Shin Onigashima OST - Neighboring Village / Fourth Chapter

[@visualizermusictracks]

Musical Analysis: In true hip fashion we can also delve into the deep cuts of the discography from Koji Kondo in order to uncover hidden gems and having the rare treat of seeing Nintendo and its team at their most Japanese, especially since their main series such as the likes of Mario, Zelda, Metroid or Star Fox have at their core a Western origin. Here we not only hear Koji Kondo lean onto his own Japanese roots but also find what is his most involved and large soundtrack of the 8-bit era; while his famous scores for Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda are comprised of like five level tracks and some small cues, the Shin Onigashima one, as a kind of visual novel/adventure game, needs to get more mileage out of its soundtrack in order to carry a full, more static narrative, getting us much more than a mere 10 minutes worth of music. We can also hear the differences between the standard Famicom/NES sound chip and the add on known as the Famicom Disk System which included one more audio channel into the 8-bit machine sound capabilities, allowing for slightly richer scores for some games due to the more expressive wavetable channel. It does not get any more Japanese than Shin Onigashima, whose translation would be something like 'New Demon Island'. Naturally released only there till this day, the game is a story driven adventure part of a series featuring a mix of interwoven traditional Japanese fairy tales, more specifically the ones known as Momotarō and The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. The game is one of those select command and click visual novels games popular in Japan which make the characters talk to, use, or examine various objects or interactions depending on the action you choose; you then advance the narrative. This means the composer is not limited to his philosophy of just capturing the movements in the action or the environments but has to treat the project as kind of a film score focused on story-driven presentations, where the music has to convey more emotions of the narrative and has a more prominent role since the visuals are just 8-bit sprites with minimal, if any, facial expressions and there is no voice acting to convey much sentiment. Like the game story, the music is inspired by more traditional Japanese folk melodies, albeit not pure folk since the true traditional music of Japan would end up being a pentatonic fest that would sound formally Chinese or Oriental to Western audiences. Instead, it is more inclined towards the line that evolved after the American influence into Japan that brought its jazz and Latin styles to the music; the music forms known as Kayōkyoku and Enka would be the most fit genres for the what we identify today as that particular Japanese way of creating tender, melancholic and nostalgia infused melodies that ended up influencing video game music in one way or another. Kayōkyoku is just the standard Japanese traditional pop, the equivalent to the American Brill Building sound that in the East never really went out of style since in Japan corny is more embraced and accepted. Though it still had its boom throughout the XX century. The archetypal example of this sound would be the worldwide hit Sukiyaki by singer Kyu Skamoto: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ipC6pniVdrtpock Kayōkyoku music has simple melodies that are easy to follow and play along to but still pack a lof of emotion and nostalgia even if you have never heard it before. Even though the music ends up with the Western instruments and stylistic influences it still retains the Japanese reliance mostly on pentatonic scales that give it something of a child-like wonder quality; the pentaronic scales are the ones you can get out of playing exclusively the black keys on the piano since the intervals are already laid out there for you. Just like the church modes you get the different pentatonic scales by starting the pattern on any of the five black keys. The cue we hear throughout the chapter four of the visual novel captures this highly sentimental sound, with Koji pulling out a memorable melody that only needs a a short time to develop into what could have been a standard ballad from the Japanese songbook or signature lullaby in some alternate universe. The context for the story is that the protagonists have arrived at some village that has been sunken beneath a lake. So this was one of Kondo’s first village themes; Kakariko Village before Kakariko Village was a thing. There are just two melodies here, three sections if we count the small outro. The phrases use pretty much all the notes from the A minor scale plus the Db chromatic note as an ornamentation. Both melody and harmony have descending contours following a standard minor progression that leaves us with the chords: F - Em - Dm - C - Bdim - E in Section 1, where the unexpected E major disrupts the descending pattern of both melody and harmony in order to add the color of the harmonic minor scale to the proceedings while the melody answer ascends. The harmony begins changing every two bars for the first couple of chords and then gets faster transitioning every one bar. The phrases for the Section 1 of the cue consist of three question-answer chunks that follow a specific pattern plus the ascending tail. The melodic pattern expertly balances the concepts of repetition and novelty that are required in order to construct a memorable melody. You hear the first question-answer block: (F G E - C A C) which itself would be ok being answered by the mirrored pattern (C D B - G E G) But Kondo spices it up by replacing the question with its ornamental version in order to introduce the novelty quota into this repeated pattern. So instead we get the chromatic (D Db C B - G E G). Then for the answer for the entire phrase the pattern appears to be repeated in the form of (G A F - …) but then this block is answered with a different ascending form melody. It ends with the ascending tail phrase for the Bdim to E chords. These are just examples elucidating how to construct a melody using the key concepts of variety and repetition which need to be balanced expertly. The rhythm of the melody notes between question and answer also lives by this principle; the piece could work maintaining the same rhythm for both question and answer phrases (for example both could be in eight notes as the question is), it just would not be as interesting for a listener. The melodies for both sections are also in what is known as anacrusis or pickup beat which is when a note or sequence of notes precedes the first downbeat in a bar in a musical phrase. The melody then goes on into the second Section with a pedal pattern where the underlying harmony goes into a classic jazz and romantic progression that gets its flavor out of the descending chromatic bass note while the upper notes remain the same, giving us the sequence: Am - Abaug - C - C (b5) then we get back to the firs part of the A Section harmony F - Em the composer capping it all off with a reprise of the ornamental chromatic phrase from the first Section (D Db C B) giving cohesiveness to the entire piece. But wait, there is more. Even though the composer could now comfortably end the piece on the tonic chord Am, he felt the need to add a little spice of novelty by allowing a little bit of the Phrygian profile to shine with the chord Bb thrown in as a bonus content just for the sake of coloring the outro. There is no noise channel on this romantic ballad. This is a piece that allows us to see the formative years of Koji Kondo as a video game composer, back in a time where you had to work only with the basic elements of music and don’t worry that much about the production or orchestration side of things. Just melody, harmony, rhythm and a little tune that needs to be memorable enough to be looped multiple times. The expressive melody is aided by the new Wavetable synth channel added to the what was known as the Famicom Disk System, a peripheral only released in Japan that allowed games to have more memory and better sound. This device served as enabling technology for the creation of new types of video games like the vast, open world, progress-saving adventures of the original The Legend of Zelda and Metroid, which would otherwise probably not happened. It is still the most successful console add-on of all time even though it was not released overseas. Its games had to be ported to the NES with some necessary changes like the save battery for Zelda or the music changes due to having one less audio channel. The mini wavetable synth included with the FDS allowed for some interesting new timbres for 8-bit games, expanding the sound palette of chiptune music. The games used bell like sounds or in the case of Shin Onigashima this melodic lead that sounds more mellow and permits a more prominent vibrato effect that brings the NES sound as close to reality as electronic beeps can. Super Smash Bros creator Masahiro Sakurai has a video game development channel where he discusses the audio from this era: kzbin.info/www/bejne/m6q0hJWVqahjfMk And speaking of Super Smash Bros, this digital interactive museum brought back from obscurity Shin ONigashima, featuring its characters and a full medley, remixing sub-sections from the Famicom game. Within this medley we find the Title Scree and also a remix of this very same Neighboring Village theme. The entire arrangement is nowhere close to how the original tone is supposed to go, envisioning the pastoral Japanese village instead as a speed metal track with full blown electric guitar. For a closer sound to the original soundtrack go to the Super Famicom game Heisei Shin Onigashima which is some kind of port/prequel to this game and features most of the same tracks but this time with Super Nintendo samples which are closer to real instruments.

[@CoqueiroLendario]

Wow your analysis was more than throrough! Thank you for showing more attention for shin onigashima than it probably got in the entire western side of the world! I really enjoy how this song when deconstruted actually sounds like a progressing one, as the instruments slowly join together to make the melody of a sunken past. "Kayōkyoku music has simple melodies that are easy to follow and play along to but still pack a lof of emotion and nostalgia even if you have never heard it before." And this is extremely true, i didnt knew shin onigashima till last year, i'm not japanese, my parents aren't japanese, and we don't have any japanese roots, i have no real connections with japan besides the animes i watched as a brazillian kid, but even then... this song makes me very nostalgic, it reminds me of a pure and fun simplicity of just... living the moment?

[@visualizermusictracks]

As you might see the moniker Official from the name is being dropped as a recommendation from KZbin since it can be seen as misleading some into thinking these come directly from the companies represented. Some followers have also said it might be easier to find the channel. So since Im too lazy to think of another logo or name we will be just putting Visualizer to reflect the nature of the videos better-or VMT for friends. Comment what other soundtracks should be visualized or deconstructed. ♫ Support the Channel: www.buymeacoffee.com/musictracks ♫ Media files, Requests and support for future interactive tools (Patreon): bit.ly/officialmusictracksmedia Or join as a member on KZbin

[@thebro4994]

Holy Moly this is a very obscure theme. The game wasn’t even released outside of Japan 😂

[@visualizermusictracks]

That is right. not many have heard this beautiful soundtrack. the full one is worth a listen so i wanted to get at least one track from it

[@thebro4994]

@@visualizermusictracks You know... This theme reminded me of the Troubled Streets theme from Nes Nightshade. You know what I mean? 🤔

[@visualizermusictracks]

@@thebro4994 both have that arpeggio accompaniment pattern but that nightshade theme sounds so scary. Wonder what the game is about

[@thebro4994]

@@visualizermusictracks It's a Point and Click game on the NES. You play as Nightshade, a vigilante that tries to fight the crime lords, defeat Sutehk (the end boss) and help the citizens of Metro City. Although the noir like graphics and the music may seem dark, the ton of the dialog makes it more light. 😇

[@visualizermusictracks]

@@thebro4994 sounds cool. so they both also have in comon that they re kind of visual novels in style. just selecting commands