Music of the Anime Industry:Music of the Anime Industry: Shinko Music, anime's secret composers

Welcome to the Music of the Anime Industry series of posts, where I talk about various companies and individuals that have greatly impacted the music of anime. Today we have Shinko Music, an incredibly influential but largely obscure company that's been involved in many of your favourite anime.<br><br>Shinko Music has worked on 143 anime, as well as numerous video game and live action projects. They have many staff names listed, but what's actually going on is that they're essentially an umbrella company for multiple other music production companies, who all work on these projects. Shinko was founded in 1965, and are still working today, with perhaps their most notable projects in recent years being Demon Slayer and the recent Pokémon movies. To give an idea of how influential they've been, they're one of only five music production companies to have worked on over 100 anime projects.<br><br>So the way it works is that Shinko will contract other composers and studios, and then use them to work on projects. They will handle hiring the composers, hiring the musicians, recording the music, managing the budget, and preparing the soundtrack releases. They're essentially a middleman between the anime studios and the composers. They have their own recording studio and synthesiser/equipment room, which they do use for recording. However, they also frequently outsource recording to other studios, hiring freelance composers and musicians for specific projects.<br><br>Shinko have three in house composers: Masayasu Tsuboguchi, Kow Otani, and Takayuki Negishi. Tsuboguchi and Negishi do work on a fair amount of Shinko projects, but Otani has largely moved on to freelance work for other studios, and is arguably one of the most well known composers to get his start at Shinko. Shinko frequently work with other studios, such as Aniplex and Momo.<br><br>So, why does Shinko tend to be obscure? I think a major reason is that they don't really "brand" their projects as Shinko Music projects. If you go to their website, you'll see a list of all the projects they've worked on, and on each project's page, you'll only see a list of musicians, with "original composer" and "arranger" credits. They don't really list the composers who worked on the project anywhere on their website. However, this information can usually be found on the project's official website, or on the soundtrack booklet.<br><br>Some examples of notable composers who have worked with Shinko include:<br><br>Yuki Kajiura, who has worked on projects like .hack//Sign, Mai-HiME/Nadeshiko, and My-HiME/Z.H.P. (Shinko aren't credited for these projects on ANN/anime news network)<br><br>Hajime Mizoguchi and Toshihiko Sahashi, who have worked on projects like Fullmetal Alchemist, Planetes and Soul Eater, through their studio, IMAGINE.<br><br>Kazuya Takase and Ryudai Abe, who have worked on projects like Sword Art Online, Overlord, and cells at work, through their studio, I WILL.<br><br>Shinko have also worked with major game composers like Motoi Sakuraba and Yasunori Mitsuda. One of the most interesting examples is the composer for the Mario RPG games, Yoko Shimomura, who was an in house composer at Capcom, and Capcom worked with Shinko on the music for several projects.<br><br>Shinko have a few staff names listed on their website, who are essentially their music producers, managing and directing the music on projects. In addition to these producers, they have three external companies who are contracted to work specifically with them.<br><br>I WILL, Aniplex and Momo each have their own staff, such as composers, recording engineers and musicians, and they tend to work on specific projects, for Shinko. So for example, Momo will handle recording and mixing for certain projects, while I WILL and Aniplex do the same for others. I WILL are also contracted to Shinko to do all of their mastering, which is perhaps the least "creative" part of the music production process, the final stage before distribution.<br><br>I WILL are perhaps the closest to what you would call an "in-house" Shinko studio, as they seem to handle the majority of Shinko's projects, and several of their composers have been contracted to do music for Shinko prior to joining I WILL. Almost all of Shinko's recent projects have been handled by I WILL. Momo and Aniplex also seem to work on anime projects under their own name, but perhaps not to the same extent as I WILL.<br><br>I WILL have worked on projects like My Dress Up Darling, Sword Art Online Progressive, Ranking of Kings and Demon Slayer, while Momo has worked on projects like Attack on Titan, Jujutsu Kaisen and Parasyte. Aniplex has worked on fewer projects than the others, but has still had their hand in projects like cells at work, The Tatami Galaxy and Kill la Kill.<br><br>So overall, Shinko have had a huge influence on the anime industry, working on a huge amount of projects over the past sixty years, and have been instrumental in the development of the careers of many composers. Despite largely being an "invisible" force in the industry, they have been involved in many of your favourite anime and video games.