Line up these three names and say "this is about anime songs," and most people would raise an eyebrow. Kamasi Washington is a saxophonist leading the vanguard of contemporary jazz. Bonobo is an electronica virtuoso who dissolves the boundary between club music and orchestral sound. Floating Points is a musician who opened new horizons in spiritual jazz through his collaboration with Pharoah Sanders.
All three contributed music to *LAZARUS*, an original anime directed by Shinichiro Watanabe that aired in spring 2025. Names that would never appear in the conventional "anisong" context are sounding as anime music. This fact alone is the clearest proof that the times have changed.
"Do You Know How Much I Love Your Anime?"
Shinichiro Watanabe is a director who cannot be bypassed when discussing the relationship between anime and music. He fused jazz and anime with Yoko Kanno in *Cowboy Bebop*, brought hip-hop into period drama with *Samurai Champloo*, and enlisted Flying Lotus and Thundercat for *Carole & Tuesday*. He has consistently shattered the notion of what anime music "should" be.
Regarding how he selected musicians for *LAZARUS*, Watanabe told Sound & Recording Magazine: "I wanted to make offers to musicians who have the power to transport you to a different world with a single note." For Bonobo and Floating Points, the reason was their quality of "essentially being in the club music world, but possessing talent that spills beyond it."
The Kamasi Washington anecdote is particularly interesting. According to an Animate Times interview, in their first remote meeting, Kamasi opened with: "Do you know how much I love your anime?" After accepting the film scoring offer, he personally asked, "Can I do the opening too?" Watanabe recalled with a laugh, "At that point, I couldn't exactly say no."
The resulting OP track "Vortex" is a bold, multi-movement jazz number with choral accents. A virtuosic saxophone solo blazes, electric guitars erupt. This plays on television every week. It's a moment that forces a fundamental reexamination of the very definition of "anisong."
A Production Structure Targeting the World
What makes *LAZARUS* fundamentally different from conventional anime is its production structure itself. It's an original work solely funded by the U.S. Cartoon Network, designed from the outset to target the global market. Watanabe himself stated that it was "produced with a global perspective, not relying on the Japanese market alone."
Action direction by Chad Stahelski of *John Wick*, sound by the Formosa Group behind *Top Gun: Maverick*, production by MAPPA. Hollywood's top talent partnered with Japan's premier animation studio, joined by world-class musicians. This is no longer a story of "international artists participating in Japanese anime." The anime format itself is functioning as a platform for global entertainment production.
If the SZA and Guns N' Roses placements in *Hathaway's Flash — Witch of Circe* that I covered in the third installment were cases of "bringing existing hit songs to anime," then *LAZARUS* goes a step further. Kamasi Washington and the others created new music specifically for this anime. The "narrative vessel" of anime is drawing out the creativity of the world's finest musicians.
The Joy of Story and Music Multiplied Together
Over four installments, I've been tracking the changes surrounding anisong. Domestic anime tie-ups in the 90s, K-pop's market cultivation, the entry of Western music's biggest names, and the co-creation between directors like Shinichiro Watanabe and world-class musicians. Anime music is transforming at an astonishing pace.
But there's something we must not forget. No matter how spectacular the music becomes, it means nothing on its own. What makes anime music special is that it is always multiplied by "narrative." The 90-second OP, the background score, the ending — all are bound to story and the emotions of characters. Kamasi Washington's "Vortex" is extraordinary not merely because his saxophone playing is extraordinary. It's because it becomes one with the world of *LAZARUS* — a story of humanity deceived by a "miracle drug," fighting to seize hope in their final 30 days.
We live in an era where talent from around the world gathers in the narrative vessel of anime, and we can enjoy music multiplied by story at an unprecedented depth. That is, I believe, a truly fortunate thing.
Director Shinichiro Watanabe has said: "I was a music freak before I even entered the anime world. I want to create works where anime and music elevate each other fifty-fifty." Those words are now becoming reality on a global scale.
Beyond the Anisong — the other side of anisong turned out to be far wider and far richer than I ever imagined.
Next time, I want to write about a composer who burst onto this rich scene like a comet. A post-rock band guitarist who dove into *Jujutsu Kaisen* with zero film scoring experience and transformed the landscape of anime music — the story of Yoshimasa Terui.
