Under a Big Top in Japan's Growth Era, Yugo Kanno Sets the Tone
On July 4, 2026, the original anime Grow Up Show: Sunflower Circus Troupe began airing on TOKYO MX, BS11 and other channels. It is a fully original work from the team behind Saekano—director Mikita Kamei, character concept by Kurehito Misaki, series composition by Takeshi Kikuchi—produced with A-1 Pictures and Psyde Kick Studio. The setting is remarkable: 1950s Japan, in the middle of the high-growth era, when the circus was a center of entertainment woven into everyday life. Against that backdrop, the story follows the perpetually broke "Sunflower Circus" and its girls, touring across Japan to earn a place at the world festival "Kirkus Collection." In an anime landscape dominated by adaptations, mounting an original of this ambition is itself a statement of intent.
And on July 5, the official site announced the release of the original soundtrack: out September 30, 2026 (Wed.), a 2-CD set priced at 3,850 yen (tax incl.). The score, written for the show, comes from Yugo Kanno, a composer with a string of major hits behind him. An original with no source material to lean on, set against the double "grand stage" of the circus and the Showa era—the moment Kanno's name was attached to this material, it was clear something interesting was afoot.
Dramas, a Taiga, and JoJo: Range as a Weapon
Yugo Kanno is hard to sum up in a phrase. Born in 1977, a graduate of the composition department at Tokyo College of Music, he debuted in 2004 with the drama Last Christmas and has since worked at an extraordinary breadth. On television: Galileo, Hirugao, Wana no Sensou, Anata ga Shite Kurenakutemo. In anime: the cold, taut electronics of PSYCHO-PASS, the lavishly thick scores of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series (Stardust Crusaders / Diamond Is Unbreakable / Golden Wind / Stone Ocean), and Gundam: Reconguista in G. On top of that, he has handled the "national sound" of public broadcasting itself, with NHK's 2014 Taiga drama Gunshi Kanbei and the 2018 morning serial Half Blue.
What must not be overlooked is that Kanno is a composer with both feet planted in the classical concert hall. He premiered his Symphony No. 1 "The Border" in 2016 and Symphony No. 2 "Alles ist Architektur" in 2019, continuing to sound his own works in the unforgiving, one-shot world of the concert stage. Few screen composers also write absolute-music symphonies. That resume, I suspect, dovetails perfectly with the circus material at hand.
Circus Music Tests Every Muscle a Screen Composer Has
Consider it: the circus is a feast for music and, at the same time, its steepest challenge. The tension of the trapeze, the levity of the clown, the sensuality of the aerial silk, the explosive catharsis when a stunt lands—genre and emotion switch by the second. And because the stage is the 1950s, period marches and waltzes, the raucous flavor of chindon street bands, and the melancholy of postwar Japan all fall within range. This is material that demands the pen to hold festivity and sorrow within a single cue.
That is precisely Kanno's specialty: the grand, curtain-parting bombast of JoJo, the historical pathos honed on a Taiga, and the orchestral density built through his symphonies. All of it can be poured directly into the vessel of "a one-night show under the big top." The opening theme is handled by NOMELON NOLEMON's "Yurari Yureru," but the spine of the work is, as ever, Kanno's score. As the broadcast unfolds, how will these girls' dreams, debts, and grand performances be sounded out in the orchestra? On September 30, the full picture arrives in our hands on two discs. Precisely because it is an original with no source, the music becomes a second protagonist of the story. This summer, it is one to confirm with your own ears.
