Unraveling Ryuichi Sakamoto's Silence: The Hidden Narrative of "Royal Space Force"

The reason Ryuichi practically erased his music work on the anime film "Royal Space Force" from his history was somewhat self-defensively discussed by the person who was the producer at the time, on their own YouTube channel, but I don't put much trust in that story.

I already discussed this topic once in a blog post, but what later caught my attention was his short interview during the special program for the movie release that I introduced to you all yesterday. I was surprised that in it, he mentioned, "Japanese animation is heavily imbued with sex and violence, and as a parent, I've always frowned upon it." Back in 1987, it was very unusual for Japanese people to explicitly criticize anime for its sex and violence. (It was another two years later when criticism towards anime and its fans surged following an incident where a geek of anime and tokusatsu kidnapped and murdered four young girls.) By this time, he had already been doing various work in Europe and the US, so he seemed to have a perspective more akin to foreigners (or rather, Westerners), and I feel he may have already perceived the dark side of some kind of Japanese pop culture at that time while enjoying anime shows for kids with his little kids on Sundays.

On the other hand, around this time, synthesizers with sampling functions were becoming widespread, and some avant-garde musicians were aiming for new sound creation using them. Ryuichi purchased a Fairlight CMI Ⅱ in 1984 and extensively used it, particularly in the album "Esperanto" (1985). By the middle of 1986, he had acquired the Fairlight CMI Ⅲ, and, in my opinion, this also had some influence on his positive attitude towards the commission for the "Royal Space Force" soundtrack.

Looking at his statements at the time regarding the soundtrack, he seemed indifferent to the content or themes of the movie. Instead, he mentioned that his interest lay in the latest synth technology, his pursuit of creating ethnic music transcending nationalities, and his interest in the world depicted in the movie, which couldn't be pinned down as Russia, America, Central Asia, or Japan, overlapping within him. He seems to have taken on the challenge of creating the soundtrack for this movie as a platform where the performance of the Fairlight III, the super music machine of that time, and his musical skills could be fully tested.

He had already completed the soundtrack based on the storyboards well before the completion of the film, and while he was away in Japan for his appearance in the movie "The Last Emperor," his staff was finishing the work.

On the other hand, what the anime staff produced was not something like what he expected, such as "Blade Runner" or "Dune," but a peculiar Japanese pop culture offspring, developed by incorporating sex and violence into children's culture. At least that was what he saw in the ambitious sci-fi anime movie. In my humble opinion, he felt shock, disappointment, and, above all, shame for having harbored dreams for such a thing, and it seems he stopped speaking about this movie thereafter. Metaphorically speaking, it was a detestable memory of being deceived by the persuasion of the movie producers and ending up appearing in a pornography film.

As an aside, director Hiroyuki Yamaga mentioned during the commemorative event for the 4K restoration release in 2022 that he initially asked Ryuichi Sakamoto for a soundtrack similar to "Coda" and "End of Asia." However, Sakamoto suggested that more rock-oriented music might better suit the film, and thus, Yamaga let him do so. At the time, Sakamoto had in mind the film "Under the Cherry Moon," where Prince was involved in directing, acting, and composing. Sakamoto perceived this film as something groundbreaking back then, but ironically it ended up winning five Golden Raspberry Awards.