“This series was conceived with the intention of taking impressions from animation, comics, and other visual works and developing them into a completely fresh musical world using synthesizers.”
-Obi Strip Digital Trip Series Description, 1983 (SDF Macross DT, translated by Windii)
Intro
When I first started
listening through tokusatsu soundtracks, I was going through the two-disc set for Uchuu Keiji
Sharivan’s BGM and noticed that the second disc began with a set of songs
titled “DIGITAL TRIP Uchuu Keiji Sharivan SYNTHESIZER FANTASY.” Upon playing those
curious tracks, I was greeted with a very electronic, synthesized, and striking
series of compositions. They were still recognizable as variations of the OST
and BGM I’d heard earlier, yet they sounded almost otherworldly.
Years of anisong searching
and listening later, and now as an avid music enthusiast, I’ve plunged into the
huge range of the Digital Trip – Synthesizer Fantasy albums. Though only
lasting around five years, the series saw many releases from a variety of
arrangers offering their own, synthesizer-heavy takes on anime and other Japanese
media music.
Some of the albums recently
received worldwide streaming releases for the first time, but I wanted to write
about this series anyways because of how much I enjoyed listening through and
discovering so many favorites. I love synthesizer music of all kinds, especially
ones that aim for their own distinctive style. The Digital Trip series is unique
among both electronic and anime music, and I think it’s worth highlighting as a
creative and entertaining series of albums.
This retrospective is a
mix of contextual overview, notes on the styles of the main arrangers, a look
at some of the tech used, the end of the line itself, and ten personal album
recommendations.
(VGMDB is the source for most
of the credits and dates in this post.)
These are
the translated liner notes from the SDF Macross Digital Trip - Synthesizer
Fantasy album, written by the arranger Osamu Shoji. The obi strip is also translated.
Many of the Digital Trip albums have liner
notes from the arrangers describing the process behind certain songs and
explain some of the technical aspects more directly. This has lots of
interesting details, especially with how Shoji used the Fairlight CMI sampler
to make many distinct sounds for the album.
Apologies
that I don't have proper scans. I hope to figure out a way to scan some of my
LPs in the short and long term soon enough. If you're interested in the Digital
Trip albums more generally, I wrote a longer overview post on the series.
As before,
the English translation is by Windii (Twitter, Ko-fi). Thanks for her help with
this, and consider commissioning her for JPN-ENG translations.
All the
punctuation is in the original text.
There is a rumor that’s spread about anime director Takeyuki Kanda’s sudden death in 1996 that has nothing to back it up. As best as I can tell, it remains unfounded and almost certainly false. The rumor is that he died in a car crash, but the only available information on Japanese sites doesn’t mention that at all. The oldest source I could find for that rumor was an uncited English Wikipedia article written by an account later banned for bad edits.
The only confirmed detail on Kanda’s death is that he suddenly
passed away at the age of 52. That much, at a minimum, is confirmed by an official
interview on the VOTOMS website with Ryosuke Takahashi that mentions Kanda’s
passing, specifically in its third footnote.
I was (and still am) working on a separate, more fun article
about a series of anime image albums, but I got sucked into this rabbit hole over
the last few days. I figured I’d tell the story of how this unraveled, as well
as share some thoughts on anime rumors in general.
This is an interview of Ippei Gyoubu (Twitter) from Newtype's August 2023 issue, which was released close to the conclusion of the Witch from Mercury. The magazine did a feature of "composition" going into some of the main creative aspects of the show.
While Gyoubu was most prominent as a mechanical designer for the show, mostly with the Jeturk House mobile suits, this interview goes into the costume and some other tech design he did. There's some interesting tidbits in how the team wanted to reflect the characters' personalities, as well as some choice comments regarding Guel.
Like last time, the English translation is by Windii (Twitter, Ko-fi). Thanks for her help with this, and consider commissioning her for JPN-ENG translations.
I finished watching Turn A Gundam recently, and it’s already cemented itself as one of my favorite Gundam shows and anime in general. But one detail I appreciate is that, even with its Americana setting, it still works in some interesting, immense technological set pieces that give a great sense of scale to the show in the portions where it heads to outer space. To put it bluntly, I appreciate it when science fiction has what I like to call “Big Cool Sci-Fi Stuff,” both for the novelty but also realizing the unique potential the medium has to create a unique sense of wonder.
The February 2023 issue for Animedia features some illustrations and coverage for Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury. One of the pages features comments and an interview with Mogumo (Twitter, Pixiv), the original character designer for the show.
The English translation is by Windii (Twitter, Ko-fi). Thanks for her help with this, and consider commissioning her for JPN-ENG translations.
Also, I've been gathering the character "Expression Test" sheets shared by the main G-Witch Twitter account and the post-episode sketches done by Mogumo on Twitter in a folder here.
Thoughts and impressions on G-Witch, Episode 6.
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Thoughts and impressions on G-Witch, Episode 5.
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This time, the focus switches to Elan as we finally learn
what his deal is, as well as more scheming from Prospera and fun moments with
the main cast.
Thoughts and impressions on G-Witch, Episode 4.
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This more low-key episode gave us a look more at ordinary
school life and some worldbuilding, as well as introducing a new group of friends
to Suletta as we learn more about the cast. There’s a lot of different strands
to talk about, so each topic will be a bit shorter.
Thoughts and impressions on G-Witch, Episode 3.
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This episode brought a conclusion to the opening mini-arc
while also setting up more threads to continue forwards. After Suletta’s wild
first day of school, does she stick the landing?
Thoughts and impressions of G-Witch, Episode Two.
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Thoughts and impressions of G-Witch's debut episode.
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In any case, this was quite a debut episode with a lot to
talk about, and I’m pretty excited overall.
Note: This is a copy of a review I posted to MAL. I may write different kinds of reviews and whatnot from this style, but I figured this was a good starting point.
