Confusion about the naming of Aldnoah Zero's OST/opening/ending song titles


I have a couple of very closely related questions regarding composer Hiroyuki
Sawano's choices in naming Aldnoah Zero's OST/opening/ending song titles.

I will be referencing the tracklist for Aldnoah Zero's OST (link
[here](http://aldnoahzero.wikia.com/wiki/ALDNOAH.ZERO_Original_Soundtrack)),
in addition to some opening/closing songs that are co-composed by Hiroyuki
Sawano including "aLIEz", "A/Z", and "&Z".

First, most of the song titles include special/non-alphabetical/non-English
characters (even if the title is clearly meant an actual word like "robot" or
"breathless"). Here are some examples:

  * R零B零T
  * BRE@TH//LESS
  * Ch19ヲFIRE★

Why did Hiroyuki Sawano decide to include all the special characters? Is there
any significance in using them? To me, they are unnecessary, but I hesitate to
claim that they are indeed unnecessary because they might actually have some
meaning that I am not seeing.

My other question is why are some song titles seemingly extra-arbitrarily
named? I realize that these are songs, so the composer can name them whatever
he likes, but some song titles seem completely out of the blue to me.

I realize that there are explanations for the names of some OST tracks in the
wiki that I linked.

For example, the song "AD2014-7.5/7.9-零・A" is named because "2014 07-05 /
07-09 [are] ALDONAH.ZERO's air dates on Tokyo MX and ABC respectively".

The explanation tells me WHAT the song is named after, but it does not tell me
WHY is the song named after something as arbitrary as an air date for the
show. OST track titles usually relate to what the song actually attempts to
convey to the listener, or relates to the scene in the animation, but I cannot
see how an air date relates to either.

Finally, I do not understand where the openings/ending names come from. What
do the names "aLIEz", "A/Z" and "&Z" mean exactly, and why are they named that
way?




[seijitsu's answer](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/24404/) does a good job
of identifying what's going on with most of your examples, though I'll add
that "Ch19ヲFIRE★" is meant to be read "Chikyuu wo Kasei" (1 = "i", 9 = "kyuu",
"Fire" = 火 = "ka", ★ = 星 = "sei", "kasei" = 火星 = "Mars", but "kasei" also = 加勢
= "reinforcements"), which is something like "Reinforcements to Earth".

However, this goes a little beyond the recent-ish fad of including arbitrary
typographic symbols for stylistic purposes. There's a broader context to this:
Hiroyuki Sawano is a madman when it comes to titling his compositions.

I invite you to consult the track listings for some of his other compositions.
For example, [Kill la Kill](http://vgmdb.net/album/42078), which has
incomprehensible monstrosities like "寝LLna聴9" (no, this doesn't make any real
sense even if you've seen Kill la Kill _and_ know Japanese). Or [Owari no
Seraph](http://vgmdb.net/album/52144), with "1hundredknight:Y" being a number
of steps removed from "Hyakuya Yuuichirou" (the protagonist's name). He's been
doing this since at least 2011 with [Ao no
Exorcist](http://vgmdb.net/album/25549), and has only gotten more ridiculous
over time. My favorite example of this insanity is "凸】♀】♂】←巨人" from [Shingeki
no Kyojin](http://vgmdb.net/album/38626), which Sawano indicates is supposed
to be read "Kyojin Shinkou", meaning "Advance of the Titans" - but this is
actually a pictogram of a series of walls, with a giant (巨人) approaching them.
My god!

It's leaked over into his non-anime work, too - the soundtrack for [Platina
Data](http://vgmdb.net/album/41469) had gems like "nf壱III". I haven't seen
Platina Data yet, and that probably has no bearing whatsoever on my inability
to figure out what this is supposed to mean. He wasn't always like this,
though - [the soundtrack for
Iryuu](http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%83%95%E3%82%B8%E3%83%86%E3%83%AC%E3%83%93%E7%B3%BB%E3%83%89%E3%83%A9%E3%83%9E%E3%80%8C%E5%8C%BB%E9%BE%8D-Team-
Medical-
Dragon%E3%80%8D%E3%82%AA%E3%83%AA%E3%82%B8%E3%83%8A%E3%83%AB%E3%82%B5%E3%82%A6%E3%83%B3%E3%83%89%E3%83%88%E3%83%A9%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF-
TV%E3%82%B5%E3%83%B3%E3%83%88%E3%83%A9/dp/B000FDF2IC) (the show that first
brought him real recognition) is quite tame, with track titles like
"unnecessary words" and "Blue Dragon".

According to [one tweet of
his](https://twitter.com/sawano_nZk/status/308097466358718465), it's generally
true of his soundtracks that the titles don't really have any deep meaning to
them. "Don't think too hard about it", he says.

So, yeah - Sawano is bonkers ([he appears to get a good bit of lulz out of
doing this](https://twitter.com/sawano_nZk/status/310615763360833537)), and
beyond maybe decrypting his hyper-elaborate punny titles into a comprehensible
human language, there is probably not much more to be said here.




[seijitsu's answer](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/24404/) does a good job
of identifying what's going on with most of your examples, though I'll add
that "Ch19ヲFIRE★" is meant to be read "Chikyuu wo Kasei" (1 = "i", 9 = "kyuu",
"Fire" = 火 = "ka", ★ = 星 = "sei", "kasei" = 火星 = "Mars", but "kasei" also = 加勢
= "reinforcements"), which is something like "Reinforcements to Earth".

However, this goes a little beyond the recent-ish fad of including arbitrary
typographic symbols for stylistic purposes. There's a broader context to this:
Hiroyuki Sawano is a madman when it comes to titling his compositions.

I invite you to consult the track listings for some of his other compositions.
For example, [Kill la Kill](http://vgmdb.net/album/42078), which has
incomprehensible monstrosities like "寝LLna聴9" (no, this doesn't make any real
sense even if you've seen Kill la Kill _and_ know Japanese). Or [Owari no
Seraph](http://vgmdb.net/album/52144), with "1hundredknight:Y" being a number
of steps removed from "Hyakuya Yuuichirou" (the protagonist's name). He's been
doing this since at least 2011 with [Ao no
Exorcist](http://vgmdb.net/album/25549), and has only gotten more ridiculous
over time. My favorite example of this insanity is "凸】♀】♂】←巨人" from [Shingeki
no Kyojin](http://vgmdb.net/album/38626), which Sawano indicates is supposed
to be read "Kyojin Shinkou", meaning "Advance of the Titans" - but this is
actually a pictogram of a series of walls, with a giant (巨人) approaching them.
My god!

It's leaked over into his non-anime work, too - the soundtrack for [Platina
Data](http://vgmdb.net/album/41469) had gems like "nf壱III". I haven't seen
Platina Data yet, and that probably has no bearing whatsoever on my inability
to figure out what this is supposed to mean. He wasn't always like this,
though - [the soundtrack for
Iryuu](http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%83%95%E3%82%B8%E3%83%86%E3%83%AC%E3%83%93%E7%B3%BB%E3%83%89%E3%83%A9%E3%83%9E%E3%80%8C%E5%8C%BB%E9%BE%8D-Team-
Medical-
Dragon%E3%80%8D%E3%82%AA%E3%83%AA%E3%82%B8%E3%83%8A%E3%83%AB%E3%82%B5%E3%82%A6%E3%83%B3%E3%83%89%E3%83%88%E3%83%A9%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF-
TV%E3%82%B5%E3%83%B3%E3%83%88%E3%83%A9/dp/B000FDF2IC) (the show that first
brought him real recognition) is quite tame, with track titles like
"unnecessary words" and "Blue Dragon".

According to [one tweet of
his](https://twitter.com/sawano_nZk/status/308097466358718465), it's generally
true of his soundtracks that the titles don't really have any deep meaning to
them. "Don't think too hard about it", he says.

So, yeah - Sawano is bonkers ([he appears to get a good bit of lulz out of
doing this](https://twitter.com/sawano_nZk/status/310615763360833537)), and
beyond maybe decrypting his hyper-elaborate punny titles into a comprehensible
human language, there is probably not much more to be said here.

