“Shino Cannot Say Her Own Name” The light called “music” illuminates the clumsy youth *Note! Contains spoilers.

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2018.07.23Ikuya Takamori

Magical masterpiece disguised as simple “Magic”

As mentioned above, the lyrics for the film's first original song, "Magic," were written by the original author Oshimi himself. Ayumu Matsuki set the music to this song, which is performed in the film. "Magic," which is set as "Kayo's first song with lyrics and music," may seem like a simple song for a beginner at first listen, but upon closer listening, one can see the hidden intentions and techniques of a professional creator.

Matsuki must have thought that if Kayo was writing a song for the first time, she would compose it based on a favorite existing song that she had played many times. For example, the A-melody of "Magic" is made to resemble the A-melody of "Blue Sky". Please forgive me for getting into some elementary music theory here, but the A-melody of "Blue Sky" starts with a melody that starts with a long root note (the basic note in the key of the song. If it's in C major, it's the note C) over the accompaniment of the standard circular chord [I-VIm-IV-V] with [IV-V] added. The A-melody of "Magic" also starts with a melody that starts with a long root note over the accompaniment of a variation of the circular chord [I-IonⅢ-IV-V] with [IV-V] added, and the melody starts with a long root note.

Or, the chord progression that develops in the lyrics of "Magic" that goes "But where shall we go, but where shall we go" (IV-IVm) is used in the chorus of "The End of the World." In other words, Matsuki composed the melody and chords in a way that casually made the audience feel that "Kayo created 'Magic' with reference to the two songs that Shinokayo performed in her street live performance."

However, that does not mean that the composition of "Magic" is simple and elementary overall. For example, in the line "I want to go home now," the Ⅲm chord is descended by a semitone. Or, in the latter refrain, a subdominant chord is inserted in the bridge before modulating by a major second. These are accents that prevent the song from becoming monotonous, despite the simple composition of a single guitar accompaniment and vocals, and can be said to be techniques that add drama. It is too good to be "Kayo's first song," but the casualness that does not give the impression of technical skill is also exquisite.

Looking back at the process of creating the songs in the play, three existing songs that shared the same worldview were selected to match "That Wonderful Love Again," which was in the original manga, and "Magic," which only had original lyrics, and then, through performing these songs, Kayo created the song "Magic" that felt like it was written by her. This song is just like magic, with its appealing simple and natural melody, despite being infused with professional ingenuity. In fact, all the music that beautifully illuminates the awkward days of Shino and Kayo's youth, like a light, may be the magic cast on "Shino Cannot Say Her Own Name."

Reference materials

・Shino Cannot Say Her Own Name Official Book (Shino-chan Partners Edition, published by Ohta Publishing)

・Original soundtrack for the movie "Shino Cannot Say Her Own Name" (music: Matsuki Ayumu, label: melodypunchrecords)

・"The Camel Without a Hump: The Trajectory of Kitayama Osamu's 'Heart'" (by Kitayama Osamu, published by Iwanami Shoten)

Text: Ikuya Takamori

Freelance writer, English-Japanese translator. Mainly contributes movie reviews and columns to web media, and translates news articles. The translated book is ``Science of Star Wars--Thorough verification! From the true nature of the Force to intergalactic travel” (written by Mark Blake and John Chase, published by Kagaku Doujin) and others.

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"Shino Cannot Say Her Own Name."

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*Information as of July 2018 article publication.

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