Platina Jazz is a Swedish cover band of Japanese anime music. Really!
And quite imaginative in their reinterpretations of classic themes—here’s their cover of the English-language version of “Voices” from Yoko Kanno’s sublime Macross Plus:
Here’s their jazz cover of “Inner Universe,” Kanno’s first-season theme to Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.
By the way, about “Voices”: the first time I heard that, I was electrified—“Holy crap, this is gorgeous!” It was my introduction to Yoko Kanno.
I later figured out one of the keys to its wondrousness is that it’s in Dorian mode. This is like a minor scale except for a major sixth—so it sounds like a lot of British isles folk music. Like so:
Composers who need a beautiful, slightly bittersweet love theme—try Dorian!