Interview with Kanno Yoko

—by Egan Loo

One never knows what sort of person will be sitting before the tape recorder mike. Sometimes, the interviewee is reserved and recalcitrant—the sort of person who treats meetings like ordeals and interviewers like speed bumps. But sometimes, the interviewee is someone like Kanno Yoko.
Kanno is the composer responsible for PLEASE SAVE MY EARTH's "Memories of Time," MACROSS PLUS, MEMORIES' Magnetic Rose, THE VISION OF ESCAFLOWNE (with Mizoguchi Hajime), BRAIN POWERD, COWBOY BEBOP, TURN A GUNDAM, and more. She has worked with such creators as Otomo Katsuhiro, Tomino Yoshiyuki, and Kawamori Shouji.
But enough about her job. She is one funny, quirky sprite of a personality. She harbors no social inhibitions, no hubris. Endlessly fascinated with her surroundings, she can entertain herself with a PowerBook or a box of crayons. (Don't ask.) As many a con-goer has discovered, she also relishes any opportunity to pull out her collapsible Polaroid camera to snap people, places, trinkets, and even herself on occasion.
It is this unfettered enthusiasm that sets anyone around her at ease. (This includes English speakers as well. She says she learned to speak English with little difficulty "just in the studio," in order to work in the music industry abroad.) What follows is a casual armchair talk with Ms. Kanno:

EX: Would you prefer to do this in Japanese or English?

KY: Either is fine.

EX: Before college, did you receive formal schooling in music?

KY: As in an national [level] academy?

EX: That's right.

KY: [In English] "Ok ... no." (Laughs)

EX: Did you learn by yourself?

KY: I learned the piano through self-taught lessons. My university was actually not a music university. Moreover, I entered the studies of Japanese literature in order to become a novelist. [In English] "To make novels." However, I left [the program] after only one week. (Laughs)

EX: According to magazine articles, you composed the music for television commercials and Koei video games before participating in animation projects. How did you get involved in composing music for the PLEASE SAVE MY EARTH video series [and image albums]?

KY: At first, I was asked what I would use for the PLEASE SAVE MY EARTH theme song as a way of being auditioned among several [candidates]. I received the manga from the Victor [music] director. I read it, and I submitted several pieces—one which was used as the main theme. Because they knew my previous commercial music work, the people of Victor then gave me connection after connection, introduction after introduction. That's how it began.

EX: You have composed classic, jazz, techno, and J-Pop pieces. Which do you find the most satisfying [to compose]?

KY: Ah ... I hear everyone talk about how many genres [I work in] like classical, jazz and others, but personally, I don't divide music by genre when creating. I don't create by saying, "I must create a classical piece here," or "I must create a jazz piece here." (laughs) When I create music, I don't consider at all which genere I like best, but what the scene or the anime calls for, like a love [theme] or a mood. There isn't one genre I like more than the others. I find all of them satisfying and all inspire me in different ways.

EX: For example, in the case of COWBOY BEBOP, jazz ...

KY: As to why I used jazz in BEBOP, it has a natural feel I was aiming for.

EX: According to [EX editor-in-chief] Charles McCarter, you don't listen to music CDs very much when you relax.

KY: No, I don't listen to music [when relaxing]. There are a lot of people who ask me what CDs or other people's music I listen at home by myself. However, I listen to music at work at the studio all the time every day (laughs) sometimes for 20 hours, so I don't listen when I return home. I haven't had a [tape] recorder or player at home since long ago, since childhood. I receive samples on CDs, but I don't listen to them at home. I also don't have a MD player at home, so I can't even hear MDs samples at home. (laughs)

EX: So you listen to them at the studio?

KY: That's right.

EX: You write music in a variety of languages. Which languages do you speak?

KY: (laughs) I can't speak [other languages] at all.

EX: You can't read any either?

KY: Not reading either.

EX: Naturally, there is English ...

KY: My English is very poor. (laughs) [In English] "My English is really poor." (laughs)

EX: How about French?

KY: I have friends from France. I talk to them, and I can ask them in English, "How would you say this [in French]?" I don't understand the meaning at all. (laughs)

EX: Please describe briefly the usual process of composing a piece for an animation soundtrack.

KY: In my case, [the creators] talk to me and ask me to do a soundtrack a year or two before [the animation] is finished. At that time, I think of the plot [In English] "in my brain," when the characters' names—everything about the characters—has not been decided yet. This is even when the title has not be decided yet.

EX: When it's still in the proposal stages?

KY: That's right. In the case of ESCAFLOWNE, I was just told about a high-schooler who does fortune telling while riding a mecha. (laughs) I was given the plot about a uniformed high school girl riding a mecha, so I started by writing the first themes, about ten or twenty pieces. I talked to the director about what pieces I still needed to compose to flesh the story out. I listened to the director's response about what piece is good and what needs to be changed, and acted accordingly from meeting to meeting. If the series is long, I'm finished before it's about halfway through. If it's [from] a manga, I can know the ending while working in the middle and know where it would go. However, I think that's not the usual case. (laughs)