OT- Akira Ifukube- Japan's John Williams

[David Coscina 3]

Ifukube authored countless scores for a variety of Japanese films and was certainly an iconic composer in Japan (if not throughout the world for his Kaiju scores). Some might not be aware that he also composed concert works. I just recently purchased his Sinfonia Tapkaara (Naxos) for $6 on iTunes and it's a wonderful piece. Some of the more fervent string material brings to mind the Godzilla march while the Adagio movement is both beautiful and sad at once. Definitely worth the money!

[Unlucky Bastard 7,765]

His Mothra theme from Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992) was some of his most beautiful, even though it was mostly a re-working of the original from the 60's.

[Vaderbait1 1]

He certainly can create beautiful music, see Requiem from Godzilla, but he has a serious habit of copying himself note for note. Think James Horner but a million times worse. I don't know about his non-Kaiju scores, but all the dozens he's done of those could be summed up in a single disc CD release. Everything left off would have been a note-for-note copy of stuff that is on that single-disc release.

[Red 73]

If anything, Nobuo Uematsu is the Japanese John Williams.

[Ollie 859]

He certainly can create beautiful music, see Requiem from Godzilla, but he has a serious habit of copying himself note for note.  Think James Horner but a million times worse.  I don't know about his non-Kaiju scores, but all the dozens he's done of those could be summed up in a single disc CD release.  Everything left off would have been a note-for-note copy of stuff that is on that single-disc release.

You speak so big yet you know so little.

Might wanna read up on how and why Ifukube scored movies the way he did.

To compare him to Horner's hack jobs is an insult to Ifukube.

[Vaderbait1 1]

You speak so big yet you know so little.

Might wanna read up on how and why Ifukube scored movies the way he did.

To compare him to Horner's hack jobs is an insult to Ifukube.

Erm...I never claimed to know a lot, in fact stated that I had only heard his kaiju stuff.

And frankly, let's avoid getting stuffy and overly sophisticated here, it doesn't matter WHY he scored that way, the fact is that the music IS repetitive. I don't care what his reasons were for it, knwing his reasons doesn't make my statement false.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,765]

Sure, his Heisei Era kaiju scores are almost complete rehashes of Showa Era scores, but so what? Those particular themes worked for those characters before and they can work again. Plus, the 90's scores had better quality recordings anyway.

The less said about Hattori, the better.

[Ollie 859]

Plus given the fact he had maybe 2 weeks, 3-4 days on Mecha Godzilla, to compose and score the films I can understand why there might be some repetative music.

[Vaderbait1 1]

Sure, his Heisei Era kaiju scores are almost complete rehashes of Showa Era scores, but so what? Those particular themes worked for those characters before and they can work again. Plus, the 90's scores had better quality recordings anyway.

Exactly my point. The man can create brilliant music, but there's absolutely no sense in spending lots of money to get a large collection of CDs.

[Ollie 859]

I don't mind it at all. It's not all rehash, I can expect the themes to be the same but there are new themes and cues as well.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,765]

Plus given the fact he had maybe 2 weeks, 3-4 days on Mecha Godzilla, to compose and score the films I can understand why there might be some repetative music.

I have the 2-disc edition of that. Excellent music but the order of tracks and alternates is messy.

[Ollie 859]

Me too. It's weird because Disc 2 is the actual film soundtrack and Disc 1 is the complete cues, alternates and demos. They are actually in film order on Disc 1 but there are so many different cues it does get confusing, plus I can't read Japanese.

I have the 2 disc sets for G vs Mothra (1992) and G vs Destroyer as well.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,765]

I find Disc 2 almost unlistenable because the cues cut out so quickly. Though I was lucky to find it on ebay for about US$35. I've been after the complete scores to all the other Heisei films (barring Gvs.SG) for years now.

[Ollie 859]

As far as I know G vs M, MG, SG and Destoyer were the only ones to receive the double disc treatment. Godzilla 84, Biollante, and KG received only single disc. There is a double disc of KG but it has dialogue and less music If I'm not mistaken, plus it's on a different label.

The 3 Ifukube scored films were part of the Futureland 2 disc sets devoted to him.