Over the last few days, the music production for the upcoming 2021 Shaman King anime has begun in Japan. Through various social media accounts, we can get a little insight on the types of instruments and a new name of someone involved with an insert song for the anime.
Musician Misachi Kyushima has announced on her personal Twitter account and on Instagram (below) that she will be performing an insert song for the new Shaman King anime. An “insert song” is typically a song with a vocal track that plays during powerful scenes within an anime episode. Within the original Shaman King anime, the song “Brave Heart,” sung by Megumi Hayashibara, was commonly used as an insert song during a battle montage throughout the series.
Within the Instagram post, she adds the following, roughly translated into English:
For this I was able to tap into everything I’ve learned and bring the sound of my soul into the world of Shaman King for this recording. I’m very grateful to Hayashi-san for this kind words of encouragement!
Look forward to the release of this next Spring!
Yuki Hayashi is the Composer/Music Director for the upcoming Shaman King anime and is currently working on various other anime series such as the current seasons of Pocket Monster (Pokémon), My Hero Academia, and Haikyū!!. Some of her previous songs can be found on Spotify and other music streaming services.
In addition to the vocal tracks, the live musical instrument recordings have begun as well. The recording has been taken place at the studios for “Legendoor” which has also posted on Instagram a photo of the French Horns used for the anime music production:
The Legendoor Twitter has also posted some additional images as well, which features some of the musicians posing with card files from the Shaman King series along with their instruments.
Notably these card files were the personal property of Yuki Hayashi’s wife, Emi Soma, who was also visiting the studio at the time. From her tweet, linked below, she commented that she was a fan of the original series and wouldn’t believe that she would see this recording 20 years later.
In addition to the music production, the remaining vocal cast is nearing it’s completion from an update of the Sound/Vocal director, Masafumi Mima in early October on Twitter. He commented that they are working on complementing the vocal cast already announced and working with the challenges of COVID-19 precautions. Traditionally when recording an episode of an anime in Japan, all of the voice cast would be present in the same room and record their lines as a group. With social distancing measures in place, having multiple voice actors within the same room presents a challenge. In response to this post on Twitter, Yuki Hayashi also chimed in that he was already working on composing the 8th soundtrack/melody since 4am.
Finally, from the visual side of the upcoming Shaman King anime, the official Japanese Shaman King anime twitter account has been posting some “character introduction trailers.” These trailers, with no sound, are similar in design to the first anime teaser trailer where they add motion to the original manga drawings. A new character trailer has been posted once every couple of days. They have also been showing off some of the set/location designs for the upcoming anime as well. These trailers and preview images can be found on the official Twitter account.
The new Shaman King anime is still scheduled to premiere on TV Tokyo in Japan in April 2021. An exact date for episode 1 has not been announced and no international streaming services have been announced at this time for the new anime. Typically the international streaming/broadcast announcements do not occur until one month before the anime series is released, unless the company has a significant stake in the production committee.
