Penkin composes for animation with an unusual willingness to sound sincere. Made in Abyss pairs a story of descent and irreversible harm with luminous orchestral and choral writing, and the gap between the two is what gives the series its effect. He has also scored The Apothecary Diaries and Nippon Sangoku.
He is an Australian composer who studied in London and works largely on Japanese productions, an unusual position that shows in his blend of Western orchestral tradition with the instrumental colours common in the medium. Recording with live ensembles rather than sampled libraries is central to his method, and the resulting texture is audibly different.
Recurring subjects: exploration and its cost, awe treated as a legitimate goal rather than an embarrassment, and wordless vocal lines used as a lead instrument. He writes memorable primary themes and then reharmonises them into something disturbing rather than composing separate cues for dread.
His work on the descent series is widely cited as one of the strongest scores in recent animation, and it has drawn attention to how much a score can complicate an image rather than reinforce it. His concert performances and album releases have found an audience independent of the productions themselves.
For listeners who want animation scores taken seriously as orchestral music. Suited to anyone who was unsettled by a series and could not work out why the music felt so beautiful while it happened.
In the haunting fantasy anime "Made in Abyss," follow Riko and Reg on a perilous TV series journey into the depths of a mysterious abyss, skillfully brought to life by Kinema Citrus.
Adapted from Akihito Tsukushi's manga, this anime captivates with its stunningly intricate world-building and an emotional depth that belies its seemingly childlike art style.
Nippon Sangoku is a TV anime adaptation with a political, near-future drama edge, set after Japan fractures into three nations following nuclear, natural, and political disasters. Somewhere between shuffling paperwork and brittle survival, a low rank bureaucrat, Aoteru Misumi, tries to argue his way toward reunification in an anime where every choice feels brutally costly.
Adapted from the manga of the same name, it spotlights elites who hoard privileges while the masses endure brutal precarity, making the story a fight over whether conviction and eloquence can move a broken system or get swallowed by its machinery.
A slow-burn historical TV mystery set in a fictional imperial court, where a pharmacology trained woman solves cases by deduction instead of spectacle. The story blends palace intrigue with poison and subtext, using warm, muted interiors and expressive character work to reward close watching.
Fantasy sports series built on gorotama, a game close to soccer where every player also fights with a personal magic power. Animated by a French studio, scored by Kevin Penkin in Japan with an eighty-piece orchestra, and released by Disney in a single batch of eleven episodes.