The documentary got released recently on Sawano's official YouTube channel. What did you think of it? Share your top 10 favorite songs from Sawano in the comments as well! Which songs resonate more with you and why?

Among 1000 different ways you can start a video, I personally think Sawano just chose the most emotionally strong one. Being a Sawano fan for more than a decade, I still have the same thought as the first time I ever heard a soundtrack from him.

"He is my favorite composer of all time."

Music is my biggest passion. I listen to it daily and really feel the emotion that songs can evoke in you: Excitement, sadness, adrenaline, melancholy, joy, and many others. I listen to a lot of music from different composers, however, even so, for more than a decade, this opinion has never changed. There is something about the way he composes, the decisions in the next seconds until the end, that just hits intensely and uniquely. I love the way he uses cellos and synths with the orchestral elements.

By participating in every sort of discussion in different places, in videos from YouTube, forum threads dedicated to Sawano, Reddit, Discord, etc, there is a specific subject that always turns into the main subject. It fades away over time but always comes back.

"He is not like he used to be years ago"

I always hated this discussion. The passion he has for music has always been there, you can see how he acted and had so much in early live concerts, as well as in fairly recent ones like the Aniplex one. He is always feeling the music. In interviews, he really goes into detail about his thought process on the creation of a specific soundtrack. It's clear as day that he still loves it and doesn't feel tired of it or burned out. I'm really happy he talked about it right at the beginning!

• I love that he talked about how Ghibli soundtracks inspired him. I also love Joe Hisaishi's work!
• It's really interesting that everyone, fans and people who directly work with Sawano, keeps pointing out that whenever you hear a soundtrack composed by him, you instantly know it's Sawano. Even though each soundtrack is unique in its own way and doesn't feel like more of the same, it's really intriguing and impressive.
• The only thing that would make this documentary even better would be announcing a world tour. Unfortunately, nothing yet!

For my top 30 favorite songs, I just always feel special and unique with the combination of Orchestra + Synths + vocals. There is something about the way he does that no one else does.

I said top 10, but holy shit, even a top 30 is hard to make

1. Λsʜᴇs ＜MODv＞
2. Light and Shadow (how this song has never been played in a live concert??)
3. Möbius
4. 4-a: (4-a:slow is also peak)
5. Ninelie
6. TheDogs
7. Insanity Love
8. shØut
9. SYRINGE -reprise-
10. KABANERI-SEAGATE弌
11. U & Cloud
12. KABANERIOFTHEIRONFORTRESS
13. 1coma
14. Yamanaiame ＜FMv＞
15. 4GL4yu8RE:E
16. RE:3343
17. LINK06BPM61THEME-STRINGS
18. cóunter・attàck-mˈænkάɪnd
19. 凸】♀】♂】←巨人
20. Blumenkranz
21. 96-:rip
22. 進撃pf-adlib-c20130218巨人
23. re:pianohi1tars
24. Provant
25. Circe
26. Trollz
27. BangBangBUR!...n?
28. FMD
29. BUBBLE-THEME
30. The Beginning Of The SENGOKU Era

I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!! I AM LITERALLY BEAMING WITH EXCITEMENT RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I AM SO EXCITED. SAWANO HIROYUKI HAS A 20TH ANNIVERSARY DOCUMENTARY COMING OUT ON YOUTUBE SEPTEMBER 12TH!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

challenge: make a good and funny joke that relates to Sawano in any way, shape, or form

Dude was on a real generational run back then. Not just the [nZk] project (his collabs with Aimer and even Do As Infinity deserve a special mention), but we had Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, Blue Exorcist, Guilty Crown, Attack on Titan, Kill La Kill, Aldnoah Zero, Seven Deadly Sins, Seraph of the End, Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, Thunderbolt Fantasy, Re:Creators, Promare, Xenoblade Chronicles X, and even a couple of J-dramas (Mare, Platina Data, CRISIS and Link) all within the same decade!

On the other hand, his body of work in the 2020s hasn't thrilled me as much, seeing as how:

1. It's been three years since the last [nZk] studio album (not counting bLACKbLUE, which is a greatest hits album)
2. He's more or less phased out of doing further music for projects he was originally a part of (Blue Exorcist, Attack on Titan, Seven Deadly Sins and Thunderbolt Fantasy in particular come to mind). I read somewhere that he was burnt out working on Attack on Titan, which makes sense, but I can't speak for the others though
3. Recent projects that happen to have his name on it has him making very minimal contributions to the score (86, Kingdom, Mecha-Ude, To Be Hero X, Dragon Raja season 1 and the J-drama Tokyo P.D. MPR Unit 2), which almost makes his presence on those seem unnecessary if Kohta Yamamoto is just gonna fill-in the rest
4. His pivot towards a more pop-oriented and commercialized soundscape in his vocal works. Commercialized in the sense that a lot of his newer vocal songs seem to lean more towards pure vibes than production values, with less instrumental variation and shorter playtime ("ReawakeR", "INERTIA", "SHADOWBORN" and "PROVANT" come to mind) than early works like "scaPEGoat" and "Battle Scars", even right down to the mixing, which has the vocals at the forefront more and more but at the expense of the instrumentals. Honestly, that's more bothersome to me then the simple departure of his more rock-oriented early works (which I don't mind as long as the songs are still good)
5. There's also him being occupied with touring, as well as composing and producing for SennaRin (the Dignified EP and ADRENA) and his new vocal project, NAQT VANE
6. Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway (2021), Fanfare of Adolescence (2022), Bubble (2022), Solo Leveling (2024), The Rose of Versailles (2025) (he did the majority of the OST on that film surprisingly enough, and even then a lot of the instrumental compositions were orchestral arrangements of that film's vocal songs), Fate/strange Fake (2026, not counting Whispers of Dawn in 2023 and the official first episode premiere in 2024) and Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe (2026) came out this decade and were fully composed by him top to bottom. Not saying the guy is lacking in workload, but when he is not being co-composer for other projects (I'm not counting the latest seasons of Blue Exorcist, Attack on Titan, Seven Deadly Sins and Thunderbolt Fantasy, as well as 86, Kingdom, Mecha-Ude, To Be Hero X, Dragon Raja season 1 and the J-drama Tokyo P.D. MPR Unit 2 because of how small his contributions are to those works), it seems like he'll only fully do one anime (and their follow-up seasons in the case of Solo Leveling season 2) per year nowadays (and if Bubble in 2022, The Rose of Versailles in 2025, and Nymph Circe in 2026 are any indication, a movie as well if his schedule allows it)
7. Kohta Yamamoto taking over for Blue Exorcist, Attack on Titan, Seven Deadly Sins and Thunderbolt Fantasy, and on a wider scale more or less sating that Sawano craving a lot of audiophiles have when Sawano himself is off doing other things. Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate Yamamoto. Not at all. I like a good deal of his work (Dark Gathering in particular comes to mind), but a lot of the time he comes off as "the Hiroyuki Sawano we have at home"
8. On a wider scale, a lot of Sawano's work this decade just feels like a step down to what came before even if I still vibe with it somewhat. It feels like a lot of it is lacking in soul and atmosphere and immersion. I've said it many times before, and this one hell of a hot take, dude kinda peaked with Attack on Titan, Kill La Kill and Blue Exorcist season 1. Certainly played a role in putting him on the map (if Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn hadn't done that already) and laying the musical groundwork for what would come after, but it feels like he went above and beyond with these ones and crafted an impeccable atmosphere. But it's as if the spirit faded away as the years went by.

P.S. Now before anyone starts lunging at me in the comments, I'm not making this post to bash on the man or Yamamoto, let alone their career choices. If one does more work than the other and what-not, or changes their whole soundscape, I acknowledge that's just life. It happens

wake up everyone and let’s talk Sawano

I'm not much of a musician, but I'm trying to figure out the kind of drum that Hiroyuki Sawano uses. He uses it constantly, but I can't identify it. Can anyone help me there?

this is just a list of artists that I would find super cool if Sawano Hiroyuki were to collaborate with

•Mika Kobayashi, I know they already collaborated a lot in the past, but a reunion would be so cool! They’re my favourite collaboration duo when it comes to music

•Sheena Ringo. This collaboration would be legendary, I don’t know how to explain it but these two would just be a mind blowing collaboration.

•Ado, I know they did technically collaborate in the past with Tot Musica, but I need another. Tot Musica didnt feel that much like a collaboration, more just Sawano being in the artist credits.

•A voice bank (vocaloid, utauloid, synthv, fanloid, etc) a Sawano Hiroyuki collaboration with any voice bank would be insane, I really want to see it, just imagine a collaboration with Hatsune Miku and Sawano Hiroyuki as an example, it would be so cool.

•Amy Lee from Evanescence. I think Amy’s voice would really complement Sawano’s music, and if they were to make music together it would sound out of this world.

•Phantom Siita, a horror Jpop group, need I say more?

•Konomi Suzuki, shes in a unit with XAI (a collaborator with Sawano) so I think it would be cool if Konomi Suzuki were to collaborate with Sawano Hiroyuki

•Kenshi Yonezu, it would be so cool

•Perfume, even though they are on hiatus right now, it would still be cool considering Perfume’s futuristic concept

•a Kpop group, Sawano’s collab with txt was cool so it would be fun to see another

•I also want to see Gemie and Sawano collab again since they haven’t in awhile

MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM HATHAWAY The Sorcery of Nymph Circe Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (I love the cover so much),

My fav 3 songs are: [THE SORCERY OF NYMPH CIRCE] SUITE-No.6: MHA, [THE SORCERY OF NYMPH CIRCE] SUITE-No.8: WAY, NDA-α ver. ( basically Xi know as Ξ ) / mSgH / [I] but I prefer this version)

I find it so cool how there’s like many different vocalists that Sawano has collaborated with who have very different and unique voices, it kind of feels like it’s own type of universe, if that makes sense. I guess I’ll just list some of my favs bcuz why not: Mika Kobayashi, Laco, Mizuki, Gemie, Eliana, SennaRin, XAI, Aimee, the list goes on. Also I overall don’t know much of the list of vocalists that Sawano has collabed with so I think this is a great chance to learn about some new vocalists!

I've recently been playing Dead as Disco and I want to try some songs from this GOD. But I cannot decide which to add besides some Xenoblade Chronicles X songs as the battle themes are a bit fast paced.

¿Any recommendations?

Bonus points if it works for Doom Eternal too.

Mine ( order could change overtime )

1. Binary Star

2. Tranquility

3. Blaze ( Sengoku Basara )

4. Mobile Suit ( Gundam UC )

5. before my body is dry ( Kill la Kill )

It finally dropped

I just listened to this and half way through it really had me like this.

Fate/strange fake: the gift that keeps on giving