A Piano Trio That Has Scored “Adolescence Syndrome”
When people think of an anime score, they usually picture a single composer conducting an orchestra. But the sound of the Rascal Does Not Dream (Seishun Buta Yaro, or “Aobuta”) series has been carried by a band of just three players. Ever since the 2018 TV anime Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, the scoring has been handled by fox capture plan, an instrumental band built around a piano trio. Now the series is finally reaching its conclusion. Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dear Friend, the film adaptation of the novels’ final volume, opens in theaters on October 16, 2026, and — of course — the same three musicians are back on music duty. Eight years of “adolescence syndrome” will be played out to the very end by this trio.
Why Does a “Band” Keep Getting Trusted with the Score?
fox capture plan is a trio formed in 2011 under the banner of “modern jazz-rock.” With Ryo Kishimoto on piano, Hidehiro Kawai on bass, and Tsukasa Inoue on drums, their signature is balancing raw groove with lyrical melody. Albums like BRIDGE and BUTTERFLY earned them the CD Shop Awards jazz prize and JAZZ JAPAN AWARDs, and they have played stages such as Fuji Rock and Summer Sonic. What makes them interesting is that this isn’t a hired-gun scoring outfit but a band with its own fans, one that has expanded its footing into music for the screen.
They have also built a serious track record in TV drama scoring — Quartet, Confidence Man JP, A Minimum Wage of Health and Culture, Brush Up Life, Unmet, and even the live-action Oshi no Ko and the Netflix series Like Asura. In 2023 they took on the major role of writing and performing the opening theme for NHK’s 74th Kohaku Uta Gassen. As an aside, bassist Hidehiro Kawai is the nephew of Kenji Kawai, the composer known for Ghost in the Shell and Patlabor — the blood of film scoring runs even here.
“The Aobuta Sound” That Runs from the Ending Theme “Fukashigi no Karte”
If there is a musical signboard for Aobuta, it is the ending theme “Fukashigi no Karte” that runs across the whole series. fox capture plan has self-covered this song with their own hands, re-sounding it as band music. Being able to rebuild the theme song itself, apart from the underscore, is only possible for creators who know the original’s skeleton inside out. Not the grandeur of an orchestra, but the warmth of a piano trio breathing together in real time — that texture has always suited Sakuta Azusagawa’s life-sized dialogue scenes and the sudden tugs of emotion. A good part of why the series has been loved for so long lies, without doubt, in this consistency of sound.
What Is Entrusted to the Finale
Dear Friend is the concluding chapter, where the mysteries of “adolescence syndrome” that carried through the high-school and university arcs are finally unraveled. The source novels by Hajime Kamoshida have surpassed three million copies in circulation; director Soichi Masui, animation studio CloverWorks, and distributor Aniplex — the staff who have supported the series — remain on board. The stage is Fujisawa and Yokohama. With what kind of sound will fox capture plan close out that seaside town’s air? Alongside the theatrical release, it is worth looking forward to how a soundtrack carrying eight years of memory will turn out.
