- Interview Date: 8/22/2025
- Interview Location: Anime NYC 2025
- Interview Format: Spherical Robin
Unidentified Gaming Journal: Over your whole profession, you’ve sang jazz, pop, and rock. How have you ever skilled your voice to take action many genres and preserve your voice?
Yoko Takahashi: After I was rising up, I used to be in a refrain group for ten years. Lots of the coaching that I realized throughout that point I nonetheless use to today as an grownup.
Unknown Outlet: As we’re celebrating the anniversary of Evangelion, what are your ideas on the journey?
Yoko Takahashi: My life has been closely impacted by Evangelion.
Unknown Outlet: Do you suppose folks love Evangelion as a result of they’ll relate to the characters in their very own means, or do you suppose it was the story and the music that sealed the deal?
Yoko Takahashi: I feel it’s each.
Anime Trending: In line with JOYSOUND, A Merciless Angel’s Thesis was one of many high 4 songs of the primary half of 2025. What are your ideas on the music’s enduring recognition?
Yoko Takahashi: I wish to know the key as properly. Karaoke in Japan, it’s a music that brings folks collectively. I consider that’s a part of its enduring recognition.
Anime Nook: Many artists credit score you as an inspiration. How does it really feel to be a foundational a part of different musicians’ careers?
Yoko Takahashi: That is the primary time I’ve heard that I’ve made an impression on so many musicians. I’m fairly shocked to listen to that.
Nerdier Tides: What’s it wish to have your work be thought of half of popular culture globally?
Yoko Takahashi: I feel one of many causes is that Evangelion is so nice. It’s nice on so many various ranges. The story, the performing, the music. All the things about it’s so prime quality. That’s a part of the explanation it has endured so lengthy.
Queens Gazette: What do you love to do most whenever you go to New York Metropolis?
Yoko Takahashi: See reveals each on and off Broadway.
The Pure Aristocrat: How do you’re feeling the music business has modified because you debuted in 1991?
Yoko Takahashi: After I had my debut in 1991, it was proper after the bubble burst. The financial system burst. On the time, the music panorama was very unstable. Over the previous thirty-plus years, that instability has lingered. That has been the realm I’ve labored in.
Unknown Outlet: You’ve collaborated rather a lot with Toshiyuki Ōmori over time. Is he one in all your favourite artistic companions? What’s the artistic course of like when composing and recording music with him?
Yoko Takahashi: I knew him earlier than my debut. He was a well-known composer and studio musician. It was by means of him and his connections that I bought the Evangelion gig. Now we have had such an incredible musical connection all through all of the years. At one level, I used to be a part of his expertise company.
He was really sort of one of the best man at my youthful brother’s wedding ceremony. He feels virtually like a household relative to me. He’s my sensei, my nice trainer, and in addition somebody I really feel comfy saying what I really feel round him. We’ve had this lengthy profession collectively.
Unknown Brazilian Outlet: Due to Evangelion, your songs have turn into very fashionable in Brazil, particularly in karaoke. Would you want to point out in South America and may you ship a message to your Brazilian followers?
Yoko Takahashi: Twenty years in the past, I did a present in São Paulo. As , there are lots of Nisei, second-generation Japanese folks dwelling in Brazil. Much more so than English, there have been lots of people there who knew Japanese. On the time, I felt the connection between Brazil and Japan was very deep.
Now, my present has taken on a brand new fashion, with the backup dancers as properly. I’d like to convey my new present to South America or Brazil.
Anime Herald: How did you’re feeling whenever you bought an opportunity to cowl Fly Me to the Moon? Have been you acquainted with Frank Sinatra’s model of it?
Yoko Takahashi: Frank Sinatra’s model is how I first realized of the music. I used to be deeply honored to have the ability to do a canopy of Fly Me to the Moon.
Unknown Outlet: After thirty years since Evangelion’s debut, how has your relationship with the sequence and its world fan base advanced? What features of this journey have shocked you essentially the most?
Yoko Takahashi: In the course of the Corona [COVID-19] pandemic, when everyone was caught at dwelling, it was a second in time when folks may rewatch anime sequence over once more, or watch it for the primary time. One of many issues I discover so attention-grabbing about anime is, on the level you’re watching it for the primary time, it turns into new once more. It turns into of that second.
When Evangelion was on Netflix, it expanded the age vary of the fan base. There have been so many individuals who have been attending to expertise it for the primary time. A youthful viewers. In Japan, the sequence is so beloved. It’s broadcast time and again on Japanese TV. That has expanded the viewers base in Japan to turn into even youthful. While you watch a sequence for the primary time, it turns into a factor of the now, of the second.
Unknown Outlet: Earlier than you debuted, you labored with Toshinobu Kubota as a backup singer. Are you able to discuss your expertise again then?
Yoko Takahashi: One of many first gigs I bought within the music business was being a background singer for Toshinobu Kubota. For those who don’t know him, he was one of many first singers to sing funk music in Japanese. Being a backup singer for him was a extremely enjoyable studying expertise for me as a younger singer. One factor that he stated to me, that impressed me, was “The background singers aren’t background singers as a result of they’re worse than the primary performer. They must be higher than the primary performer.” He gave me a way of getting a excessive stage of professionalism in my singing skill and a recent perspective as I used to be beginning out as a younger singer?
Michael Tom: What initially impressed you to enter the music business? How have you ever advanced as an artist from whenever you debuted to now?
Yoko Takahashi: As I discussed earlier, I bought my begin as a background singer with Kubota. I had all the time studied music from a younger age. I had been in an beginner band. That’s after I bought the supply to audition as one in all Kubota’s background singers. That kickstarted my profession into the music business. I usually get requested by youthful artists, “How do I turn into a singer or get my begin within the business?”
For me, I polished my abilities as a background singer as a studio musician. Even the issues you aren’t good at, by repeatedly doing the issues I used to be weaker at, I bought higher and higher at them. You don’t wish to simply give attention to simply doing the talents you’re good at. You wish to polish the components of you that aren’t pretty much as good as what you’re recognized for. It’s a job. Singing is a job. You actually can’t say no to something. That’s the way you get ends in the business. Sharpening your abilities and getting higher on the issues you’re weaker at.
The Pure Aristrocrat: What music has been most difficult so that you can carry out in your profession?
Yoko Takahashi: I must admit that of all the songs I’ve sung essentially the most, A Merciless Angel’s Thesis.
Unknown Outlet: There’s a fashionable model of A Merciless Angel’s Thesis carried out by the Glory Gospel Singers. That’s how I found Evangelion. How do you’re feeling when artists cowl A Merciless Angel’s Thesis and do their very own remixes?
Yoko Takahashi: They don’t hunt down my permission, so I’m not on top of things on all the completely different artists who’ve carried out covers of A Merciless Angel’s Thesis.
A part of the explanation I’ve not heard any covers of the music is as a result of there has by no means been an official launch of a canopy of A Merciless Angel’s Thesis. All the things that you simply’ve heard is one thing that the followers have carried out of their very own accord, together with all the international variations.
Unknown Outlet: Are there any songs out of your catalog that you simply want have been extra fashionable like A Merciless Angel’s Thesis?
Yoko Takahashi: One other music of mine that was sort of successful, maybe you’ve heard of Soul’s Chorus? It’s very fashionable, however not as fashionable as A Merciless Angel’s Thesis. If I had to decide on, it will be Soul’s Chorus.
