Osamu Tezuka's Princess Knight, which he began drawing in 1953, reached the world this summer as the Netflix film The Ribbon Hero. The original soundtrack, released digitally on August 8 to coincide with the worldwide exclusive streaming premiere, arrived in stores on CD on September 9. The music is by MONACA's Satoru Kosaki and Ryuichi Takada, and for anyone who cares about anime scores, seeing those two names side by side is reason enough to pay attention.

The Haruhi and Monogatari Guy, the Garo and Aikatsu Guy

Satoru Kosaki is the composer who defined the sound of late-2000s anime music with The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Lucky Star and the Monogatari series. In recent years he has grown into a full-fledged score writer as well, with BEASTARS and The Apothecary Diaries (a three-composer team with Kevin Penkin and Arisa Okehazama). His background never gets old: a graduate of Kyoto University's Department of Information Engineering, he joined Namco (1999–2005), wrote game music for Tekken, Katamari Damacy and The Idolmaster, and then moved to MONACA.

Ryuichi Takada, meanwhile, studied composition at Tokyo University of the Arts. He joined Namco in 2002, worked on Soulcalibur II/III, the Tekken series and NieR, and joined MONACA in the fall of 2009. His anime credits include the Garo series, Aikatsu! and Shangri-La Frontier. According to the official MONACA wiki, his favorite composer is Wojciech Kilar, and he openly prefers orchestral drama with an international flavor. In other words, The Ribbon Hero pairs two composers who passed through Namco's sound team and gathered at MONACA, and puts them up against a Tezuka classic.

36 Tracks, About 72 Minutes: A Tracklist That Shows the Division of Labor

The digital soundtrack runs 36 tracks and roughly one hour and twelve minutes. Following the credits on the MONACA wiki, Kosaki wrote 18 of the 34 score cues and Takada 16. Just reading the track titles, the split between the two has a clear outline.

  • Satoru Kosaki: "Once Upon a Time," "Silverland Crumbles," "Transform!!," "The Ribbon Knight Appears," "Sword Strike," "The Cursed Princess," "Prayer on Wings," "Sapphire's Resolve," and the closing "THE RIBBON HERO." The story's opening and the moment the heroine Sapphire becomes a knight are in Kosaki's hands.
  • Ryuichi Takada: "Escape from Heaven!," "Night Raid," "Mithra," "Velvet Appears," "Valley of Nergal," "Companions," "Dark Clouds." The calamity Nergal, the antagonist Velvet, pursuit and escape: the cues that carry the tension gather on Takada's side.

Judging sound from titles alone is risky, of course, but the arrangement in which Kosaki handles the heroine's transformation and resolve while Takada handles the forces threatening the world makes sense if you know their careers. Since Haruhi, Kosaki has been exceptionally good at scoring the moment a character steps forward. And Takada's stated love of Kilar is, in effect, a composer declaring that he wants to write the heavy, shadowed side of the orchestra.

The insert songs are split the same way. "Fuyugare no Tabibito," sung by Pine (CV: Seiran Kobayashi), is composed and arranged by Kosaki; "Aa Ō yo," sung by the Suginami Children's Choir with Shotaro Seo (MONACA) and Junya Hirayama, is by Takada. Both are written by lyricist Saori Kodama. On release day, MONACA's official X account even posted a correction noting that "Prayer on Wings," "Pine's Resolve" and "Goldland, Be Happy" should be credited to Kosaki, which only underlines how intertwined this two-composer score is.

Laland's Saya as Sapphire, a HYBE Theme Song

A word on the film itself. Directed and written by Yuki Igarashi, produced by Twin Engine with animation by OUTLINE, it features original character designs by Kei Mochizuki, and Sapphire is voiced by Saya of the comedy duo Laland. Seiran Kobayashi plays Pine and Koki Uchiyama plays Velvet. The film runs 108 minutes, and after its Netflix premiere it also had a limited two-week theatrical run from September 4. The story of Princess Sapphire, whose kingdom is destroyed by the calamity Nergal and who must stand against it again in a neighboring land, is a contemporary reworking of the original's motif of a princess raised as a prince.

The theme song "Reborn" is performed by Girls Archives., a pre-debut girl group born from HYBE's Japan–Korea joint project. In a Real Sound interview the members said that "every line of the lyrics overlaps with Sapphire's feelings." Score by two MONACA craftsmen, theme song from HYBE: the lineup for this Tezuka reboot brings in both Japanese anime-music artisans and Korean-born pop, and I think it reflects Netflix's premise of a worldwide exclusive release.

How to Listen to a Collaboration Between Two Namco Alumni

MONACA is a collective with strong individual voices, and opportunities for Kosaki and Takada to share a single film are not that common. Given that both started their careers on a game company's sound team, the working method of assigning cues scene by scene and aligning the overall tone is probably something they learned on the game-music floor. Listening through all 36 tracks, does it flow as one film without the listener noticing the handoffs, or do the two colors alternate on the surface? That is the most interesting question this soundtrack poses.

A Tezuka classic, delivered to the world by Netflix, scored by two Namco alumni. On the map of anime music in 2026, this album is not a small coordinate. The CD is released by FUJIPACIFIC MUSIC / FABTONE, and the album is on all streaming services. Start with "Once Upon a Time" and go straight through to "THE RIBBON HERO," in order.