Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Episode 27: "Love Drifts Away." In the final battle against the alien Zentradi, the heroes turn the tide of war not with weapons, but with Lynn Minmay's song. Director Shoji Kawamori recalled the moment in an interview with Dig-it ( https://dig-it.media/showa50/article/836837/ ): "I proposed that they could win through the power of song alone. I faced a lot of opposition, but I pulled the 'original creator privilege' card and said I'd take full responsibility for everything from the storyboards onward — please just let me do this."
Can song alone end a war? The question posed by 23-year-old director Kawamori would remain at the core of his creative work for the next 42 years.
The Unprecedented "Never to Be Repeated"
Yet Kawamori himself was not satisfied with Episode 27. In the theatrical film Do You Remember Love?, released the following year, despite the premise that song would end the war, the story ultimately has the protagonist shoot the enemy commander to settle things. Kawamori reportedly regretted this for a long time.
A turning point came ten years later, in 1994. Producer Minoru Takanashi approached Kawamori with a new project, and after a week to think, the director arrived at an idea: "A pilot who fights by singing" — he was confident this would be a guaranteed hit. But Kawamori twisted it further. "Let's aim for something so unprecedented that no one would ever try to imitate it." Thus was born Nekki Basara of Macross 7. A protagonist who flies into battle without firing a single shot, doing nothing but sing. According to the 30th anniversary roundtable on Hobby Japan Web ( https://hjweb.jp/article/1456828/ ), when he explained the concept to screenwriter Sukehiro Tomita, Tomita immediately replied: "So basically, 'Listen to my song!'?"
When the show first aired, viewers flooded in with complaints: "Why won't you let him fight?" But as the story progressed, in the one episode where Basara accidentally fires a missile, the complaints reversed: "Why did you make him shoot?" The viewers' values themselves had been rewritten by Basara's song.
Yoko Kanno: The "Musical Weapon"
In Macross Plus (1994), produced alongside Macross 7, Kawamori made another pivotal encounter: composer Yoko Kanno.
Kanno's first assignment was to create music for the virtual idol Sharon Apple — a being who is both idol and weapon, possessing the power to mesmerize anyone who hears her. Upon receiving this brief, Kanno said in an interview with the Agency for Cultural Affairs' MACC ( https://macc.bunka.go.jp/3055/ ) that she dove into the work thinking excitedly, "I'm going to create a musical weapon!"
In the same interview, Kanno described Kawamori's creative approach: "He works heavily on instinct and the unconscious — he doesn't rely much on reason." "He loves spectacle and has this desire to get excited at festivals and celebrations." A director who seeks music through feeling rather than logic, and a composer who can write effortlessly in any genre. For over 30 years since that first encounter — through Macross Plus, Earth Girl Arjuna, Aquarion, and Macross Frontier — the two have continued to build works together.
What If Song Were Forbidden — The Thought Experiment of AKB0048
In 2012, Kawamori took on an unexpected project: AKB0048, a sci-fi anime inspired by the idol group AKB48. Series composition was handled by Mari Okada.
The setting is a dystopian universe where entertainment has been outlawed. A military regime has enacted an Entertainment Ban Law, declaring that "songs and dance disturb people's hearts," and violators are suppressed as terrorists. In this world, girls who have inherited the name of a legendary idol group continue to stage guerrilla concerts to deliver their songs to fans.
What strikes me about this work is how brilliantly it inverts Kawamori's original question. The 1983 "Love Drifts Away" asked, "Can song alone end a war?" AKB0048 depicts the reverse — "What does a world lose when song is taken away?" To prove the power of song, Kawamori constructed a world where song does not exist.
Girls who continue to sing despite being labeled terrorists. Their spirit is the philosophical successor to Nekki Basara, who sang on the battlefield 18 years earlier. Basara refused to fight on the battlefield. For the members of 0048, the act of singing itself is already an act of combat. In an interview with Excite ( https://www.excite.co.jp/news/article/E1342626565307/ ), it was noted that the show "might be even harder-edged than Macross."
Song in Year 42 — The Expo's "Super Dimension Theater"
2025. Expo 2025 in Osaka-Kansai. Kawamori served as producer of the Signature Pavilion "Life's Adventure." The music was handled by his ally of 30 years, Yoko Kanno. Kanno composed the theme for the Super Dimension Theater "499 Seconds: My Union," and the vocalist was Megumi Nakajima — who had debuted as Ranka Lee in Macross Frontier.
499 seconds: the time it takes for light from the sun to reach the palm of your hand. In an interview on the Expo's official website ( https://www.expo2025.or.jp/officialblog/blog-20250918-01/ ), Kanno said: "We'll deliver a medley connecting this journey of light with the debut song of the galaxy's greatest idol, linked by the galaxy itself. While feeling the miracle of simply being here."
Even at a world exposition, Kawamori continues to pursue the synchronization of song and image. Forty-two years since Episode 27, "Love Drifts Away." From "winning with song" to "singing without fighting," to "a world where song is forbidden," to "celebrating life through song" — Kawamori's question has continued to deepen, changing shape along the way.
Throughout this series, I have written about the power of music and the moments when talent meets anime and sparks a chemical reaction. Kawamori is a person who has spent 42 years designing the very "space" where those reactions occur. The anime genre where song becomes the core of the story — that is something Kawamori invented, nurtured, and continues to update to this day.
