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Shiny: “I love video game music so much that sometimes I’ll start a game just to listen to the soundtrack.”
It’s a great relationship [laughs]. So, the fact that both collaboration songs have video game music as a theme wasn’t something you specifically decided on, but more of a natural flow—Shiny initially made a song based on Dragon Quest, and then Ishige made a song based on a game as well, is that right?
Ishige: Yes, that’s right. The demo Shiny first gave me had a game-like sound in it, so I just went with that and arranged it. After listening to it, I wanted to make a song too, and that’s how “Zan”讚” came to be. By incorporating a lot of game elements into that track, it felt naturally compatible with “LV99 勇者,” and it turned out great. If two bands are making a song together, I think it’s better to have something in common, and in this case, it turned out to be games, which I think was something both of us subconsciously had, so it came out naturally.
Shiny, have you always been a fan of video game music?
Shiny: Yes, I’ve always liked it. I love the town BGM from Kingdom Hearts, and the opening theme too (shows images of Chrono Cross and Hoshin Engi on his phone). I used to start the games just to listen to those soundtracks.
Shiny, I’ve heard you’re also a fan of Persona‘s music?
Shiny: I absolutely love it. I think soundtracks play a huge role when talking about games. I even bought the deluxe edition with the soundtrack CD, put it on my iTunes, and listened to it over and over again. I’ve even started the game just to listen to Persona‘s soundtrack music.
Nowadays, video game music has become an established genre of Japanese music that is listened to worldwide. For example, the Atlus Sound Team, responsible for the Persona series, ranked third on Spotify’s “Most Streamed Japanese Artists Overseas” list for the end of 2024.
Ishige: I haven’t played Persona, so I asked Seiji and Nobu (Nobu Okamoto, the synthesizer player from the telephones) about it, and they taught me a lot. Indeed, it’s a very unique sound, unlike anything you typically hear in other countries. The fact that this kind of Japanese music, which you can’t even easily categorize by genre, is getting recognition overseas is truly a sign of a great era.
Shiny: Compared to Japan, there were only a few Taiwanese games in the 1990s like Xuan-Yuan Sword, and their level of polish wasn’t as high as Japanese games. Japanese video game music really stands out in terms of quality.
