#if this story was supposed to be some kind of precursor to pt 2 then like i think theyre starting to overdo it

[translationandbetrayals]

The sound of cool: Shinichiro Watanabe and a contemporary dialog between Japan and America, pt. 2

While sipping a scotch, he nonchalantly smokes his cigarette. A saxophone swallows in the background. Can we call this “cool”? Let’s try with another example: sitting at the corner of a bar, he smirks as a group of yakuza threatens him; he smiles, as he is not threatened at all. A beat suddenly appears, and the fight ensues as he effortlessly defeats the yakuza. Now, is this cool? And furthermore, what makes it cool? Is it the attitude, the confident lack of preoccupations? Or – bear with me – is it the music? 

Last time we discussed Watanabe’s work, we arrived at the connection that Cowboy Bebop (1998) has with American pop culture (specifically film noir). But, as we may suppose, anime is a complex artform, and style and aesthetics is only a part of what makes it great. So, let’s continue: what is so great – or dare I say, so cool – about Shinichiro Watanabe’s soundtrack decisions?

It all starts with the music

Several stories allude to the times when Watanabe and Yoko Kanno (Cowboy Bebop’s composer) were in the making of the series: a sort of synergetic creative flow inspired the young artists, and as Watanabe made characters and proposed ideas, Kanno suggested music to accompany the setting, and visceversa: as Kanno presented music to Watanabe, he created scenarios and worlds for it to be set.

For Watanabe, music does not serve the animation, but instead it complements and even is served by animation. Therefore, the chosen soundtrack will directly have an effect in the overall mood of the series, not just because music helps settle a mood, but because the music served as an inspiration for everything else that came after.

To further comprehend the effective and stylish nature of Watanabe’s sound, we first need to take a listen to two important collaborators in the music side of his productions: Yoko Kanno (Cowboy Bebop, Kids on the Slope, Space Dandy) and Nujabes (Samurai Champloo).

Yoko Kanno: in a realm of her own

Born in 1963, she started her career as a composer in the videogame industry with Koei during the late 80’s. She made her transition to anime in the early 90’s, when offered to work in Macross Plus (1994, 1995). It was during this project where she met a young director with a vision: Albert Einstein (no, I’m joking; it was Watanabe).

Only a few years later she would be involved once again with Watanabe, but this time in a project much more ambitious and personal: yes, I’m talking about Cowboy Bebop.

Recorded by The Seatbelts, this OST has become a monomyth of its own, and with good reason. Thanks to Watanabe’s taste and Kanno’s incomparable compositional skills, we got some of the most memorable and remarkable tracks in the realm of anime soundtrack: from the accelerating big band of the opening Tank! to the mellow and nostalgic guitars of Waltz of Zizi, musically its all over the place. But its variety doesn’t make it less cohesive; on the contrary, the compositional approach required this type of flexibility. Treating each episode as a self-conclusive story (with self-contained worlds most of the time) means that the aesthetics that can be evoked musically are diverse; and in that kind of freedom is where Kanno’s ability to adapt shines: from urgent ska in Bad Dog, No Biscuit to harmonica blues in Spokey Dokey, from beautiful rock pop in The Real Folk Blues to ethereal “space jazz” in Space Lion; truly, Kanno can do it all. 

Nujabes: invoking the chill

The short life of producer Jun Seba (who went by his alias Nujabes) was marked by a prolific and impeccable work in the japanese hip-hop sphere during the 00’s (specifically in the world of sampling). Known by blending jazz and hip-hop aesthetics, he is considered a precursor of what we can hear today in lofi hip hop and chill music. Many contemporary rappers and producers still respect the legacy of Nujabes, to the point of comparing him to J Dilla (A famous american hip-hop producer from the 90’s).

The sounds of Nujabes reached the ear of Watanabe during the early 00’s, while producing Cowboy Bebop: The Movie. Thinking of characters to a new series, Mugen (Samurai Champloo’s protagonist) came to mind, envisioned as a “rapper samurai”. From then, and as its common in Watanabe’s creative process, the music came to shape the whole series: a blend of samurai movies set in the Edo era, and contemporary hip hop music and style.

We can see this exquisite blend most predominantly in the opening of the series. A mysterious but calm beat first sounds while the opening rolls in: Battlecry. Then, Shing02 starts to rap over the beat, from the perspective of a samurai and the world vision it encapsulates, narrating about honor, nature and the sword as central elements. All this while an amalgam of Edo-style animation and hip-hop aesthetics of the characters and settings appear in the screen.

And with this we can conclude the analysis of Watanabe’s work and its relation to American culture; a contemporary take to Japanese-American relations and a cohesive and stylish hybrid of both worlds: the noir and sci fi, jazz and space fights, hip-hop and Edo; the tradition and the future.

- Nicolás Iriarte Valenzuela