Chapter 2: Melody
Interview with Shiro Sagisu, Music
"Kare Kano" is a milestone in Anno's musicality.
・Invisible connection with Director Anno
Around the summer of 1997, after "The End of Evangelion" was released, I happened to meet Director Anno, shooting "Love & Pop" while I was walking from Meiji-dori to Hachiman-dori.
He opened the conversation by saying, “Why didn't they release it three days earlier? Then your song would have been No. 1 on the music charts”.
The CD "THANATOS" was released on August 1, a few days after the movie was released.
They decided on August 1 as the release date for no particular reason.
However, "Garasu no Shonen" by KinKi Kids, which was released on July 21, reached No. 1 on the music hit chart, and "THANATOS" was No. 2.
KinKi Kids is a popular idol.
Moreover, this was their CD debut song, composed by a famous musician, Tatsuro Yamashita*.
I never dreamed of surpassing it but I was happy that Anno had cared about my music that much.
Then he said something like, "I'm making a live-action movie now, so I may not work on animation for a while."
I don't remember exactly what he said, but he said that he was going to slow down his animation production.
But then, probably around the end of 1997 or the beginning of 1998 I received a call from producer Toshimichi Otsuki.
He said, “Anno will produce the animation for ‘Kare Kano’. Tomoko Takahashi and Tomohiro Ogawa will be in charge of production.”
Takahashi worked only on "Kare Kano" (1998-1999), but Ogawa continued to work on "EVANGELION:1.0 YOU ARE (NOT) ALONE." (2007).
Just at the same time, Toei (a movie company) also asked me to produce music for the movie "Abunai Deka Forever".
I was thinking that I also had to produce music for "Kare Kano," and then I heard that Anno was going to appear in "Abunai Deka Forever".
I was surprised to find out that Anno and I have an invisible connection.
We then went straight to work on the music for "Kare Kano".
A very detailed music list had already been prepared by Anno for the music production meeting.
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*He is also the producer of "Plastic Love."