Mebius Dust, the original TV anime from studio Doga Kobo that premiered in July, saw its original soundtrack released digitally by Flying Dog on September 16. It contains 55 tracks, all composed by DÉ DÉ MOUSE, an artist who has spent nearly two decades carving out a unique place in the club music scene with his chopped-up vocal samples and endlessly stacking melodies.

The First Time He Scored Every Track Alone

DÉ DÉ MOUSE is the solo project of Daisuke Endo. He released his debut album tide of stars on ExT Recordings in 2006, made his major-label debut with avex in 2008, and since 2012 has been working from his own label, not records. He describes his music as "a derivative of synthesizer music and new age music," but what sticks with listeners is the cut-up voice samples and the friendly melodies piling one on top of another.

He is no stranger to anime, having previously contributed to the scores of Wonder Egg Priority and My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999. According to the announcement, however, Mebius Dust is "the first anime in which DÉ DÉ MOUSE single-handedly composed the entire score." These 55 tracks are the first record of him designing the sound world of a series from start to finish on his own.

Children with Powers, and 55 Tracks of "Initial Impulse"

The series is a sci-fi story based on an original concept by Hajime Shinagawa, which won the grand prize in the "Kids/Game Anime" category of the third Project ANIMA original anime planning contest. It is directed by Taro Iwasaki, with series composition by Yoriko Tomita and animation by Doga Kobo, and has aired since July 9 on TOKYO MX, BS Fuji and MBS. It follows children who gained special abilities from mysterious particles called "Mebius Dust" after a meteorite impact, and the adults around them.

What stands out is DÉ DÉ MOUSE's own comment. He says that "after carefully aligning the musical direction with the director, I wrote the 55 tracks in one month with an energy like an initial impulse," adding that "in every track, I have put the inner feelings of the characters into melody in my own way."

  • 55 tracks in a month: By simple math, that is nearly two tracks a day. Take time to agree on the direction, then write it all in one burst: closer to the focus of a live set than to album production.
  • "Inner feelings into melody": A step beyond the textbook role of score as support for a scene's emotion, this is a declaration that he turned the characters' inner lives themselves into melody. You can hear his confidence as a melody maker.
  • Digital only, all 55 tracks: Released simultaneously on major services including Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon Music, so the full score can be heard at once without the running-time limits of a CD.

What Changes When a Club Artist Writes a Score?

From here on, this is my own reading. In recent anime scoring, hiring artists like Kensuke Ushio, fox capture plan or Kevin Penkin and bringing their identity as band or solo artists directly into a series has become a real trend. Rather than handing the job to an all-purpose orchestral composer, the pick says "we want this person's sound." DÉ DÉ MOUSE's hiring sits squarely in that current.

His strength is that even with a beat running, a singable melody always comes to the front. A premise about children with superpowers can easily lean heavy and dark, but sparkling synths and warm melodies can slip in a sense of childhood, and of feelings that do not yet have a name. The sheer volume of 55 tracks likely also reflects room to give each character a melody of their own.

Another fun point: around the soundtrack release, DÉ DÉ MOUSE has kept appearing at club events and DJ parties in Tokyo. Will the melodies he wrote for the score someday ring out on a dance floor? This soundtrack offers the kind of pleasure that fits an era in which the line between "score composer" and "dance music artist" keeps melting.

Whether you have followed the broadcast or are a DÉ DÉ MOUSE fan who has not seen the show, try playing these 55 tracks from the top. A month of "initial impulse" should come through as sheer density of sound.