Kyoban Festival enters its second half. Here, the main MC "Tenshin Han Taro" finally arrives! He apparently got to Kyoto Station literally at the last minute (just 15 minutes before going on stage!). He loves film score so much that, even with his work piling up, he absolutely wanted to MC, so he rushed over to Kyoto Theater in a great hurry.

And then, the penultimate performer! Super in-demand score composer Yasuharu Takanashi appears. The sight of numerous wadaiko-type drums lined up like a drum kit is quite a spectacle. And above all, the sound is cool! The shamisen, ringing out a sound that strikes directly at the Japanese DNA, also feels great. With no sustain, I felt anew how these sounds pop crisply to the front even when combined with so many other instruments.

Takanashi handled various sounds with a keytar (a keyboard instrument you hang from your shoulder and play standing up like a guitar, the kind groups like TMN used to use). For instance, the unmistakably '80s synthesizer sound adds expanse and flair to the whole. The organ sound adds grandeur across the board. A style perfectly suited to Takanashi, who leads the band.

Are they substituting a different flute for the shakuhachi sound? There was also someone playing a black, curved flute. It's a sound that, how to put it, straightens your spine.

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The place going wild!

Right from the very first track, it's a piece that plays during the battle scenes of the hugely popular anime "Fairy Tail," the kind that plays during team-ups and finishing blows! Combined with the footage behind it, the energy really soars!

The footage playing behind is the best too. A scene where everyone gathers their magic power, the calls and feelings of rivals, former enemies, and allies all coming together... The audience stood up too, and the place went incredibly wild! The sight of the crowd sending power to the performers overlapped with the footage... It's an amazing scene.

Fairy Tail tracks continue. A piece that uses instruments with a strong fantasy image and rhythms of the kind used in hard rock and metal, as if expressing Fairy Tail's own unique world. I had no idea strings could shine this much over a fast-tempo track. The venue really was as if ablaze!

Takanashi is good at knowing when to use the MC mic and how to hype the crowd. Incidentally, his favorite in Fairy Tail is Erza. Riding that MC momentum, he goes into Erza's theme. By the way, he lamented that there were few Erza fans in the venue, but I'm an Erza fan too. An intro that expresses nobility, strength, and willpower. And then a track combining a melody that feels somehow refined within the intensity, set to Takanashi's signature hard rock style. You can tell he put real effort into making it!

And watching how he runs the live show, you can tell Takanashi comes from a band background. Skipping song explanations and stringing tracks together one after another is very much like a band's live show.

And his stage performance is amazing too. The way he moves around a lot and plays like he's having fun makes you have fun too. That seemed to carry over to the audience, with a never-ending stream of people standing up and heading to the front. But I was genuinely amazed that someone could jump while playing the violin, the very emblem of delicate-seeming instruments, without the performance wavering one bit.

The next track was the globally popular NARUTO! Apparently, whenever they do NARUTO in any country, it starts with a call-and-response where Takanashi says "dattebayo" and the whole audience replies "dattebayo." In Kyoto too, of course, the track begins on the cue of dattebayo! And here the shamisen and wadaiko join in!

Speaking of NARUTO, this is the track! A piece called "Doten." This gets your blood boiling. From the opening "Soiya!," the venue's energy is already at its peak. This track, often used in battle scenes too, had the audience getting hyped all over Kyoto Theater, just as the shadow-clone Narutos rampaged across the footage!

The presence of wagakki sounds is incredible. The footage playing was the scene where Naruto in Kurama mode saves Hinata! So cool, I almost let out a yell. The scene where the shamisen sound comes to the fore, the scene where the shakuhachi comes to the fore, the Fourth Great Ninja War scene with the wadaiko booming away, it all set my heart racing. Carrying that momentum straight into "Rinkai," and then "Standing on Roaring Ground," which Takanashi described as "heavy and fast," from the scene where Naruto and Kurama face each other and talk.

And the final battle scene too. The former Team 7, all now grown to inhuman strength; the despair of that scene, where even the mighty Obito is brushed off as if it were nothing, comes flooding back. And then Kakashi-sensei and Obito fighting side by side. Their boyhood days come to mind. It's nothing but tears...

Next was the theme from (the new) Kinnikuman. A track that aimed to be an audience-participation film score. It's still a new song, but it begins with, "Once you've learned it, everyone sing along partway through!" Sure enough, the Idol Choujin came marching out one after another! And right on cue, Geronimo's getting-beaten scene too.

A track fitting for Kinnikuman, who delivers when it counts. There were plenty of audience members raising their voices too!

Back to NARUTO again, next up was the main theme. A track with the image of being used a lot, especially in the early arcs, and the footage returns to Naruto's boyhood. It's a globally hugely popular work, so in terms of song recognition, this might be the best-known of the day.

There was also a drums-vs-wadaiko part within the track, which felt kind of like a rivalry and was great!

I'll say it again, Takanashi is great at hyping people up! "Listen without dropping the energy! It's more fun that way!" he says, pulling the audience along more and more.

The final track was "Reversal of Fortune." Footage of Chiyo-baa and Sakura fighting side by side plays. Chiyo-baa here is so cool that just watching gets you fired up, so if a red-hot track is playing on top of that, it'd be a lie not to get pumped.

The next scene is Kisame vs. Guy-sensei! Guy-sensei, how to put it, had the most outrageous escalation of coolness (and strength, of course) emerging from a not-so-cool starting point. He's got that image of being the number-one most beloved character among guys, doesn't he. Next is Hinata's resolve scene, I think! A great scene where, from the aura dwelling in both her hands, her resolve and effort come through.

The dizzyingly shifting footage ends with the Ino-Shika-Cho trinity scene! NARUTO really does have way too many great scenes... I thought my tears might run dry.

Takanashi, who kept the audience fired up right to the very end! With the place going wild, we pass the baton to the grand finale act, Hayashi!