HIROYUKI SAWANO

The visceral fusion of music and image, those iconic scenes etched into memory, inseparable from the sounds that accompanied them. Composer Hiroyuki Sawano, the man behind the soundtracks for Gundam: Hathaway and numerous entries in the Gundam franchise. Standing at the vanguard of modern anime scoring, we trace the contours of his creative process, his influences, the directives from director Shuko Murase, his obsession with timbre, and the philosophy of sound-craft that belongs to him alone.

――Are there any works that had a major influence on the way you create music?

“Well, I’ve been influenced by all kinds of works, but if we’re talking specifically about the orchestration style I have now, I think Hollywood films have had a huge impact on me. For example, films scored by Hans Zimmer, like The Dark Knight and Black Rain.”

――Was there anything that gave you inspiration as you worked on this project?

“With Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe, I often took the approach of arranging pieces I had already written for Part 1, so I was very conscious of how to bring those timbres into line with the sound I have now, five years later. It felt like I was building things while choosing the synths and tones I personally love. As for one specific work I was directly influenced by this time, there may not really have been one. That said, I personally love Tron: Legacy, and it definitely influenced me when it first came out. I watched the recently released sequel, Tron: Ares, after the music was already finished, but if I’d seen it beforehand, I might have been influenced by it even more.”

――When it came to the music for Gundam: Hathaway, did director Shukou Murase give you any particular requests?

“From the time of Part 1, the whole thing started with the idea that we were aiming for ‘a Gundam for adults,’ so on the sound side too, rather than pushing everything through with melody the way I did in Mobile Suit Gundam UC, the focus was more on the overall sonic palette, percussion, texture, atmosphere. Within that framework, I wanted the melodic pieces to land in the moments where they really needed to, and that was the way I built the Part 1 score. On that front, we were both talking about wanting to ‘push with sound,’ so to speak, to make the music with an approach closer to recent Hollywood films. I tackled it with the idea of bringing my own mode of expression into that.”

――Could you share your thoughts on the story of the newest work?

“(At the time of the interview, the film hadn’t been completed yet,) I’ve only seen the first half, but my strong impression is that Part 1 was, after all, very tightly focused on Hathaway, Gigi, and Kenneth. This time, though, there seem to be many more moments that depict the emotional lives of people beyond just them, and it gave me the sense that this might be a work where the feelings of many different people intersect.”

――Are there any characters in Gundam: Hathaway who particularly interest you?

“That’s a tough one, but… maybe Kenneth. He’s got this air about him, he can come across as a bit of a player on the surface, but there’s also this mature, sophisticated presence underneath. I admired men like that, but I never became one myself. In that sense, maybe it’s Kenneth. (laughs)”

――Were there ways in which the main characters influenced the music?

“This time, more than writing music for specific characters, I think my awareness was much more focused on writing for each image, each scene as it appeared. But when it comes to Gigi, there was a request for a song to play during her everyday-life scenes, so I made something a little poppier there. And for the vocal tracks, SennaRin was writing with Gigi in mind, so in that sense, yes, there were definitely ways the characters had an influence.”

――Having worked on both Part 1 and Part 2 of the films, what did you carry over, and what did you change?

“What I carried over, first and foremost, was the core melody that served as the foundation for Part 1, and from there I expanded the music outward. In Part 2, I introduced variation through the arrangements and scattered in different timbres from Part 1, so I think listeners will be able to feel that this has more distinctly the flavor of Part 2.”

――You have the lush, restrained pieces with beautiful piano lines, and then the intense battle tracks driven by thunderous low end… is one of those harder than the other, or the one you agonize over more?

“People ask me a lot what I struggle with when I write music, but not because I’m trying to act like some genius or anything, I honestly don’t struggle that much. (laughs) I’m an impatient person, so I tend to ride the momentum and just keep driving forward. With battle tracks, I build it around rhythm, so naturally my own energy starts rising too. For emotional scenes, I shape the melody while thinking about how deeply it can land, how emotionally it can come through. I think I’m able to move through both kinds of music without all that much difference.”

――This film has two insert songs. Could you tell us how each of them came about, along with any requests from the director or points of particular focus?

“Even before our first meeting, the executive producer of the film, Naohiro Ogata, had already told me, ‘We may ask you to do songs with vocals.’ He also knew that I produce a vocalist named Senna Rin, and after listening to her music, he said, ‘Her voice might really suit this.’ So I started working with that in mind. After that, I was told that one song would be needed for a Gigi scene, and another for Hathaway and Keila’s flashback scene. The direction I was given was something pop-leaning for the former, and something in a ballad style, bittersweet and aching, for the latter. First there was ‘CIRCE,’ for Gigi’s scene. Since Western music was also being used for both the opening and ending this time, I had the impression that the director liked that sort of atmosphere. The music I write myself is often influenced by Western music too, and on top of that, I was told, ‘Make it feel like the kind of pop song you’d hear in a foreign film over the day-to-day life of a career woman.’ So taking all of that on board, I began work on Gigi’s song. On the other hand, ‘ENDROLL,’ which plays over Hathaway and Keila’s scene, I composed that with the instinct that if this kind of track were to play, the audience would feel that lump in their throat right along with the characters. I kept a ballad sensibility front and center while writing it.”

――You’ve also worked on other Gundam titles, like Mobile Suit Gundam UC and Mobile Suit Gundam NT. What kind of impression does each title leave on you?

“Speaking in musical terms, Gundam UC was the work that first gave me the chance to be involved in Gundam at all, so more than anything, I wanted people in the anime industry to come to know my music through that project. That’s exactly why I committed so fully to melody, and to orchestration as well, I wanted to put everything I was capable of into that work. After that, I was approached about Gundam NT. In that case, director Toshikazu Yoshizawa told me he wanted to emphasize dance music and a more digital atmosphere, so I created a sound that pushed that digital quality to the front, including in the main theme. I think that also helped clearly distinguish it from Gundam UC.”

――Was there anything you inherited from previous Gundam works, or anything that influenced you?

“When I first got the offer for Gundam UC, I already knew there had been so many Gundam works before it, and there were some I had actually watched. But when it came time to begin, I felt that rather than becoming overly conscious of the Gundam series up to that point, it would be more meaningful for me to bring the music I normally create into it head-on. In that sense, I wouldn’t say I was musically influenced by the earlier works. That said, within the Gundam series, I have tremendous respect for Yoko Kanno. I truly think the soundtrack she did for Turn A Gundam is extraordinary. It may be presumptuous of me to say so, but I did have this determination: I wanted to make a soundtrack for Gundam UC that people who found Kanno’s work magnificent might also hear and think, ‘This is something special, too.’”

――Even in Gundam UC, there were memorable little sounds woven into the music, metallic textures melting into the orchestra, for example, that stayed in the mind. In Gundam: Hathaway, too, were there any sounds you used deliberately in that way?

“With the film, from the time I was building the sound for Part 1, I was told, ‘In your own way, we’d like you to scatter in sounds and tones that evoke outer space and science fiction.’ Within that, I expressed it in my own way through synth timbres and phrasing. Even in the new tracks, I’ll let the low end roar out and then cut in with synth sounds to sharpen the edge. So one thing I was very conscious of was how to make those synth tones feel cool, how to incorporate them in a way that truly matched the work.”

――Is there anything you’d like to challenge yourself with going forward, or any kind of music you’d like to create?

“As long as I’m given the chance, I’m the kind of person who can genuinely enjoy working on just about any kind of project, so ideally I’d love to keep being involved in plenty of grand-scale works and bold, heroic music going forward as well. At the same time, I’d also like to challenge myself with works that depict the darker parts of human nature, things that are different from what people typically call ‘epic.’ Dark music, dissonance, melodies threaded through with slightly abstract phrases, music with an ominous, alien kind of resonance… I think it could be fascinating to be involved in a project like that someday.”

――Music for horror films, for example, something like Halloween, with those striking rhythms?

“That’s true, when it comes to American horror, I really do enjoy listening to the soundtracks. But Japanese horror films… I’m terrible with them. They scare me too much to watch. So something in the Japanese-horror vein, like Sadako from Ring, maybe I’d be too scared to write that kind of music. (laughs)”

――Finally, do you have a message for the fans?

“It’s been about five years since Part 1, and I think the film has become something that the people who’ve been waiting so long will really enjoy, something they’ll want to come back to and watch again and again. From the music side in particular, of course there’s the score itself, but this time the insert songs are also used in especially important scenes. I’d be very happy if people could enjoy those songs as part of the work too, including the ones I created together with SennaRin and with Yoohei Kawakami of [Alexandros]. On top of that, the soundtrack is scheduled for release, along with the concept EP LOST and FOUND, inspired by Gundam: Hathaway, so I hope people will be able to feel an even newer side of the film through all of that as well. I have no idea how long it’ll take until Part 3, but until then, I’d be grateful if everyone could keep enjoying the series while listening to that music.”

Source: SCREENα, February 2026 (pages 040-041)