My Hero Academia THE MOVIE Heroes: Rising — Yuki Hayashi's OST comments

Original note (in Japanese) can be found here.

Translated by TrianaNero. Please note that I am not a professional translator, but I found the comments really interesting and really wanted to share it with you the best I can!
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Commentary

Hello, this is Yuki Hayashi. In this note I will give my commentary for the original soundtracks of the MHA Heroes: Rising movie. I thought that you might be interested in learning how these tracks came to be and what kind of images they carry. It’d make me happy if someone decided to go see the movie again with these comments in mind.

Warning!!! There will be spoilers for the movie, so please be careful if you haven’t watched it yet!

First I would like to talk about the work on the soundtrack as a whole.

There are anime shows, doramas, TV-series, and each requires a certain approach. In this case of an animated series, first we have a black-and-white draft animation, and our sound director, Mima-san, selects some tracks from the existing ones to match them with that animation.

After that directors, producers, composers and staff members look over it numerous times and exchange opinions, such as:
“You chose this track for this scene, but what if we go for another one?”
“How about we make a new arrangement for this scene?”
“This is an introduction of a new character, so I’d like to hear a new track here.”
“I have a bit of an idea for this scene here, so let’s try and make a new track for it.”

Based on that, composers start working on new tracks. Directors check those, and once they’re green-lit, we go ahead with the recording. With the tracks complete, we charge into dubbing next.

Dubbing is a comprehensive stage dedicated to balancing various sounds. To put it in simple terms, we need to balance dialogue, sound effects and music. This requires a significant amount of delicate work as all those small details greatly influence the way we see and feel the scene: we might shift a character’s line a second earlier, add, remove or try to play around with sound effects, shorten tracks to match them with action, start the music earlier or later in the scene.

With that in mind, I’d like to split the tracks into 3 groups: rearranged tracks from the anime series, partially rearranged tracks from the anime series, and completely new tracks created for the movie.

New tracks
2,5,8,9,10,11,13,14,16,18,19,20,21,23,26,29,31

Rearranged tracks from the anime
3,22,26,32

5.1chMix tracks from the anime
1,4,6,7,12,15,17,24,25,28,30,30,34

Since the 5.1chMix tracks were selected from the existing ones by the sound director, I will comment on the new and rearranged tracks.

Let’s start with…

02 Nine

Nine, the enemy boss this time.

The order from the production team sounded somewhat like this: “The villain boss of the first movie had rough, violent vibes, and we want something different", so I had this image of a rather clever, collected individual with some distorted ideals down within.

The track starts gradually fading in from the scene where Hawks and Endeavor get on the truck, and continues all the way to escaped Nine looking down on the city after reuniting with his fellow villains.

In case of Nine in particular, the music is focused around an ensemble of accordion and woodwind instruments, while his personal musical phrases are played by oboe. It helps showcase the side effects of the experiments and his body’s rejection, which is why it was made to sounds rather unstable.

There are also 9 noise-like sounds mixed in to symbolize 9 Quirks, and keys and tempos are all over the place on purpose to create a sense of discomfort.

You can also hear the sound of someone breathing through the mask instead of the usual beat — this was in a sample I got from Jon Aschalew, who always helps me with sound design. I figured that it really fits Nine, so I put it in, half-jokingly, but it ended up staying for the movie, yay! Mima-san, thank you!

03 To be a Hero…

This is an arrangement of the “Avant-title” track from the anime: like the name might suggest, it gets quite hype in the second half, and that’s where electric guitar comes in, hyping it up even more — para-pa-paam!

05 Now That’s Really Hero-Like!!!

This is an arrangement of the “So Damn School-Like” track from the anime. The original sounds kind of like a march, and I tried to go for something more on the rock side, giving it four-on-the-floor beat.

The track was used for the scenes where Deku and everyone else are doing their hero tasks on the island. There were no lines and no sound effects, so you could hear the music really well (the Superdog that I really liked also appears in this scene (laughs)). I accelerated the tempo a bit to illustrate them doing their heroic best, all excited, getting new experience along with memories, and growing.

Now, the part from 1:38 until the end was not used in the movie, I wrote it just in case. At the initial meeting, we were told to cut the future track by the scene where Deku and everyone rush out, but sometimes later on the directors can say that they want the track to keep going as a lead-up to the next scene after all. It’s a fairly common occurrence, so I always make sure to have an extra pattern ready for this case.

Actually, at the meeting the staff planned to use the track “My Hero Academia” here, but I wanted to use it in the second half, so I suggested that I write some new music for this sequence.

08 Nine’s Quirks

This track played when Mahoro and Katsuma’s father was attacked by Nine and had his Quirk stolen. It starts off with 9 loops of the sounds of his mask and some peculiar dissonances, and then picks up.

The father’s Quirk is being stolen around 0:25, so there’s a reverse playback phrase that sounds like air is being sucked in.

Around 0:37 we have some messy lightning-like sounds. I asked our guitarist, Toyama-san, for some eccentricity, like “gyuwan-gyuwan”, to match it to the visuals. It really feels like villains are shooting lightnings around, I love it.

And from 1:00 we have the villains’ story. This track was cut with the sound effect of transformation of Nine’s body, so that bit is also kind of “cut out” here.

09 Nine’s Failure

This track almost feels like a touch, and I made it for the scene where Nine makes the children his next target.

By the end of the melody, Nine was supposed to say, “Quirks… are inherited”, and I wanted to make the music go quiet for a moment to emphasize it, and then immediately switch to the next track, “Villains’ Appearance”, but due to some changes in production, I pushed the cut-out back and connected the tracks right after.

10 Villains’ Appearance

It starts playing when Deku and Bakugo rush out to deal with the villains. Electric guitar riffs and slap bass give the music the sense of a rush, as well as highlight Bakugo going all out.

The villain is a fake one created by Mahoro, and when Bakuto receives its attack?!… The song gets cut out.

The bit from 0:49 is a “just in case” one for the scene where Bakugo appears from the smoke, unharmed, and blows up the ground, and it wasn’t used in the movie.

11 Messing with the Wrong Person

The track of raging Bakugo (laughs). It contains some riffs from his theme “King Explosion Murder”.

When I completed the demo and sent it over to director Nagasaki, he said, “This works, but I want to tone down the terrifying aura a little,” so I added some clapping and shouting.

Bakugo’s genuinely mad, but when you look at him raging from the side, it looks a bit ridiculous and cute — that’s the image I had. By the way, there’s Deku who’s trying to hold him back from behind, getting elbowed relentlessly, and his mouth looks kind of like “3” in the process, it’s cute, I liked it (laughs).

During the dubbing process director Mima also suggested adding some extra sound effects to the part where Deku’s trying to stop Bakugo, and every time I hear that “clang!”, it feels painful. Sound effects are seriously great.

13 Nine’s On the Move

This track plays when Nine and his accomplices attack the harbor. It’s creepy, but things are just getting started, so it’s not that agitating. I wrote it by feel.

Up until 0:29 we have the music for the attack itself, and after that it becomes quieter to match the feelings and actions of Mahoro and Katsuma. In the movie the music was cut along with the failed phone call, but I wrote the track all the way to when Deku rushes to the two of them just in case.

14 Villains’ Surprise Attack

This one is for when villains attack the island. The first half describes Mummy’s rampage. I like it how Mummy tells you everything about his Quirk, but even if he gets caught, he won’t blow any secrets… A lovable guy. Not to mention he’s kind of a ninja and a mummy at the same time, that’s really cool. I remember asking whether the track needed anything “ninja-ish” or “mummy-ish”, but what I heard was “not really”.

But… I thought just a Bit of that wouldn’t do any harm, right… So I just quietly added it here and there. I also wanted to dose the track with some stubborn vibes, so I irregularly mixed strings with some portamento.

There’s a battle with Chimera in the second half, so things get a bit more exciting, but soon after, once Ochako says, “The phone’s out of service…”, the scene changes suddenly, so I tried not to push it and get everyone too excited before that switch.

16 Nine’s Group’s Resistance

This song plays from the fight with Mummy all the way to where Nine tries to steal Katsuma’s Quirk. From 1:30 we can gradually hear Nine’s team growing clear. Deku suddenly saves the kids in the end, so the song is also quickly cut there.

18 Nine’s Tenacity

Nine’s trying to steal Deku’s Quirk in this scene. His motif is looped 9 times, we have some cello solo to go with the oboe, and some pitch shift thanks to the strings in the latter half to create the sense of discomfort and crisis. When Deku’s injured by Nine around 1:06-1:11, I tried to make it sounds like time stopped to emphasize how shocked Mahoro and Katsuma were at that moment.

19 The Strength of a Boy Who Will Become No.1 Hero

The fight with Nine continues after Bakugo appears, and he fights on despite getting bitten by Chimera and sustaining significant damage to his ribs, but in the end he’s defeated alongside Deku. The main motif comes from his theme “King Explosion Murder”, but he can’t put up a good fight, so the tempo is slowed down to something less lively to convey the feeling of tragic heroism. Even if he feels the difference in power, he still doesn’t give up and tries to save those in need — that’s the kind of conviction I felt from him and tried to showcase.

20 Islanders’ Unease

This track conveys the anxiety of the islanders’ forced to evacuate under the villains’ attacks. Guitar harmonics and synth’s sequences portray the helplessness and restlessness, drowning everyone like a cold rain.

21 The Past with Nine

This music paints the flashbacks of the villains and Nine. It starts off with their meeting with Nine, gets more intense by the middle part, where some simple oboe motifs without any effects portray Nine before surgery. After he obtains this distorted, ominous power, we hear more strings, mask sound, pipe organs etc. Personally, I like the crunchy metallic sound that resonates in the end as Nine and his team look over the city.

22 Unite your Hearts

At first the movie team planned to use a completely different track here, but I wanted to use “My Hero Academia” for some unifying moment, so I suggested it. But the strength of Deku and everyone else in the original track is emphasized rather strongly, which didn’t match what the director had in mind, so I reworked it. In the beginning I tried to show Katsuma’s conflict and bravery, which then connected to those unifying moments with Class A from the intro all the way to the hook.

23 Strategy Meeting

This one was written for the scene explaining their strategy, so it has a rather light and simple structure.

26 Common Front

This track covers a series of battles: Deku’s and Bakugo’s, Ashido and Tokoyami versus Slice. So we go from the battle with Nine to the one with Chimera.

First of all, in case of Deku, Bakugo and Nine, I used the main motif of “You Say Run”, setting it to an average tempo. It’s a really cool scene, but because of the overwhelming strength of the heroes’ opponent I didn’t dare use any uplifting motifs, trying to keep the excitement at bay.

With Tokoyami, Ashido and Slice, I wanted to emphasize Tokoyami’s inferiority in the first half, so I created a sense of turmoil with some moderate tension. When Ashido gets injured later on, Dark Shadow goes berserk, the music suppressed until this point exploding along with it, and I used some mixed ethnic chorus, pipe organ and relatively intense electric guitar solo.

The track carries us from the battle between Deku, Bakugo and Nine to the one with Chimera, but it doesn’t get too exciting as I wrote it having in mind that it’s going to get cut around the transformation of Chimera’s body.

27 Chimera

It's a track for when Chimera becomes huge, and it's almost the same as "Giant Villain Appearance", but I added some beat and guitar solo to make it feel messier.

29 Nine’s Thirst

After getting Deku and Bakugo out of the way, Nine aims for Katsuma’s Quirk again. This is portrayed by accordion and repetitive string motifs along with woodwind phrases — the maliciousness of Nine slowly but surely closing in on his prey.

From 1:47 we can hear his body reaching its limit due to the side effects, and the oboe phrase with his motif is also greatly distorted and dosed with some sound effects to further emphasize the discomfort. The music gets quiet for a moment but then slowly builds up again, reaching its peak when Katsuma protects his sister and finishing soon after.

Katsuma was attacking Nine with such vigor, I like it.

31 Nine’s Strength

Nine reaches for the last remains of his power and goes after Deku — this track plays all the way until the “you’re cornered, so what do you do?!” moment.

Until 0:47 you hear Nine’s true, almost majestic power, and then until 1:40 Deku and Bakugo are failing to make up for that incredible strength difference. It continues until they’re almost about to get murdered by Nine. Here too I used oboe and accordion for Nine’s motifs, looped 9 times, inserted and removed according to the development of the music. Mixed chorus is also used heavily to emphasize just how overwhelming Nine’s power is.

32 Might⁺U

Well, it’s time. You could say I wrote this whole post for this track alone. Where do I even start…

For the anime series I’ve written a track called “Might”. This song is a ballade based on that, which also uses the motif of “You Say Run”, our main theme. But I’ve actually written it before I even had the movie in mind.

It was made for episode 76, “Infinite 100%”, when I received an order for the anime series. The staff wanted a serenade-like song to play when Deku saves Eri-chan. I decided to create a song based on the main theme, which I haven’t done before, and first I started looking for a vocalist.

I’ve passed my wishes to the producers based in LA, Masi Kaneko-san and Andrew Lane-san, and we heard back from several candidates. MakaylaPhillips-san’s voice was the closest to what I had in mind, so I asked her to perform. 

I got to spend the day in the studio working on a song for an amazing anime project!!! I am so excited to be working with producers in Japan and Los Angeles to make the vocals happen for the song! #studiolife #anime #vocals #movie #animemovie pic.twitter.com/HnuqCRFexW

— 𝕄 𝔸 𝕂 𝔸 𝕐 𝕃 𝔸 (@MakaylaPhillips) July 2, 2019

Her overwhelming singing ability that you wouldn’t expect from a teenager along with her innocent voice fit the scene perfectly.

As for the lyrics, I’ve made a request to cAnON.-san, who has this amazing Quirk of really grasping the universe of various fictional worlds and putting it into words beautifully.

I wrote most of the track based on the temporary storyboard with Eri-chan clutching Lemillion’s cloak (and some scenes afterwards), but many things were adjusted for the broadcast, so it ended up looking quite different.

And so we have “Might⁺U”. Oh, and you read it as “Might Plus Ultra”.

I couldn’t quite decide what kind of music to make for the climax scene of the movie ever since I got a rough video of it.

Those who watched the movie will know what I’m talking about, but the flow of the scene from the moment when Deku passes his power to Bakugo, they both do the smash and until Nine counterattacks, is really quiet. After that the scene is full of action, but it gets quiet again in the end, so obviously we needed a climax track different from the previous movie.

With the previous one we had All Might and Deku rushing in, and the cracky, bang!-like structure of the scene until the enemies were defeated was easy to understand, hence “You Say Run” was a really nice fit. This time the flow was more complicated, so instead of Japan’s “music selection” style of scoring I needed to switch to that of overseas while still keeping the dynamic tune of Heroaca and expanding it, since it’s the climax of the movie, aah, but how should I do it… I was worried about many things.

Meanwhile, I was asked to watch the provisional song selection plan sent by Mima-san along with a rough video, and I was genuinely surprised at the song selection of the last climax scene.

Even though it was such a transcendental battle, the ballad song “Might" fit the scene perfectly from the moment when One-for-All was transferred from Deku to Bakugo all the way to when the last One-for-All light burnt out.

“…okay, I didn’t think of this.”

Somehow I kept thinking that Heroaca climax scenes need that loud, flashy, intense BGM, and I felt like I finally saw the light.

The director also approved, and the composition was solidified. From that point on it was up to me to elevate the animation’s Plus Ultra with my music — if I could do it, I knew the end result would be amazing, so I was excited about this new challenge from Heroaca!!

At first we needed to rework the lyrics so that they fit the movie setting better, so once again I asked cAnON.-san to do their magic with the first half of the track.

The lyrics turned out wonderfully, and I wanted to proceed with the recording as soon as possible, starting with the orchestra and then onto the song part, but out of consideration for everyone’s schedule we ended up recording the vocals first.

I was visiting NY for another reason, so I was able to direct the recording session remotely from Andrew Lane-san’s private studio in LA. The vocals were amazing, I immediately sent them to Japan for some post-recording treatment, and continued my own recordings in NY.

Best case scenario you get to work on the score once the movie is complete, but the animation team always has very tight deadlines they have to Plus Ultra through, so the music team adjusts and works with temporary storyboards and rough videos, making necessary corrections up until the very end.

I felt more or less at ease since the original track and the rough video fit quite nicely, and we weren’t anticipating any big changes to the animation, so I focused on other tracks.

But when I watched the complete scene that arrived right before the recording, I was rather surprised! Because!!

…the battle scene was really long!!!

I was warned that the scene “might get a little longer”, but I really underestimated the “little” part. That being said, overall the scene got powered up and had a really nice flow, so I realized that I had to Plus Ultra the music too in order to match that! I checked how much time I had until the deadline, looked up at the sky for a while, and got to work.

Thankfully, the main parts that got longer were the scene where Deku passes his strength to Bakugo, and the one after the big hook with Nine going all out for the final attack, so I just extended the first part before the vocals, and for the second part I’ve orchestrated some piano phrases from when One for All’s flames disappear and inserted them between the climax and the quiet outro. Everything worked out nicely, especially in the second half where Deku and Bakugo jump from the cliff and cause an explosion, the music expands in a really great way.

In consideration of the contrast with the sound effects, I’ve structured it so that it gets really intense slightly after the scene transition. The moment when those two unleash the smash, the music, getting closer to the culmination, also seems to somewhat avoid the intense aura emanating from their words and arms poised to strike.

When Nine yells, “What is this power?!”, and we see the auras sparking to life along Deku’s and Bakugo’s profiles, from about 3:47~ we can hear the motifs from “This is the Strength of One for All” and All Might’s theme casually rush by in woodwinds.

In interviews with voice actors I often heard that they do their recordings matching the lines to the movements of white circles in rough videos. Music production is similar in this regard, it proceeds along with the completion of animation, and so we go from some white lines seemingly battling each other to full-scale animation, complete with music, and that’s just so much fun.

By the way, the gigantic stone pushed by Bakugo in the end looked like a huge pounded fish cake. So when I watched the draft video, I was like, “Wait, it looks like Bakugo’s pushing a huge fish cake… Fish cake.” Once I saw the final version, everything fell into place… It was a rock, my apologies.

In the final piano outro, a phrase from “You Say Run” flows faintly and then disappears. In the movie that last bit was cut since there just wasn’t enough time for it, but the track still wrapped up quite naturally.

Although dubbing is often considered a kind of work where you have to add the sound (to some visual media), I think it’s actually more about removing it, and this time was another case in point. You need to emphasize some sounds, so you remove some unnecessary ones to get rid of the sense of incongruity, or you keep shifting it back and forth to find the exact best composition and timing.

Speaking of which, originally there were some sound effects and shouts in the second half, where Nine rushes in for the final attack, but everything was removed, leaving only the music to carry to scene acoustically. For me as the composer it was a source of utmost joy and honor, but I also can’t help wondering whether it was really okay to leave it like that. But I’ve received many supportive messages saying that people loved it, which made me really happy, and that’ll encourage me for my future works as well.

This track also shot up in my ratings in just a few days.

The commentary ended up being very long (I was writing it in breaks at work, so I’m sorry for how late I’m posting this…). I’d like to keep doing my best and go even more Plus Ultra.

Thank you very much for reading!

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Thank you very much for reading! You can let me know what you think about the translation here, and if you want to express your gratitude to the composer (which I highly recommend), you follow Hayashi-san here, he really appreciates your comments and support!

Please remember that the best way to support the composer is by purchasing CDs or official online releases! Don't forget that music is a way of making a living just like anything else ╰(*´︶`*)╯