A Composer Worth Recommending: Meis Clauson

Sometimes I feel like I’m a “eroge music player” first and a person second, because I really, really love eroge music.

Listen to enough of it, though, and you start to notice that what makes a song good isn’t just the singer — composition and arrangement are the biggest factors.

Japan has a ton of composers, and they have a distinct trait: their styles are vivid. As for how “vivid,” I think even a Bilibili-addled middle schooler who’s heard too much Yuki Kajiura gets it. Lots of people latch onto certain composers’ signatures, and it’s kind of a micro-segmented hobbyist thing. You rarely see Kajiura change her sweeping style, and you rarely see Hiroyuki Sawano stop chasing that big, in-your-face sonic impact.

If we’re talking anime alone, I prefer composers with more variety in their scores — people like Taku Iwasaki and Tatsuya Kato. But today I’m not here to talk about them. Today I’m here to talk about Meis Clauson.

There’s not much to say about his bio. He bills himself as a freelance composer, but he has an official site with a list of his works, and his Twitter updates frequently, so you can see what he’s up to. He seems like someone who takes his work seriously, though his health doesn’t look great…

Before I get into the actual recommendation, let me explain why I like Meis Clauson.

I’m a person who really needs “melody” in music. Any song with a sense of rhythm and melody, I’ll enjoy. Since it’s music, most of it satisfies that, but some doesn’t — a lot of country rock, a lot of extremely lazy jazz, a lot of big classical symphonies.

I know plenty of those have gems. But I genuinely can’t accept a piece of so-called “music” where after listening for ages I can’t even feel the melody, let alone the rhythm. I’ve complained to classmates more than once that I can’t stand the Western country they listen to; for me, Western rhythm rock is better. Though certain death metal is just screaming left over after the rhythm’s gone, and I can’t accept that either.

So my taste comes down to strong “melody” and “rhythm.” Rhythm is mostly there. “Melody” is hard to pin down, but if I had to put it into words: “catchy and full of feeling.”

Music is a universal language. Melody can carry emotion, and if you pair it with the right singer, it’ll unleash the melody’s maximum energy.

Meis Clauson’s work is exactly that: full of “melody” and “rhythm” while also being very “high quality.” And he himself strikes me as a very “serious” and “hardworking” composer.

I’ve hyped him up a lot, and you probably still have no idea what’s so great about the guy. So a recommendation like this needs evidence. Music is good or bad once you hear it. Let’s start with one of Meis Clauson’s better-known songs.

Do you know the Kin’iro Mosaic OP?

It’s the one that goes:

問題なんか何もないよ 結構　結構　いけるもんネ? 失敗だって　笑顔で　さぁ キミと　一緒　乗り越えて行こう!

The last line apparently gets misheard as “lolicon love’s temptation.”

http://music.163.com/#/song?id=27506128

Composer/arranger: Meis Clauson

By the way, he also composed the OP for Kin’iro Mosaic’s second season and the follow-up works.

Of course, you might think you don’t particularly like that kind of “moe” tune. That’s when I should mention the three styles Meis Clauson excels at.

The first is the cute style like Kin’iro Mosaic. Worth noting that this style shows up in several anime too, including Date A Live’s ED 2 — the one sung by Iori Nomizu, SAVE MY HEART.

http://music.163.com/#/song?id=26439758

You might still think that cute style is nothing special. Meis Clauson has a second style he’s good at: “fast-paced passionate style.” In this mode he rarely uses electronic sounds; it’s mostly piano, violin, and electric guitar — a fully standard band arrangement.

If you play a lot of eroge, you might have heard this one:

GLORIOUS DAYS http://music.163.com/#/song?id=410925724

It’s the insert song from the final route of Koikari -Love, and Happiness, and More!-. I think a lot of chuuni kids were knocked flat by this song; the comment count on NetEase Cloud Music for it is scary.

Composer/arranger: Meis Clauson Also worth mentioning, lyricist: yuiko

どこかで聞いたメロディ 誰にも届かなくてもいい たったひとり キミのために

Rhyme in Japanese is rare — holy shit.

yuiko really is talented, and a good singer too. She and Meis Clauson formed a unit called Primary, and they put out new songs and discs at every doujin event.

When Meis Clauson and yuiko work together as Primary, the style tends toward light rock, hovering somewhere between “breezy and passionate” and “faintly melancholy.”

Speaking of that “faintly melancholy” kind of song, let’s look at another insert from Koikari:

The World That Begins from the Eastern Sky http://music.163.com/#/song?id=410925727

幾億もの涙が作る世界 ねぇ気付いてたの？ 最初の言葉 繰り返して

Still Meis Clauson on composition, yuiko on lyrics. These lines genuinely made my chest tighten, especially since I’d been in a bad mood lately. Honestly, I’ve never thought much of Japanese phrasing, lyrics especially — it looks impressive and translates into something idiotic, losing a kind of beauty. This song changed my mind.

Most importantly, the lyrics overlap heavily with the plot of the Shin’nou Ayane route in the game… nothing beats that.

Meis Clauson’s style comes down to three categories:

1. Cute and moe
2. Passionate and energetic
3. Melancholy and stirring

Even though the word “passionate” only shows up in the second, his songs are always full of vitality — you can feel what the singer is conveying. Catchy melodies, sharp rhythms. At first it sounds like ordinary J-pop, but listen a lot, especially after going through some Primary discs, and that raw burst of emotion is something few other composers can give you.

By the way, maybe Meis Clauson’s songs pair best with Grado headphones.

Meis Clauson has worked with a lot of singers and left behind plenty of familiar tracks, mostly eroge. You’ve probably heard a good number of these:

First, the ones with Duca:

Kanransha Ano Hi to, Kinou to Kyou to Ashita to http://music.163.com/#/song?id=431395438

be confidence http://music.163.com/#/song?id=415904635

Passion http://music.163.com/#/song?id=431395440

My First Love http://music.163.com/#/song?id=431395443

With Marika:

quantum jump http://music.163.com/#/song?id=29307295

Knowing http://music.163.com/#/song?id=26329440

With others, including the ED from Hanasaki Work Spring!

Peace http://music.163.com/#/song?id=33111856

And plenty more game EDs and OPs I won’t list one by one. They’re all written up here:

http://meisclauson.com/works.html

But the person he collaborates with most is probably Yuiko — sometimes the two of them even write lyrics together.

http://music.163.com/#/artist?id=18246

I think the songs above are pretty familiar to anyone who regularly digs up gal game music. Yet few people know there’s such a passionate composing master behind them. The most tragicomic part is that in the comments for these songs, I only see people chasing the singer, or saying “as expected of Marika’s style.”

I think more people should know about this composer with such a high hit rate, Meis Clauson. My fondness for him may have surpassed other famous names. Even if a bunch of people know Mitsuhashi Mizuki, know Hijiri Anze, they don’t know Meis Clauson exists.

By the way, the theme song for the latest Tsukikage no Simulacre game is also by him — same passionate style. Maybe I’ll keep buying when the full version comes out; I’ve already bought two Primary albums.

Song links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSfdOKHjZhQ

So I recommend this composer’s work, and I recommend the composer himself.

I made a NetEase playlist with some of the songs I could find — anime, games, doujin unit stuff. It’s not complete, but it’s representative enough.

http://music.163.com/#/playlist?id=482756414

Also recommending my galgame playlist — only songs from games I’ve played and heard made it in:

http://music.163.com/#/playlist?id=34172180

When I’m in a bad mood I go listen to music. Afterward, I usually end up thinking: it’s good to be alive.