Interview] Interview with composer Akiko Tateyama. Music for the upgraded "Yuru Can△ SEASON 2

The anime "Yuru Can △ SEASON 2" ended its terrestrial broadcast on April 1, 2021. On March 31, the day before that, a two-disc soundtrack album was released. The music of "SEASON 2" adds a new element to the mellow and relaxing sound that is typical of "Yuru Can△. The overall concept of the soundtrack has also changed significantly from the previous album. We asked the composer, Akiko Tateyama, to talk about the music of "SEASON 2".

For the music of "Izu Can," we incorporated the South American music folklore.

─ Mr. Tateyama has been in charge of music for "YuruCan△", "HeyaCan△", and now "YuruCan△ SEASON2". What do you feel is the charm of the "YuruCan△" series?

Tateyama: I think it is an anime that places importance on pauses. It is a work in which time flows slowly, as the title suggests, without too much dialogue or too much information.

I think the music contributes a lot to that. I heard that the music for "YuruCan△" is not based on the characters or scenes, but on the image of the campsite.

Tateyama: That was the case with the first film. The first concept that the director gave me for the accompaniment was to put music at the campsite without attaching it to the characters. That concept continued in "SEASON 2," but it was no longer the mainstay of the theatrical accompaniment. We have added some music to the campsites, but this time, the director and I first discussed the idea of adding more music to the inner life and emotions of the characters.

─ Since this story goes beyond the first film, in which the characters were all introduced and everyone's camp activities started, there were changes in the way you created music.

Tateyama: This may be my interpretation, but I think that the first film focused more on the camp activities themselves and the events that took place during the camp. But in "SEASON 2," there were many episodes that focused on the drama of what the characters thought and how they got along with their friends or how they strengthened their family ties through camping, and the way we made the accompaniment changed to emphasize the drama. So, while some of the songs are fun, I think there are more moist and emotionally moving songs than in the first film.


─ ─ I see. When I looked at the list of song titles, I saw that many of them had campsites in the titles, such as Motosuko, Hamanako, Yamanakako, and Nodayama Park, so I thought that the concept of naming songs after campsites was the main focus of "SEASON 2" as well.

Tateyama: Songs with the name of the campsite in the title were written in accordance with the story of the character's visit there. However, the participating members differ depending on the campsite and the dramas that take place there, so you could say that I attached them to the characters and dramas rather than to the campsite.

─ ─ I could understand the difference in concept from the SEASON 1 play.

Tateyama: And then there is the music for the climax of the Izu Camp. The director first told me that he would be happy if the atmosphere of the Izu camp music would be a little different from the previous ones. This was a big challenge for me that I had not taken on in the first film. I studied the music by listening to folklore CDs and watching videos of folklore performances on YouTube, but it didn't make sense to just put out what I had learned, so I thought about how to incorporate the folklore elements into the work "Yuru Can△. I was trying to figure out how to incorporate folklore elements into the work "Yuru Can△.

─ So you were not aiming for a perfect folklore, but rather to incorporate elements of folklore into the accompaniment of "Yuru Can△"? What was it about folklore that you thought suited "YuruCan△"?

Tateyama: As I asked the director, Izu is a diverse place with oceans, mountains, caves, and grasslands. Therefore, a variety of tunes were required for the accompaniment, and I thought that folklore would fit the variety and vastness of Izu's nature.

─ In the first film, Mr. Tateyama himself played various instruments and recorded the accompaniment, but this time, more musicians from outside participated. Is that because you incorporated folklore into the film?

Tateyama: Yes, that's right. I play acoustic guitar, banjo, mandolin, etc., the same as in the first film, but I cannot play folk instruments essential to folklore, such as the quena flute and the charango string instrument, so I asked musicians who specialize in those instruments to come and play. So, we asked musicians who specialize in these instruments to come and play for us. I think it is fair to say that the number of participating musicians increased for Izu-Can's music.

─ In the soundtrack CD, the music for Izu-Can starts from the 15th track "Welcome to the Geopark" in DISC2.

Tateyama: The songs for Izu-Can do not have specific place names in the song titles, like Motosu-ko or Hamana-ko, but they are reminiscent of Izu. The "OHASHIKI ROUTE 136" refers to Izu's main road from Mishima City to Shimoda City, and the peninsula in "Enchanted Peninsula" is an English word meaning "peninsula. I hope you will listen to the song while thinking back to the varied scenery of Izu and the Nadeshiko and Lynn who enjoy it.