Ghost in the Shell: Arise began as the third video series based on the original manga by Shirow Masamune. Cornelius (also known as Keigo Oyamada) produced the music that complemented this bold series in its re-imagining of the intriguing elements of the original Ghost in the Shell, including updated character designs for the members of Public Security Section 9. Oyamada wrote and produced the music used in the series roughly over a span of three years, not limited to the main and ending themes.
How did he arrive at the sound that so effectively entices listeners’ imaginations? In this interview, we discussed Oyamada’s stances and standards as well as his personal memories of anime soundtracks.

——Ghost in the Shell: Arise received a theatrical release for all four films, followed by the production of a TV version and other long-term series developments. How did they order the music used throughout them? There’s quite a lot of it.

 

Keigo Oyamada(“Oyamada” below): The made-to-order request came with a simple storyboard, so I started narrowing down the ideas there. They later sent additional simple video storyboards, so I aligned things while watching those and adjusted the audio tone. After that, they sent a more polished tier of videos, and I adjusted things again. We did that in a cycle.

 

——Do you consider the dialogue and sound effects in the scene a track will be used in when producing music?

 

Oyamada: I do. Music is just one element of movies and animation, so I generally tried to harmonize the music with the visuals, dialogue, and sound effects. That said, not every track I make gets used, and we don’t actually know the dialogue, sound effects, and temperature of it all until those are actually included during the “rush” (private showings) phase, so anime music ultimately has to be left to the audio director’s discretion. All I could do was hope it would fit well, really.

 

——Do you ever get specific requests related to anime-side audio, like “use a guitar here” for example?

 

Oyamada: There were a few, but none that specific. So to begin with, I gave them all of the music I had made and told them to fit it wherever they liked. I had experience making music for commercials, TV shows, and other types of videos, but Ghost in the Shell: Arise was my first major anime project. That meant I had a bit of a shock from the number of people involved in the production process. It felt like it would’ve been a bit presumptuous of me to speak up about how to use the music, and I didn’t mind letting someone who knew the overall structure use things where they worked. There were cases where they used tracks in a different order than I had them initially, but it came together smoothly, so I was happy about it.

 

——I suspect there are a lot of differences in freedom between producing music as Cornelius and anime soundtracks. Did those cause you any stress?

 
Oyamada: I make music almost identically for both, but the setting of Arise was pivotal to the soundtrack, so the biggest difference from usual was the need to make it suit the theme of each scene. That was novel for me, and it let me dig into some spaces I hadn’t before. I have to play instruments and sing myself for my own albums, where I was free of that sort of restrictive production for this project.

 

——Ghost in the Shell: Arise has different ending themes with different singers for border:1 through border:4. What went into determining who you collaborated with on those?

 

Oyamada: Honestly, I asked people close to me who seemed likely to accept the offer. (Laughter) But they were all different and have their own stories. First, I just happened to be working on a project called salyu×salyu with Salyu (the singer for Jibun ga Inai on border:1), and I found out that she was a fan of Ghost in the Shell when I happened to be talking about my work. She said, “I’ve watched all of it!” or something like that, and as we talked, she started to look more and more like Motoko to me…

 

——I feel like my image of Salyu with short hair is quite strong. (Laughter)

 

Oyamada: Yes, exactly. Her hair was short at the time, and her presence felt like it connected with Motoko’s. We also experimented with sampling her voice and layering it for salyu×salyu, so it also felt to me like that itself was an expression of mimicry. Next, we got Ichiko (Aoba) to sing for Soto wa Senjo Dayo for border:2, and I happened to see her a lot at that point, too. That was because Ichiko, U-zhaan, and I all happened to be appearing as a trio for a musical event. So I remember getting a premonition that she’d fit with the dark setting of border:2 when I was listening to her sing in person, and then making an offer.

 

——Please tell me about Sean Lennon for Heart Grenade for border:3, Yukihiro Takahashi for Split Spirit for border:4, and the METAFIVE episode.

 

Oyamada: I had an opportunity to help Yoko Ono around that point, so I spent a lot of time with Sean. Just like with Salyu, when we were talking I found out that he was also a big fan of Ghost in the Shell. He had the same reaction, like “I’ve watched all of it!” or something like that. (Laughter) So right around when the decision was made for me to work on Arise, I happened to have a lot of its fans around me. That meant I didn’t have much confusion about who to pick as singers.
Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Yukihiro Takahashi called the members together to form METAFIVE. It was a band formed for a single night, to perform at an event. But when we actually had the concert, things went better than we imagined, and I naturally started to want to work with everyone on the Ghost in the Shell project.

 

——It really seems like Ghost in the Shell and YMO would go well together.

 

Oyamada: The origin point for cyberpunk taking off in the ’80s is the short story Neuromancer by William Gibson, and I’ve heard that its title was actually inspired by Yukihiro’s 1981 album NEUROMANTIC. The cover of the Japanese translation of Neuromancer was actually done by Yukimasa Okumura, who has also done album art for YMO, so I had no objections to the pretext that I wanted Yukihiro involved since I looked up to him. (Laughter) So when he quickly agreed to the offer, we completed Split Spirit, the first original track for METAFIVE. There was an event at the Miraikan – The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in 2014 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Ghost in the Shell‘s creation. Yukihiro Takahashi & METAFIVE appeared in it as a new band. The band might never have come together without Ghost in the Shell, so I’m grateful for the opportunity it gave me.

 

——For the record, Shintaro Sakamoto wrote the lyrics for a lot of songs like Jibun ga Inai and Soto wa Senjo Dayo. What led up to that collaboration?

 

Oyamada: Sakamoto first got into songwriting with salyu×salyu, and what he produced was really great, so I wanted to keep working together on more songs from there. Usually, I’d give him the music I composed, and he would write the lyrics, I think. He worked really quickly every time. I wanted complicated wording for Jibun ga Inai, so I’m sure it was hard to write lyrics for it. He’s impressive with how he finds words that work as written text while also sounding nice to the ear. He finished the lyrics very quickly for Mada Ugoku, the track I wrote as the theme song for the 2015 Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie. And Maaya is the type of person who doesn’t make mistakes on songs, so we finished work bizarrely early that day and went out drinking by evening. (Laughter)

 

Continued to #03 The Logicomas That Comforted the Composer　

 

 

KEIGO OYAMADA

Born January 27, 1969. A native of Tokyo. After Flipper’s Guitar disbanded in 1991, he began making music under the name Cornelius starting in 1993. He scored major hits with his albums THE FIRST QUESTION AWARD and 69/96, becoming a major mover within the Shibuya-kei movement at the time. In 2006, his video collection Sensurround + B-Sides was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Immersive Audio Album at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards. He is broadly active in the musical field today, working on collaborations and remixes with Japanese and international artists as well as in music production.