Kensuke Ushio

Kensuke Ushio, the Japanese composer, has built a name for himself through forward-thinking electronic works that fuse classical traditions with experimental approaches. He introduced his solo electronic venture Agraph during 2008, joined the supergroup Lama, and reached his widest audience by scoring anime titles, most prominently the popular series Chainsaw Man.

Born in Tokyo in 1983, Ushio spent his childhood at a music school and took up piano at an early age. During high school he played keyboards in a covers band, then encountered techno and resolved to pursue a career as a recording artist. At university he studied arts and music before qualifying as a recording engineer with expertise in the audio software ProTools. At a club event organized by Takkyu Ishino of the pioneering techno-pop duo Denki Groove, Ushio sought career guidance; once Ishino learned of his ProTools credentials, he immediately engaged him for the 2004 album Title #1. Over the following four years Ushio served as Ishino’s assistant and engineer while continuing to develop his own material. After initial electro-disco experiments met with weak responses, he shifted toward a more introspective, emotionally resonant, relaxed downtempo aesthetic.

Ushio launched the Agraph project in 2008 with the Ishino-produced album A Day, Phases on the Sony subsidiary Ki/oon. The release earned positive notice, leading to a stylistically similar follow-up, Equal, in 2010 that included a remix by longtime influence Alva Noto; that same year Agraph opened for Underworld during the group’s Tokyo performances. Former Supercar members Koji Nakamura and Miki Furukawa subsequently recruited him into their electro-pop supergroup Lama, where he handled rhythm programming on the 2011 album Now and the 2012 album Modanica. Once Lama dissolved, Ushio resumed solo work.

An avid anime enthusiast, he entered anime scoring in 2014 with the series Space Dandy and Ping Pong, yet his decisive breakthrough arrived when director Naoko Yamada selected him for the films A Silent Voice (2016) and Liz and the Blue Bird (2018). These scores brought widespread recognition and further commissions, including the series Devilman Crybaby, Japan Sinks 2020, The Heike Story, Chainsaw Man, and The Dangers in My Heart. Across these projects Ushio repeatedly displayed his range, moving between delicate, impressionistic textures shaped by post-classical and avant-garde sources for intimate coming-of-age narratives, traditional Japanese folk elements for period drama, and pulsating EBM and techno for more unconventional stories.

Even while occupied with scoring assignments, Ushio maintained occasional activity under the Agraph name. A more exploratory third album, The Shader, surfaced in 2016 on the independent label Beat Records; in 2022 he placed the project with Pony Canyon and issued the single “Unified Perspective.”