but not a specific Asian country. The ambiguity allows the composer to bring in instruments from different countries as inspiration rather than use them as a direct influence. The advantage of a fantasy show is that it's not unheard of having a saxophone in a Spanish-inspired location. Iijima clarified they did this mix as a whim in the first season, but when people ended up liking the “sexy isekai saxophone”, they continued it for the season after.

Unfortunately, due to time limitations, Penkin had to skip through several slides covering musical themes and characters. Although the goodbyes were quick and short, Penkin and Iijima hope to be able to host a panel again and have time for a Q&A session next time.