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Ghost in the Shell Composer Kenji Kawai Talks Inspiration, Home Town in French TV Program
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
The French television program toco toco began streaming its interview with Ghost in the Shell and Patlabor composer Kenji Kawai on Sunday. In video, Kawai introduces the Kita-Shinagawa area of Tokyo where he grew up and continues to live to this day.
The Shinagawa Shrine was Kawai's stomping grounds as a child and its unique festival music was the ultimate inspiration for Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. Kawai also takes viewers to part of the Tokaido road, Japan's most famous central road that connects Tokyo's Nihonbashi business district and Kyoto.
At the end, he shows his music studio and details how he was almost a nuclear engineer, except he found the academics very challenging compared to his hobby of playing the guitar. Kawai eventually dropped out of engineering school and began to pursue a career in music at a music school, but again found himself distracted (this time by his female classmates). After dropping out of music school, Kawai finally caught a lucky break when his band won a contest and were offered a contract.
Kawai composed the score for this season's Joker's Game spy-thriller, last year's The Perfect Insider, and World Trigger. He's signed on to provide the music for the Mob Psycho 100 television anime and the Resident Evil: Vendetta film.
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