For the better part of 15 years, Periphery have been pushing the sound of metal to new domains. From popularizing a sound which has come to be known as “djent” (which according to the title of their fifth album is not a genre) to touring the world playing some of the proggiest riffs you’ve ever heard, it is not a stretch to say that they are responsible for the sound of metal today. Which means that, in a transitive property chain unlike any other, anime is responsible for the way metal sounds today. That’s because guitarist Misha Mansoor has been watching anime since he was a kid, across languages and genres. I spoke with Mansoor about how anime and music speak to the larger way he loves art. Tell me a little bit about your anime origins. Misha Mansoor : So I'm just gonna caveat this right now, I haven't watched a lot of anime recently, just because of a lack of time. I'm behind on shows. I'm behind on video games. I'm behind on movies. I'm behind on everything. But I started pretty young with manga of all things. I had the manga of the original Dragon Ball . I had like the first 13 books. I was living in Belgium at the time and I was speaking French and these books were all in French, funnily enough. Everyone was obsessed with Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z and all that. I lived in Belgium for like three years. My dad's work brought us there, and I came back to Washington, DC, which is where I was born and raised, and nobody knew what Dragon Ball Z was. It was really frustrating! I remember waking up really, really early on Saturday mornings, like, I think it was like at 8 o'clock, or something stupid early, so you couldn't even sleep in, just to catch the Dragon Ball Z episode that would be airing. Nobody else knew what it was and you were very not cool for bringing it up. It was kind of hard to watch or follow at that point in time. From there, there was definitely a Naruto phase. There was definitely a Bleach phase. I started playing tennis at one point because I watched The Prince of Tennis . And oh, man, what's the name of the baking anime? I didn't watch it, I just read the whole thing. Yakitate!! Japan ! That was it. I was obsessed with that one, too. You know what I'm talking about. Then I got into some of the more like, let's say, adult stuff. I saw Elfen Lied and GANTZ and Ergo Proxy , which I really enjoyed. Psycho stuff like Excel Saga and FLCL . Eureka Seven was also great and Gurren Lagann . It’s all coming back to me now. And then eventually Attack on Titan . I feel like this later stuff started to get a lot more mainstream. You could talk to people about some of this stuff. So you were finally able to find some people who knew what Dragon Ball was and knew what all this stuff was? Mansoor : There's a certain point where it's like, oh, everyone's starting to get sick of talking about Dragon Ball , because everyone knows about it right? I think my final excursion with Dragon Ball was just reading. I was a big fan of reading manga. I remember Naruto being really frustrating to read and watch, because I was up to date on the manga and I knew everything that was like canon so far. But I had to watch all of these filler arcs and I hated the filler arcs because nothing of substance happened. I wanted to know what happened next. That happened with Bleach as well. Now I just struggle to find the time to watch. And there’s so many options, so it's kind of overwhelming. I really want to watch Chainsaw Man . I heard that was good. I never actually finished Attack on Titan because I was waiting and then, like the momentum stopped. And now I have to recap to remember where I'm even at. But I did enjoy that show a lot, though. Right when it came out, I thought it was so awesome. I went through a pretty big phase where it was almost all that I consumed. RELATED: LANDMVRKS' Florent Salfati: Anime and Manga are a Big Part of Who I Am Since you brought up Bleach , I have to ask if the opening track to Periphery II , “Muramasa” is a Bleach reference? Mansoor : We meant “Muramasa” as the Final Fantasy reference. Ah OK. Mansoor : We linked the three songs on the album, “Muramasa,” “Ragnarok,” and “Masamune” to the three swords from Final Fantasy . Wait, what is Muramasa in Bleach again? It's been so long. It was from the filler arc where the Zanpakuto came to life! Mansoor : That's funny. I don't even remember that! I watched Bleach so long ago. But I think I would have watched it after I played Final Fantasy 7 . You talked about going from Dragon Ball , Naruto , and other big shonen shows into really dark, philosophical, sad series. Did that have anything to do with you getting into heavier music? Mansoor: I remember a lot of people being like, oh, I don't like anime. And I'm like, well, that's like saying, you don't like movies, you know. It's an entire medium that guarantees there's something that you would find that you like. And I was exploring all the different genres of the medium. I was surprised at the depth and the breadth of it. It's like you could find literally anything. I was dating a girl in high school who had a box set of Serial Experiments Lain , and I was like, that's too far. I found that boring. Now I'd like it, but it was like my first atypical anime at that age. And then there's obviously Ghost in the Shell and stuff like that which I never got like super into. But like I was like, I'd like to get into this at some point, but it's just very heavy and philosophical, and I was not old enough to really pay attention to that yet. That said, I really enjoyed Ergo Proxy because it was animated so phenomenally well. The whole production, the packaging, and everything was wonderful. And it was doing really heavy stuff but it was accessible. I found it really accessible and interesting. That’s when I realized that maybe I liked the darker stuff. I remember watching this one now that I think about it called Monster , which I'm like, this could have been a live-action show too. I started to see stuff where I was like, OK, so you chose this medium to express your art in, and this is the story that you have to tell, and seeing where that went and what stuff resonated and what stuff didn't. Shonen made a lot more sense when I was younger though. I think the last shonen thing I got into in earnest was probably The Prince of Tennis . I think I watched being like, how the hell is there an anime about tennis? But by the end of it, I bought a tennis racket, and I was playing it with my brother and I wanted to be all good at tennis. That show gets its hooks in you, doesn't it? It helps that it's something you can actually do. You said you could go buy a tennis racket and play. But you can't go out and kill somebody. Mansoor : I mean, you can but it's very frowned upon! But, that's a good point, and I think there were more relatable ones like Yakitate!! Japan that got me more interested because I could do them. But there are also anime that I've never gotten into for one reason or another. I've never seen a single episode or read a single page of One Piece . I've never seen an episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion and I've been told I need to do that. I still haven't read or watched Berserk . That’s really interesting because most of the people that I've talked to that play in metal or metalcore or hardcore bands, their starting point is “I saw Evangelion ” or “I saw Berserk ” and I wanted to make music that felt like that. So it's really funny that you haven't seen either of those, but still also play some really extreme music. Mansoor : I think it's a combination of exposure. This stuff was hard to come by. Sometimes it'd be trying to watch something, but not being able to find a way to to watch it reliably or read it led to me getting sidetracked. Evangelion is really high on my list of things to catch up on though. RELATED: I Prevail on the Dragon Ball Energy in Their Music That and Chainsaw Man . If you just made time to watch those you’d be all over anime again. Mansoor : Thankfully there's no part of me that feels like I've outgrown this. I still love all the things that I love about them. I think I would enjoy them. But someone needs to come out with 30 hour days so I can do everything I want to do. It sounds like you're drawn to extremes, both with the type of music you make and the type of anime you watch. Do you think that there's elements of each that are complementary or very similar across anime and music? Mansoor : You know, it's interesting. I haven't really thought about this, but what I like about progressive music, which is what I'm gonna call what we make, even though everyone calls it djent, is that my approach is progressive, which is just do whatever you want. It seemed like in a lot of other genres like, let's say I'd started a rock band or a metal band, there could be an ideal section that's not rock enough or not metal enough, and you draw yourself into those corners. And I was like, that seems very stupid to me. I'm not saying it's bad for people who want to do that. If you have a goal and a vision, do that. But I wanted everything, and I think we exposed our M.O. on the first album by trying to cover as much ground as physically possible. It's got everything, with the idea being that we can further expand in these directions, and it won't be a shock in the future. I always felt like to some degree that in anime, manga, and that culture, there are a lot of extremes in a way that you don't see. You have these extremely serious, stressful, crazy moments that are juxtaposed with very, very light-hearted, silly moments. Or all of a sudden the hero who just beat the toughest guy in the universe is just getting punched in the head and has a big bump on his head from normal people. I always thought that was funny that those things could exist in the same show. The dynamic range of anime seemed a lot wider than the traditional Western audience was used to. If you see that more nowadays, it's probably taken influence from anime in some way. Anime endings are a great example of this. A lot of times, there'll be something super dramatic that happens to end an episode. And then this super upbeat J-pop song over the credits. Mansoor : Yeah, it's funny. They'd always have bangers for intro. Now I typically skip them, but I'd listen to those songs every time. Image via Netflix Any that stood out to you? Mansoor : There's one that really caught me off guard. I love Death Note , but everyone loves Death Note . But halfway through the season, they just changed the intro song to Maximum the Hormone and it’s a crazy metal song. I was just like, what just happened? I'd never seen such a stylistic change, or a song of that style to open up like what I'd consider a fairly mainstream anime. RELATED: Magnolia Park Explains Their Vampire Hunter D Inspired New Album, Vamp It ties back to what you were just talking about, that they're willing to go in whatever direction they feel like. And if that means putting a metal song on a show that's on regular television, so be it. Mansoor : Yeah, that must have freaked a lot of people out. What do you think it is that draws the fans of anime and heavy music together? Mansoor : I'd say it's more of an archetypal thing. You could actually take a step back and simplify it somewhat to the fact that there are people that get into things. And then there's people that sort of obsess over things right? So there's certain genres or certain things that really require a certain level of dedication or obsession to get into or master or appreciate. So, for example, metal is on average much more difficult, from a technical standpoint, style music to play and play well. So it requires proficiency, and you only get that if you're the kind of person who's willing to try and play it over and over again. It'd be perfectly acceptable and “normal” for people to be like, it's kind of a pain. It's good enough and move on to the next thing. I'm not passing judgment here, I'm just saying it's just some sort of the way nerds get obsessed with things, you get obsessed with all the minutiae and all the details. You want to know about the gear, you want to know about the technique, you wanna know about everything. My drummer [Matt Halpern] has a saying, “The way you do one thing is the way you do everything.” It's very much the same thing, that same part of your brain that says I'm going to play guitar for two hours instead of going out to hang out with friends because I'm zeroed in on this. It's that same thing that will make you get into a video game and not stop playing, or get into a show that has deep lore and complex characters. Let's take The Prince of Tennis , for example. So much of that is like them explaining a lot of rules of tennis or technique. On the surface, it doesn't sound particularly interesting. But for my nerd brain it was perfect. So I think it's a chicken or the egg thing here a little bit. I think there's certain people who are drawn to that feeling, whether it's metal or music that requires a bit more proficiency. That's how they will do music. And that's how they'll do video games. And that's how they'll do any hobby that they get into. There’s a whole set of hobbies that tend to be more rewarding or more fun for people who get into them on that level and that may not offer much reward for people who casually get into things. I'm sure there's people who are casually into anime. But, like at least growing up, you were either an anime kid or you weren't. People were obsessed because they found a medium that was speaking to them. People get more immersed. That's why we love both of them, because you can lose yourself in both of them. Mansoor : Yeah, it's a good escape. Listen to Periphery here . Catch Periphery on tour with Coheed & Cambria and Mastodon .
