Yoko Kanno
Birth : 1963-03-18, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan
History
Yoko Kanno (菅野 よう子, Kanno Yōko, born March 18, 1963) is a Japanese composer, arranger and musician best known for her work on the soundtracks of anime films, television series, live-action films, video games, and advertisements. She was born in Sendai, Miyagi, Japan. She has written scores for Cowboy Bebop and its live-action adaptation, Darker than Black, Macross Plus, Turn A Gundam, The Vision of Escaflowne, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Wolf's Rain, Kids on the Slope, Genesis of Aquarion and Terror in Resonance, and has worked with the directors Hirokazu Kore-eda, Yoshiyuki Tomino, Shinichirō Watanabe and Shōji Kawamori. Kanno has also composed music for pop artists Maaya Sakamoto and Kyōko Koizumi. She is also a keyboardist, and is the frontwoman for the Seatbelts, who perform many of Kanno's compositions and soundtracks.
Original Music Composer
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the "Sangokushi" series, a concert was held at MUZA Kawasaki Symphony Hall on Saturday, April 16, 2016. The Kanagawa Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of conductor Kosuke Yamashita, presented the first full orchestra concert of the "Sangokushi" series, allowing the audience to enjoy the masterpieces of the series.
Original Music Composer
A story that revolves around three sisters who live in their grandmother's home and the arrival of their 13-year-old half sister.
Original Music Composer
When Kanako, a model daughter and a brilliant student, disappears, her mother asks her ex-husband, a violent former policeman, to find her. As his investigation progresses, his idealized image of Kanako cracks: the girl hides a dark life that her father can not even imagine.
Music
Long-time friends Jinko and Motoko hear that their college friend Miki has jumped into the ocean. They are joined by Haraki, who Jinko happens to meet, and head by car on a journey to see Miki.
Original Music Composer
When three bounty hunters accidentally meet in a bar, their stark personalities begin to clash, turning into a three way gun fight.
Original Music Composer
Picking up from where the previous movie left off, Ranka's star career flourishes while Sheryl's health rapidly deteriorates after collapsing during a live performance. At the same time, separate factions are maneuvering behind the scenes seeking to control the Vajra horde by utilizing the singing abilities of the two songstresses. As the entire Macross Frontier fleet begins to wage its final war on the Vajra, Alto finally makes a choice between Ranka and Sheryl.
For her 15th debut anniversary and birthday, Sakamoto Maaya made an amazing concert in Budokan (Tokyo) with a selection of all her best songs! In special guests are Kanno Yoko and Shoko Suzuki!
Music
Drawing influence from the street musicians of Miyagi, four high school students form a band and spend their free time practicing for their school's upcoming festival. When the festival is abruptly concealed, they come up with a dimwitted strategy of faking a bomb threat to the school in order to force the principal to change his mind. Their plan seems to work at first, but when a real bomb goes off, the group is forced to take responsibility for the explosion and they are kicked out of school. Three years later, more details of the incident is revealed as the youth look back on the past.
In November 2008, a live concert of Macross Frontier's music was performed by May'n, Megumi Nakajima, and Yoko Kanno.
Original Music Composer
Half retelling of the original Frontier series, half new story. Conspiracies arise within the Frontier government when Sheryl Nome arrives to the colonial fleet for her concert and is soon marked as a spy for Galaxy while childhood friends, Alto Saotome and Ranka Lee both try to achieve their dreams as the battle between Frontier and the Vajra draws closer.
Original Music Composer
The story of "Ring of Gundam" takes place in a new era long after the events of the first Mobile Suit Gundam series' One-Year War. In this world setting, a giant 600-kilometer-wide ring now floats in lunar orbit. An Earth Federation Forces member named Eiji discovers an object called "Beauty Memory" buried in a high-altitude, massive rockbed on Earth.
Self
Everyone in Japan knows his work, yet few recognize his face. Chris Mosdell, British expatriate, pop lyricist, poet and visual artist, during his 30-year residence in Tokyo has written chart-topping hits with some of Japan's most influential musicians and composers, penned lyrics to anime film scores, and run with the multimedia underground of that city's avant-garde. Ink Music: In The Land Of The Hundred-Tongued Lyricist is a 90-minute documentary film detailing those artistic relationships in the expansive career of artistic word-smith, Chris Mosdell. Shot in HD on-location in Tokyo and Fukui, Japan, and New York City, USA, the film highlights Mosdell's rise from obscure expatriate bohemian poet to renowned lyricist for Japan's biggest band ever, Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). The story is told through exclusive interviews. Tokyo itself also figures into the narrative as a major character, featuring copious clips of original footage from inside the city that inspires Mosdell's work.
Original Music Composer
This movie is an alternative version of the TV series; it is composed of the two 2007 OVAs, edited to improve the pacing of the plot, and an extra segment akin to a TV episode where the cast are given the task of studying flowers. The plot has several differences to the TV series, most important being Sirius's death at the beginning, Apollo's different childhood and the more marked focus on the events of 12000 years ago, particularly Apollonius' death and Reika's previous incarnation's involvement.
Original Music Composer
The seven short films making up GENIUS PARTY couldn’t be more diverse, linked only by a high standard of quality and inspiration. Atsuko Fukushima’s intro piece is a fantastic abstraction to soak up with the eyes. Masaaki Yuasa, of MIND GAME and CAT SOUP fame, brings his distinctive and deceptively simple graphic style and dream-state logic to the table with “Happy Machine,” his spin on a child’s earliest year. Shinji Kimura’s spookier “Deathtic 4,” meanwhile, seems to tap into the creepier corners of a child’s imagination and open up a toybox full of dark delights. Hideki Futamura’s “Limit Cycle” conjures up a vision of virtual reality, while Yuji Fukuyama’s "Doorbell" and "Baby Blue" by Shinichiro Watanabe use understated realism for very surreal purposes. And Shoji Kawamori, with “Shanghai Dragon,” takes the tropes and conventions of traditional anime out for very fun joyride.
Music
"Say Hello for Me" is a love story and talks about three people's childhood friendship and their reunion after 15 years of separation.
Original Music Composer
A middle-aged gangster's lifetime of mistakes catch up with him as his personal and professional life is destroyed.
Music
The story takes place in the year 2034, two years after the events in Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG. Female cyborg Major Motoko Kusanagi has left Public Security Section 9, an elite counter-terrorist and anti-crime unit specializing in cyber-warfare, which has expanded to a team of 20 field operatives with Togusa acting as the field lead.
Music
Adapted from the popular manga of the same name, director Masahiro Takada's coming of age drama follows five Hama Art College students as they prepare to venture out into the real world on a great voyage of self-discovery.
Music
Two youths meet in adolescence, and about ten years later, reconnect as adults, and though both have changed drastically, their love still remains.
Music
The year is 2030. Six months passed since the Laughing Man Incident was solved. About 3 million refugees are living in Japan, invited to fill the labor shortage. However, the emergent presence of the invited-refugees intensified their confrontation with the "Individualists", who called for national isolation, which then led to the increased incidences of terrorist attacks. Under these circumstances, a terrorist group called the Individual Eleven carries out a suicide attack. But there was a greater scheme behind their action. When Section 9 learns this, they attempt to nail down the mastermind of the incident. Meanwhile, Kuze, a surviving member of the Individual Eleven, becomes a charismatic leader of the invited-refugees and intensifies the confrontation against the government. And Motoko starts feeling a strange sense of fate connecting her with Kuze...
Original Music Composer
The year is 2030 and six years have passed since a criminal known only as "The Laughing Man" swept through top medical nanotechnology firms committing acts of cyber-terrorism, kidnapping, and espionage leaving no known suspects. New information is revealed, as Section 9 enters the hunt for a suspect capable of unfathomable actions in this compilation of Stand Alone Complex content.
Original Music Composer
Adapted from the successful play, the film takes place in 19th-century Japan, where a war between demons and their slayers is fought. Izumo, a kabuki actor with a demon-slaying past, meets and falls in love with Tsubaki. However, something is not right, as mysterious marks appear on her body as time progresses. At the same time, it is announced that Ashura, the queen of all demons, will be resurrected and bring destruction to the universe.
Musician
The film follows Nishi, a loser who has a crush on his childhood girlfriend. After an encounter with the Japanese mafia, the film follows Nishi as he journeys to heaven and back, and ends up trapped in an even more unlikely place.
Original Music Composer
Momoko is an ordinary girl, living an ordinary life. Ordinary, that is, if you define ordinary as wearing elaborate lolita dresses from the Rococo period in 18th Century France. However, when punk girl and self-styled 'Yanki' Ichiko comes calling, her days as 'ordinary' are most certainly numbered...
Self (archive)
Memories (1995) making-of featurette, includes introductions to the creative genius behind the shows and looks at Otomo’s previous works, such as Akira. It also includes snippets from interviews with Otomo, Koji Morimoto, and Tensai Okamura.
Music
Ryo personifies water, since whenever something important happens in her life, it rains. She inherits a bathhouse and meets a pyromaniac named Yusaku. Their confrontation leads to an inevitable union, just like elements of nature blend together.
Music
Six women attempt to make it in current day Tokyo, living their everyday lives the best and worst they can. For them, every little moment becomes a ritual of the ordinary and the exciting, a balancing act for their dreams and hopes as the days perpetually tug on their heartstrings.
Music
Following the events of the first movie, the Militia finishes restoration work on its excavated spaceship and travels to the moon to deal with Gym Ghingnham and Agrippa Maintainer, who along with Dianna Soreil form a governing triumvirate over the Moonrace. On the moon, the political situation rapidly evolves as new deals are made, setting the stage for a decisive final battle to determine the relationship between the people of Earth and the technologically advanced Moonrace.
Music
Loran Cehack is a spy sent from the moon to scout out Earth, whom they plan to invade. He grows to love Earth as his true home and, after discovering a giant mech from the dark ages, he begins to defend Earth in the war. The year is C.C. 2345. Growing tensions between the Earthrace and Moonrace have spiraled into an all out war. Mankind's only hope for peace lies with a young Moonrace boy named Loran Cehack, and his mysterious Turn-A Gundam, a relic of a dark history which nearly destroyed the Earth centuries ago. As a citizen of the moon, Loran is loyal to the beautiful Queen Dianna Soreil, all the while fighting to keep the technologically superior Moonrace at bay as the pre-industrial Earthrace tries desperately to catch up.
Self
Short film and live concert "Future Blues" by Katsu Nagaishi with music by Yoko Kanno and The Seatbelts. First part of the DVD contains the live action film "Future Blues" with the same music as used in the Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door. The second part contains a live concert for Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts performing the tracks from Future Blues/Cowboy Bebop movies. Contains clips from live performances of The Seatbelts during their Earth Girls Are Easy tour.
Music
Short film and live concert "Future Blues" by Katsu Nagaishi with music by Yoko Kanno and The Seatbelts. First part of the DVD contains the live action film "Future Blues" with the same music as used in the Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door. The second part contains a live concert for Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts performing the tracks from Future Blues/Cowboy Bebop movies. Contains clips from live performances of The Seatbelts during their Earth Girls Are Easy tour.
Original Music Composer
The year is 2071. Following a terrorist bombing, a deadly virus is released on the populace of Mars and the government has issued the largest bounty in history, for the capture of whoever is behind it. The bounty hunter crew of the spaceship Bebop; Spike, Faye, Jet and Ed, take the case with hopes of cashing in the bounty. However, the mystery surrounding the man responsible, Vincent, goes deeper than they ever imagined, and they aren't the only ones hunting him.
The Seatbelts is a Japanese blues/jazz band led by composer and instrumentalist Yoko Kanno. The band performed the whole soundtrack of the anime series Cowboy Bebop and produced a total of seven albums and one live DVD. Their style is very diverse and ranges from straightforward big band jazz, blues, acoustic ballads, hard rock, country, funk to electronic, hip-hop and experimental compositions/elements.
Original Music Composer
Gaea is a mythical realm ruled by sword and sorcery and immersed in blood and violence. Thrust into a conflict she doesn't quite understand, Hitomi Kanzaki helps aid the young Prince Van as they embark upon a journey to fight the Black Dragon Clan. The battle over a legendary suit of dragon armor, Escaflowne, has begun.
Musician
A member of an elite paramilitary counter-terrorism unit becomes traumatized after witnessing the suicide bombing of a young girl and is forced to undergo retraining. However, unbeknownst to him, he becomes a key player in a dispute between rival police divisions, as he finds himself increasingly involved with the sister of the girl he saw die.
Theme Song Performance
A member of an elite paramilitary counter-terrorism unit becomes traumatized after witnessing the suicide bombing of a young girl and is forced to undergo retraining. However, unbeknownst to him, he becomes a key player in a dispute between rival police divisions, as he finds himself increasingly involved with the sister of the girl he saw die.
Music
A droll and formalistic comic drama about the various relationships among, and odd obsessions of, the residents of a Tokyo apartment block.
Original Music Composer
The film is set in the distant future in a city called Cahmpon. A scientist creates a synthetic life-form called Noiseman, which erases music from the airwaves by turning it into crystals. A group of Biker street kids rebels against this tyranny.
Music
Takashi and four of his classmates, fourth-grade students, cannot succeed in doing a back pullover around a horizontal bar. Their gym teacher warns them: they have one week to succeed; if they resign now, then, tomorrow, facing life difficulties, they will always run away and become bums. Furthermore, all five must succeed, if one of them cannot do it, then all of them fail. Takashi is really worried and wonders if he won’t be always the loser who couldn’t succeed in the back pullover bar exercise.
Music
Hidemi is bored of school, and decides to find another way to succeed in life.
Original Music Composer
In this anime anthology, a salvage ship crew happens upon a haunted vessel in "Magnetic Rose"; a cold tablet turns a lab worker into a biological weapon in "Stink Bomb"; and an urban populace carries on an endless war with an unseen foe in "Cannon Fodder."
Original Music Composer
Three decades after the great war between the humans and the Zentradi, the U.N. government is developing new technologies to use in their transforming fighter aircraft by running tests on the colony planet Eden. Military test pilots and former childhood friends, loose cannon Isamu Alva Dyson and the Zentradi mixed race Guld Goa Bowman, are selected to each pilot a new aircraft (Shinsei Industries' YF-19 & General Galaxy's YF-21) for Project Super Nova, to choose the newest successor to the VF-11 Thunderbolt variable fighter which is currently still in use by the U.N. Spacy military forces. Their own personal grudges end up disrupting the tests, and begin to wreak havoc on the program.
Music
Alice is a Japanese schoolgirl who has never thought much about the past... that is, until her classmates, Jinpachi and Issei, tell her that they've been sharing the same vivid dreams ever since they were in junior high school. In the dreams, Jinpachi and Issei, plus five other scientists, are on some sort of base or research station on the moon. The seven of them are involved in some kind of work observing the Earth, collecting data. Alice doesn't think anything of it... until she has the same dream.