Done with Persona Magazine!
Next up:
– Catching up on Persona O.A. dialogues for Haru, Ren
– P3D/P5D artbook comes out end of the month; I’ll see if it has anything but it’ll arrive when I’m at AX so it’ll have to wait until afterwards
– ???
Persona Magazine 2018 Interview Navigation
P3D/P5D (Kazuhisa Wada, Nobuyoshi Miwa, Ryota Kozuka)
P3D/P5D Artwork (Shigenori Soejima, Akane Kabayashi, Azusa Shimada)
P5A Part 1 (Masashi Ishihama, Shin’ichi Inotsume, Jun Fukuyama)
P5A Part 2 (Mamoru Miyano)
P5A Part 3 (Nana Mizuki)
P5A Part 4 (Ikue Otani)
P5A Part 5 (Kazuki Adachi)
P5A Part 6 (Lyn)
P5A Part 7 (Shoji Meguro) (You are here)
Shoji Meguro – P5A Music
In charge of music for many Atlus works, including ones from the Persona series, the Megaten series, and Catherine.
Q: Was there anything different about making songs for P5A compared to P4A?
Meguro: For P4A I was instructed to compose songs that were similar to the game’s, sort of like alternate versions, and it was a difficult request to fulfill. On the other hand, for P5A, they just wanted me to make whatever would sound good, so I thought about what anime watchers would be looking for. It was a lot of fun to compose for.
Q: What was the concept behind the opening and ending themes?
Meguro: First off, the main idea behind the opening theme was for it to be something that the game fans would approve of. I also took into consideration that there would be viewers who were new to the series. Comparatively speaking, the game’s opening was meant to highlight the style of the game (since no one would know what it was about before it released) while P5A’s opening was more like “This is what it’s like, but you already know that, right?” *laughs*. The ending theme was quite a challenge. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted the verse to end softly before moving on or for it to continue on a bright note after a quick breather. In the end I asked the anime staff for their opinion, which led to speeding up the hook in the softer version and fleshing the song out from there. I’m quite fond of the song myself, so it was worth the hard work.
Q: Lyn-san told us about the time when you used percentages to tell her how to sing.
Meguro: I didn’t work my way up in the music industry, so my direction style is completely self-taught. I often use phrases like “20% less” or “15% more” *laughs*. I was confident that it was a good way to explain what I’m asking for, but Lyn-san said she had no idea what I wanted *laughs*.
Q: Different people have different ways of interpreting numbers *laughs*.
Meguro: When I told her not to take the numbers literally, it was because I realized that my definition of adding 20% was different from her interpretation of adding 20% *laughs*. It was a difference between “increasing the volume by 20%” and “increasing the emotion by 20%”.
Q: Are you in charge of all of the music for P5A like you were for P4A?
Meguro: I was alone for the first part of the series, but this time Toshiki Konishi (Atlus Sound Team) is helping out with the background music, and his tracks will be included later on. Composing tracks for anime gives you valuable knowledge and experience that you don’t get from only working on video games, so I proactively request tracks from people who have time available.