[[quoteright:220:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/5808_9211.jpg]]

Hiroyuki Sawano (born 12 September 1980) is a relatively new arrival on the Japanese entertainment scene. He first became famous for the soundtrack of the LiveActionAdaptation of ''Manga/TeamMedicalDragon''. Since then, he has composed for movies and TV series both live-action and animated.

His style fuses electronic and orchestral music in a sweeping, bombastic mix that imbues anything he works on with as much Hollywood-esque grandeur as it can support. He stands out in particular for his usage of energetic [[InsertSong Insert Songs]] during action sequences, almost always featuring lyrics in SugarWiki/{{Surprisingly Good|ForeignLanguage}} English (or German!) sung by an array of associated artists from both Japan and the United States

[=In 2014, he started a vocal project called "SawanoHiroyuki=][nZk]" (kind of similar to how Music/YukiKajiura does this with "[=FictionJunction=]"), with an official Website/{{Youtube}} channel [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbJM_Y06iuUOl3hVPqYcvng here]].

[[AwesomeMusic/HiroyukiSawano Has an Awesome Music page.]]
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[[folder:Sawano has composed music for:]]
[[index]]
* ''[[Literature/EightySixEightySix 86]]'' (anime)
* ''Anime/AldnoahZero'' (anime)
* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'' (anime)
* ''[[Manga/{{Bleach}} Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War]]'' (theme song only)
* ''Manga/BlueExorcist'' (anime and movie)
* ''VideoGame/BlueProtocol'' (video game)
* ''Anime/{{Bubble}}'' (movie)
* ''Series/Crisis2017''
* ''Fanfare of Adolescence'' (anime)
* ''Literature/FateStrangeFake'' (''Whispers of Dawn'' anime special)
* ''Series/{{Garo}}''
* ''Anime/GiganticFormula''
* ''Anime/GuiltyCrown''
* ''Iron Saga – Epic Robot Battler'' (video game, theme songs only)
* ''Literature/JuniTaisenZodiacWar'' (theme song only)
* ''Anime/KabaneriOfTheIronFortress''
* ''Anime/KillLaKill'' (anime)
** ''VideoGame/KillLaKillIf'' (video game)
* ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'': "Light and Shadow" (video game)
* ''[[Literature/LegendOfTheGalacticHeroes Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These]]'' (theme songs only)
* ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}''
** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn''
** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamNarrative''
** ''Literature/MobileSuitGundamHathawaysFlash''
* ''Manga/MyGirl'' (LiveActionAdaptation)
* ''Manga/NoGunsLife'' (theme song only)
* ''Anime/ProjectBlueEarthSOS''
* ''Anime/{{Promare}}'' (movie)
* ''[[Anime/ReCREATORS Re:CREATORS]]'' (anime)
* ''VideoGame/SengokuBasara'' (anime and movie)
* ''Manga/SeraphOfTheEnd'' (anime)
* ''Manga/TheSevenDeadlySins'' (anime)
* ''Literature/SoloLeveling''
* ''Film/ASongToTheSun'' (film)
* ''VisualNovel/SoulLink'' (anime)
* ''Manga/TeamMedicalDragon'' (LiveActionAdaptation)
* ''Series/ThunderboltFantasy'' (puppet show)
* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'' (video game)
* ''VideoGame/YoakeMaeYoriRuriiroNa'' (anime)
* ''Manga/ZombieLoan'' (anime)
[[/index]]
[[/folder]]
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!!Tropes associated with his works:

* AdventurousIrishViolins: "[[https://youtu.be/HxlysqrFjHo Perfect Time]]" from ''Manga/TheSevenDeadlySins'' soundtrack sets the violins on ''fire'' as they frantically power the song while mpi and Mika Kobayashi sing about taking the CallToAdventure.
* AutobotsRockOut: Often combined with OrchestralBombing. Many energetic songs are composed and start off in the range of 100-125 BPM, which is a typical for a heart rate when the human body is exercising or experiencing adrenaline spikes. This is followed by the signature "Sawano Drop", where the song shifts its tone, often accompanying the visuals where the hero regains their resolve or all hell breaks loose. Examples include "[[Anime/KillLaKill Before my body is dry]]", "[[Manga/AttackOnTitan The Reluctant Heroes]]" and "[[VideoGame/SengokuBasara BLAZE Crimson Lotus]]". The Cartoon Cipher channel on Youtube released ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v4YBXaIIpY The Science of the Sawano Drop]]", which goes into better explanation of just how he makes this work so damn well.
* FrenchAccordion:
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQrRXpIHctA "80$$"]] from the ''BOSS'' film combines a proper french-style accordion with guitar and saxophone to give a real PhantomThief vibe not out of place with ''Anime/LupinIII''.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3oEymnIRow "Tang"]] from ''Tokyo Tower'' puts the accordion front and center for the full song.
** ''Anime/{{Promare}}'' provides us with "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vImAuH9FjCU fanFAREpiZZa]]". The first half of the song is a triumphant fanfare as the name suggests, but the 1:32 mark of the song switches to an accordion and eventually a fiddle which are mixed with a {{Trap|Music}} beat.
* GratuitousForeignLanguage: Used frequently in both lyrics and track titles; GratuitousGerman and [[GratuitousEnglish English]] are particular favorites. Very few of his songs actually feature any Japanese lyrics to any major extent[[labelnote:For example]]''Anime/KabaneriOfTheIronFortress'' has "S_TEAM", which features alternating Japanese/English lyrics before going full English at the first refrain, and "ninelie (Lv)" is almost entirely in Japanese while the melody of that song would also be used for the English-performed "Icon"[[/labelnote]], and those that do are mostly concentrated to live action films and other non-anime productions that never left the Japanese market.
* {{Leitmotif}}: Sawano is a fan of setting up themes to help establish the moment and tone for the various characters, settings, and story elements that accompany the projects he works on.
** "Before My Body is Dry" is the most established song in ''Anime/KillLaKill'', whose refrain often plays when Ryuko makes her transformation into her battle form. The first half of "k1ll◎ill" builds up to a TriumphantReprise of the refrain of that song, which plays at a critical moment in the story when Ryuko regains her resolve to keep going.
** Early on in ''Anime/GuiltyCrown'', a song called "κrOnё" helps set up the mood of the story's setting. A high energy version called "βίος" often plays during some of the heroic action sequences.
* LonelyPianoPiece: Given that Sawano himself is a master pianist and never seen in live concerts without a piano, a majority of his soundtracks feature at least one melancholic piano remix of a given leitmotif.
** In ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'', "The Way" is a soft piano ballad of the main "Theme X" that starts off with just a piano accompanying Sayulee's vocals before being joined in with a drum and guitar at the first refrain.
** "Ad la Lib" from ''Anime/KillLaKill'' is a more straight example, being a slow piano rendition of "I Want To Know", which itself is already starts off as a LonelyPianoPiece before getting a little more complex.
** ''Anime/ReCreators'' features "[=re-pianohi1tars=]" and "Pf-Creators" parts II, III, IV, V, and VI, which are all just performed on piano.
* LuckyCharmsTitle: His pieces tend to have exceedingly strange titles, featuring a jumble of symbols and letters from various different alphabets. It's a habit that's been described as "titles that people don't even know how to look up". To wit:
** The title theme for ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'' is "ətˈæk 0N tάɪtn", whilst another track, "Titan's Attack", is transcribed as "凸】♀】♂】←巨人". In fact, the entire second soundtrack one ups the first by being filled with these; see SelfReferentialTrackPlacement for one such naming theme.
** Ditto for ''Anime/KillLaKill'', which is mostly consisting of different variations of the anime's title (save for the vocal themes like Ragyo's {{Leitmotif}} "Blumenkranz" and Ryuko's "Before my body is dry"). The second soundtrack, while mostly in Japanese, adds a number convention to tracks 1 through 12, with an added "boshi" (i.e. star, referring to the show's Goku uniforms).
** One of the tracks from ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn'' also has a dose of this: the light-hearted track named "H@R0".
** A lot of the tracks from ''Anime/GuiltyCrown'' have [[GratuitousGreek Greek names]], such as "βίος" (Bios) and "Βασιλευζ" (Basileus).
** ''Anime/AldnoahZero'' continues the trend with titles like "Bre@th//less" and "[aLIEz]".
** The main {{Leitmotif}} of ''Series/ThunderboltFantasy'' is titled "[=thunderBOLTfantasy=]". Another track is titled "蔑、guy" and that's the leitmotif for villain Mie Tian Hai (Betsu Ten Gai; the comma is meant to be read as "ten"), and there's also "Kguy&kill don't 生kiLL" which is the leitmotif for both Xing Hai (Kei Gai) and Sha Wu Sheng (Setsu Mu Shou). Then there's the songs "⚡bolt-arr1" and "⚡bolt-arr2" that can't be properly formatted most places because the first character ends up being parsed as an emoji if at all.
*** On the 2nd season soundtrack it's fairly obvious which tracks were composed by Sawano and which were composed by Takafumi Wada because it goes from titles like "[=Thunder801tFantasy2=]", "[=TBFworld=]", and "○KN" to "Lang Wu Yao", "Huo Shi Ming Huang", and "Qi Sha Tian Ling".
** A lot of songs in ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'' are written in code, with the title of the song mixed in between other random characters, such as "z5'''m'''20'''i'''12'''r'''04'''a'''28" and "z39b20'''co'''13'''mi'''01'''cal'''09" (aptly named, as it is a light-hearted song that plays during comedic scenes). There are a few wingding titles as well, such as "no5=KAKU-WEST-→▲★★KAI" and "no7=G-LOW-S→F.S.K.O".
** His (to date) 4 studio albums as [=SawanoHiroyuki[nzk]=] are: ''o1'' ("Oh One"), ''2V-ALK'' ("Walk"), ''R∃/MEMBER'' ("Remember"), and ''iv'' ("Eve").
* OminousLatinChanting: Usually in German instead of Latin, but certainly ominous. This crops up a lot in his villain motifs, like "Devil King of the Sixth Heaven" and "This Is A Fight To Change The World" from ''VideoGame/SengokuBasara'', and "XL-TT" from ''Manga/AttackOnTitan''.
* OneWomanWail: There's always at least one in every musical score he composed, courtesy of the powerful singing voices of Mika Kobayashi, Eliana, and Gemie. This notably became one of his staples after [[AwesomeMusic/KillLaKill "Before My Body Is Dry"]].
* OrchestralBombing: Action scenes will either be heavy on the electronics or dive straight into this - there's not much of a middle ground.
* PsychoStrings: Uses jarring electronics to achieve the same effect, as in "Banshee" from ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn'', the outro of "The Key We Lost" from ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'', or the outro of "The Reluctant Heroes" from ''Anime/AttackOnTitan''.
* PunnyName: Many of his bizarre track titles are actually complicated puns making use of wingding fonts and wordplay based on kanji or {{Goroawase Number}}s. Some examples include AL°C-@ (''[[Anime/AldnoahZero Allusia]]''), 2chi城 (''[[Manga/AttackOnTitan Nichijou/Daily Life]]''), and 美♂-K+$タすpAd ('''[[Anime/GuiltyCrown Bios]]''' feat. '''K'''obayashi Mika with '''S'''trings and Synth'''pad''').
* SelfReferentialTrackPlacement: Used to an incredibly frustrating extent for ''Manga/AttackOnTitan''. Some tracks have naming schemes such as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP3-op5wsko "進撃 gt20130218 巨人"]], which effectively translates to: "Attack, primary instrumentation, date of production/composition/completion, Titan." So in the example given, the theme's name is: "Attack on Titan track, primary instrumentation is acoustic guitar, dated February 18, 2013." What stage of production is listed in the track titles can only be assumed, as the dates given generally precede the first airing of the season the track is used in by a matter of months.
* StrictlyFormula: A very common arguement by detractors is that Sawano's soundtracks are rather similar in terms of what they offer for each genre: for example, his mecha soundtracks (''Gundam'', ''Aldnoah.Zero'', ''Guilty Crown'') all have a characteristic "modern warfare" sound to them not unlike that of Music/HansZimmer.
* TickTockTune: "[=ABYSSWaltz=]" from ''Anime/ReCreators'' features a prominent ticking clock throughout most of the song. Combined with the slow droning music and ethereal-sounding lyrics, any listener who doesn't know the context when it plays from the anime could easily envision imagery of a white void where [[TimeStandsStill time ceases to exist]].
* ThemeNaming: ''Anime/{{Promare}}'''s songs have fire-related names, including "Inferno", "Λsʜᴇs", "WORLDBIGFLAMEUP", "[=BangBangBUR!...n?=]", and "PIROMARE".
* VictoriousChorus:
** Regularly used to give a TriumphantReprise some extra zing. An example would be "Zero Gravity", a reworking of the main theme from ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn''.
** His stellar work on the Series/ThunderboltFantasy soundtrack. Perhaps one of his most victorious tracks is the series [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcYz91OyplA action scene leitmotif, thunderBOLTfantasy.]]
*** "[=thunderBOLTfantasy=]" got retooled for the 2nd season to be the opening theme "His/Story", now with vocals by Music/TakanoriNishikawa. Similarly, "show-no-feel" got retooled into "Claymore" which is a B-side to the ''Film/ThunderboltFantasyBewitchingMelodyOfTheWest'' theme song "Crescent Cutlass".
* WordSaladLyrics: The lyrics for the chorus portion of "ol", performed by mizuki, have to be seen to be believed. One has to wonder if she got an aneurysm while trying to recite the lyrics in the intended, computer-like intonation.
-->''S-dream & trick & lie \\
ticktack-last-1│so what│ \\
alt-esc-Command \\
Shine & ring & Live│S-tring & Lie \\
2-1 to 1 A→Z conner \\
dream & trick & lie \\
ticktack-last-1│so what│ \\
alt-esc-Command \\
Shine & ring & Live│S-tring & Lie \\
Kowasu to word│ENC-ode'' \\

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