Book introduction

　This book aims to elucidate how musicians were engaged in the film industry in post-war Japan by analyzing Yasushi Akutagawa’s film music. It contains six chapters which is roughly divided into three parts. The first part develops a basis for exploring Akutagawa’s musical strategy. The next part appraises that San-Nin No Kai, the group which Akutagawa formed with Ikuma Dan and Toshiro Mayuzumi in 1953, had a function as cooperative association for film music which allowed the members to behave free from various restrictions under the film industry in Japan at that time. And the third part examines some of Aktagawa’s film scores from three viewpoints; that is, “emphasis of theme music,” “reutilization of motifs” and “usage of particular instruments.” The book concludes that Akutagawa repeatedly used the same motif as a result of his “super-studio systematic” behavior, which was quite unique in the Japanese film/music history.