Songs without Words

Anime is known for repetitive soundtracks consisting of throw-away tunes and rip-offs of classical and impressionist works. However, despite that, animation, with its exact timing, allows for some of the most exquisite coordination of music with the images.

The day before yesterday, I was watching Kimikiss Episode 10 in the student center with the sound off (I was scarfing down a sub before the ASA general body meeting). When I came to the ending sequence of just a few shots, I knew that even though I could not hear the music, the timing was planned perfectly.

This morning, I went back to rewatch the sequence several times with sound to savor an incredibly memorable moment. Granted, this is the director who made Honey and Clover, which surpassed the boundaries of girls’ shoujo and guys’ “slice-of-life” (think Minami-ke or Azumanga Daioh) to win quiet acclaim and a place in the top ranks of persisting anime. Nevertheless, the source material of Kimikiss was some average romance sim game, so I had my doubts and reservations.

The anime has nothing of the artifice and shameless girl-fondling associated with dating sims. The biggest emotional drama comes when the heroine, Mao, has to choose between two guys who could not contrast more – a jazz saxophonist and her childhood buddy, with whom she played video games and such. At this particularly poignant moment (every episode ending is poignant, but this one especially so), Mao is taking care of her childhood friend, Kouichi, who has become sick because he had been out in the rain the previous day. But he was out in the rain because he ran into her boyfriend, Kai, at the bookstore and wanted to recommend that Kai take her out to cheer her up. Of course, as any drama would have it, Mao was depressed in the first place because she realized that Kouichi really cared about her and picked up on her subtle needs. That means that, coming full circle, Kouichi’s illness right after a wonderful date with Kai only serves to increase the emotional tension.

That exhaustive explanation in hand, the scene is thus: Mao is sitting beside an ill Kouichi, tending to his fever. The music playing has shifted from centered jazz chords to a modal-sounding shift between F and e chords on the piano, with light glock tinkles on the E’s. At the moment she leans in, the music halts mid-phrase and all that is left is an unresolved E twinkle and the resonance of a pedal-held piano note. In silence, she kisses his forehead and backs off; he awakens and looks at her.

The ending theme of this show has a few defining features, none of which are particularly groundbreaking, but they are still notable.  First, there are two tonal centers: D major and E major; the A and bridge sections are in D, and the refrain is in E.  Second, the refrain’s second phrase pushes two notes up an octave, resulting in “E D# E (up a major seventh) D# C# F#.”  This displacement is really stark because of the human voice in that range.  The lyrics of the second refrain phrase are: “It seemed like it would break / And it was so precious I couldn’t touch it / I won’t ever forget / The wish I made upon that star.”

The phrase “I won’t ever forget” is a single word in Japanese: wasurenai (yo).  The “wasure” part is “forget,” and the “nai” negates it.  It is thus appropriate that the “nai” is the one that ends up on that high D#.

The opening of a song with its last refrain line is not uncommon; in anime opening themes, one frequently does so during some opening image before the title appears.  For ending themes, the dangling refrain is performed with altered accompaniment before the ending sequence begins.  However, the brilliance of this director is the timing of the dangling phrase, which I think has only been matched by Futakoi Alternative, with “Bokura ga Jikan,” with its guitar phrase introduction.  The singer enters on a profile shot of Mao’s eyes shaking, holding back tears, staring into the distance, contrasted with Kouichi’s sullen, expressionless face, just staring at her.

When the instrumental bridge takes over, the scene moves back a few feet, as if Mao had been singing those words and now in the distance you cannot hear them any more.   When the strings hit their high D# in turn, the scene switches to a shot of a starry sky (again drawing from the song).

Finally, when the song abruptly modulates to D major to begin its A section, the credits begin on a the opposite color from blue, bright orange.  E (bright) to D (less bright) is a grounding effect, and the polar shift of blue (sky) to orange (Earth) mirrors that.

I did not talk in length about every element of the music, but if you want to understand deeper what I mean, just watch this 1-minute segment at the end of the episode and I think you’ll get it without any explanation.

I am a composer who is always thinking about images as I write, so I guess this kind of thing means a lot to me.