The Art Of The Fanmix

After Gita worked with Isaiah on an essay about the legacy of Evangelion character Asuka Langley Soryu, the two of them couldn’t stop thinking about the music that reminds them of their favorite fictional characters. They decided to sit down and chat about it—and introduce each other to some new music while they were at it.

Gita Jackson: Isaiah, once again I am here to chat with you about anime. But this time it has a little twist—we're trying to match up characters with songs that remind us of them. I used to do this compulsively. In fact, someone on the internet told me last week that they still listen to a playlist I made for various Marvel characters when the MCU was still an interesting pop cultural experiment. I forgot I did that entirely. Hope they're good!

I know you've said you also tend to think of interesting fictional characters when you listen to music. Can you tell me a little bit about where you think that impulse comes from?

Isaiah Colbert: I think it comes from the desire to feel close to a character in the same way looking at a pattern in a carpet would bring back childhood memories. Personally, while I don't particularly have the gene that makes me want to read fanfiction to keep the flames alive for a series I love, I like to make playlists for characters or shows I like so whenever I hear the songs out in the wild I'm reminded of how they resonated with me, in a kind of ships passing in the night vibe. Some characters get a five song playlist; others get playlists with a runtime of nearly three hours.

Gita: Can you remember the first playlist you made for a character? Waaaaaaaay back in the days of Livejournal, I think the first publicly posted fanmix I made was for the characters in The Hunger Games. I photoshopped a cover and everything.

Isaiah: Honestly, my first playlist for a character didn't happen until I was in my first apartment around five years ago! Outside of AMVs and seeing my friends who got me onto Tumblr for all the pretty GIFs, I didn't really know that was a thing until they started making playlists for Fallout characters.

Once I felt the pull, I started making Spotify playlists. I'd add new songs on a rolling basis for characters or shows I liked. My first playlist is the one that's nearly three hours long. It started in the same way that Guillermo del Toro compared watching a movie repeatedly to a romantic relationship: the first time is dating, and the third time is marriage. I don't make playlists for everything, but if you've got one that's really long, I must be thinking about you a lot.

Gita: Speaking of characters we are thinking about it a lot, the first character we wanted to match up to a song was our beloved Asuka Langley Soryu. Do you wanna drop your song first?

Isaiah: While I feel Asuka would say her anthem is Charli XCX's "Von Dutch," it's totally Rina Sawayama's "Imagining."

Gita: Oh I LOOOOOOOOOOVE this song.

Isaiah: To me, Asuka's whole deal is that she's aware of what she wants and needs, and is frustrated that she can't find that within herself and needs that from someplace outside herself. That is, until very recently. When I first heard Sawayama belt out lyrics about being wide awake, feeling naked, shit being complicated and fucked up, and not recognizing herself, the one sequence of Thrice Upon a Time where OG Asuka meets Asuka Shikinami had me go, "Yep, this is her anthem."

Gita: It's hard not to dip into the pop girly space when you talk about Asuka because her emotions are so loud and she wants the spotlight so badly, but I went in a slightly different direction. My pick is Lorde's "Favourite Daughter."

So much of Asuka's malfunction goes back to her mother. I mean, that's the story of Evangelion, right? But this song really dials deep into that desire for your mother's love. The buildup to the first chorus always gets me, because I, too, feel like an actress faking it, trying to earn my mother's love.

"Panic attack just to be as brave as my mother" kills me every time. I'm tearing up listening right now! 

Isaiah: Oh yeah. Between that and "I don't wanna get too close, shit gets complicated," "I don't wanna take it off, emotionally naked," and "Really don't feel too good, fake it till you make it," our song choices are doubling as call out posts aimed at us and our characters.

The theme being trauma~!

Speaking of, another character we quickly deliberated on spotlighting was none other than Anthy Himemiya of Revolutionary Girl Utena fame. I've been dying to hear what song you've chosen for her. 

Gita: I was surprised by how quickly I figured out what I wanted to pick, but Anthy is just a really Mitski-coded character, and I think the song "Happy" describes the torture of being Anthy so well.

Anthy is trapped by her deep desire to be happy butting up against her inability to let herself be happy. Her body is something she feels disconnected from, an object that is acted upon rather than something she embodies. The image of Anthy all alone with "cookie wrappers and empty mugs of tea" is very much an image out of Revolutionary Girl Utena. She doesn't give herself permission to choose her own happiness until the end—until then she waits for happiness to visit her, then leave her lonely.

Isaiah: Oh I love this for two reasons. One: This won't be the last time Mitski will be mentioned. And two: the song I chose feels like the Adolescence of Utena credits rolling song for her finally choosing her own happiness. That song being Aurora's "Exist For Love."

My logic for this song is kinda literal and clinical for my estimation, and a lot of your above sentiment about how Anthy just kind of goes through the motions with her suitors. But the song talking about a war between men and women is basically the war over the Rose Bride, i.e., Anthy herself. 

Aurora's song hit me with the imagery of her and Utena staring at each other in their dual-facing beds. That sense of hope and agency that surged within her after Utena tore her life apart to show her that there is another way. To live rather than merely exist for others. And maybe to live for love. Obviously, the ending of Adolescence of Utena is more flavored to a raucous joyride befitting Utena literally becoming a vehicle to propel Anthy's life forward. So Aurora's song in the soundtrack that exists in my head of RGU is the second one that'd play in the credits for folks still sat in their seats, wiping away all the tears.

Gita: Isaiah I am crying? Right now? No hyperbole??????

Aurora really has the voice of an angel and her control is immaculate... the way she sings, each word is infused with sincere, open love.

On the flip side, I know a Kesha obsessive whom I can now peer pressure into watching Utena through the use of this tiktok (hi Kayleigh!)

Isaiah: We've finally arrived at my pièce de résistance: the final character who's got a Mitski song and whose playlist is nearly three hours long. I wonder who it could be—it's Nana Osaki from the manga Nana. It was always gonna be Nana Osaki.

Gita: I am thinking about Nana Osaki basically 24/7. What's your pick, Isaiah, because I got mine ready to go.

Isaiah: Basically all of Mitski's discography fits snug in the Nana-verse. But my number one song for Osaki is "Brand New City."

Now, my reasoning is huge SPOILERS for the series and comes with a PowerPoint-ass presentation, so you've all been warned.

Gita: Oh I'm so excited, please go on.

Isaiah: Throughout "Brand New City," the song emphasizes the feeling of corroding away, as the lyrics "Honey what'd you take" repeat like a desperate plea to someone else. That's basically Osaki with her guitarist lover/rival Ren. Whether the chorus is about her acting like a surveyor and caretaker of Ren, asking him what he'd taken like scolding a child, or what he's taken from her while she's already feeling out of sorts with herself, hurts any way you slice it. I choose the latter specifically because of the bridge: "But if I gave up on being pretty, I wouldn't know how to be alive. I should move to a brand new city and teach myself how to die"

To me that's the entire journey Nana goes on after Ren dies in a car crash after doing drugs and rushing to get her a present for her 21st birthday. She's still got her looks (a new one, in fact) and her passion for music after disappearing herself. But a lot of her final shots in the manga are giving the ending of Kate Chopin's The Awakening rather than a cathartic feeling that gives hope that she and her best friend Hachi will ever meet again. If anything, her staring at the ocean reads that she ran away, on her own once again, to try to slowly ebb herself into the ocean, or at least teach herself to. The pain of continuing on with her bandmates after something she thought impossible finally came to pass made her just run away. She can maintain her own self-hatred and self-loathing, but having those thoughts superseded by a refrain asking what Ren took and what he took from her to die in such a tragic fashion broke her. Translation: I like making myself sad.

Gita: Oh my god, my song pick was also the one that made me think about Ren and Nana and their doomed romance. Like, down to almost the same expressions of what I think make Nana Osaki an interesting and deeply tragic figure. I also like to make myself sad!

I went with Ethel Cain's "A House In Nebraska," and I wanted to highlight this gorgeous live performance from KEXP:

The first time I heard this song, I sat in silence for like a half hour afterward. It is pure sonic loneliness, and I feel like more than anything, Nana Osaki is looking for a cure to that loneliness inside her. What I think makes this a Nana song is that it's both about searching for home and lamenting a home that you've lost. Nana Osaki was abandoned by her mother, then kicked out of high school for being falsely accused of being a sex worker. All she ever wants is a place where she can feel safe. She thought she found that with Ren, and then he dies. She thought she found that with Hachi, but they grow apart (to say the least). She cannot help but look back, just like the protagonist in "A House In Nebraska," who is also consumed with the deep guilt of having driven away the people she loves.

I will say, the Mitski song definitely sounds a lot more like a song Nana would sing. Maybe Nana becomes more like Ethel Cain after the timeskip.

Isaiah: And just like that, my "Nana Osaki vibes" Ephemeral Style playlist just got eight minutes longer.

Gita: I know that making character playlists is like, lowkey stan behavior, but I also feel like it enriches both these songs and the pieces of media I associate them with. It goes back to what you said up top: "I don't make playlists for everything but if you've got one that's really long, I must be thinking about you a lot." When I love a story, I love it with my whole heart, and eventually, everything reminds me of it.

Isaiah: I've been noticing the sentiment online where young people getting into fandoms ask how anyone survives when their favorite piece of media doesn't get any new content. I think the best recourse for anyone who feels that way is to reject the modernity of demanding a series continue until the heat death of the universe and cherish the thing they liked in the same way we do people. Old heads have been doing it for years making AMVs, so there's virtually nothing keeping fans from pebbling with their favorite media by making them a little playlist.