Trivia / Hiroyuki Sawano

• Production Posse: There are several singers he frequently collaborates with. The crowner would be Mika Kobayashi, but he also regularly works with Japanese singers mpi, CASG (short for Caramel Apple Sound Gadget) and Cyua, as well as American singers Aimee Blackshleger & David Whitaker and English singer Benjamin Anderson. In addition to singing, mpi and Benjamin also write the vast majority of Sawano's English songs, with cAnOn. occasionally helping out and Rie handling the German songs. Beginning with Seraph of the End in 2015, we can now add singers Gemie & Yosh to that list of regulars he consistently composes for. In 2016 with Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, he also revived his partnership with Eliana and started composing for her again (the last time she worked with him was 5 years earlier on Blue Exorcist).
  • He uses an identifying subtitle "SawanoHiroyuki[nZk]:" which appears to serve as a means of identifying himself as the composer when he does one-off collaborations with select singers such as mizuki in Aldnoah.Zero, among others.
  • His regular collaborators underwent a bit of a shakeup as of 2017: Mika Kobayashi, Cyua, CASG, and David Whitaker no longer work with Sawano (in Whitaker's case, it was because he left the music industry altogether in favor of opening a soul food restaurant in Tokyo). The vocalists who have more or less filled in their spots under the [nZk] label are Tielle, Gemie, Yosh Morita, and Eliana.
    • To the suprise of many however, David Whitaker returned to write and perform Kenny's vocal theme, "K21", from the third season of Attack on Titan. Time will tell if this was a one-off reunion or a sign of future collaborations.
• Star-Making Role: In Japan, his soundtrack to the TV drama for Team Medical Dragon made him famous in 2006. Around 5 years later, international anime fandom really took notice of this man after hearing Guilty Crown's and Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn's soundtracks. While Guilty Crown & Unicorn put him on the map, it was after he worked on two megahit shows in 2013 (that also had the good fortune of airing back to back) that he became one of the most well-known music composers in the anime world, right up there with Yoko Kanno and Yuki Kajiura.