Scoring Japan’s Pasts and Futures / 2: Drama, Trauma, and Sonic Eclecticism in Mainstream Music Scores for Giant Armour-Themed and Sf Animated Series of the 1970s

This chapter deals with the styles, ambients, and metaphors of robot-themed and space-set animated series; the homages to the work of some 19th- and 20th-century European composers, such as Richard Wagner, Modest Mussorgskij, Gustav Holst, and Ennio Morricone, as an inspiration for Japanese composers of the time; and the role of classical music for the creation of atmospheres and dramatic moods, as also revealed through the words of the late manga creator Leiji Matsumoto, whom the author had the privilege to interview back in 2018; passages focussing on music from that interview are included in the chapter. The chapter’s overall argument highlights the concepts of mimetism, syncretism, machinism, synaesthesia, and “citationist obsession” as the key categories/strategies that we can observe. The chapter is in tight dialogue with Chapters 40 and 41 , which readers will find in Part IV. The Chapter is in direct or indirect connection with further chapters in the Handbook: for a complete account of the connections, see the boxed text at the end of this chapter, right after the Conclusion and before the Bibliography.