The Later Works of The Gen 2 Pokémon Composer, Go Ichinose
Okay fine, I'll talk about something mainstream for once.
People who study Japanese music with me eventually learn how much I dislike Junichi Masuda's music. Early Pokémon music was characterized by ugly counterpoint and a juvenile palate of harmonic sonority. I know 5th graders with a better musical taste then him. It's not all terrible, but there is no doubt that he is the weakest composer to ever work on a main series Pokémon game.
With that said, the generation 2 composer, Go Ichinose, is one of my favorites from my childhood. He famously arranged a bunch of the Pokémon R/B/Y music in G/S/C and improved or massively iterated on Masuda's tracks, breathing way more life into them.
For example, old "Viridian Forest" was a bunch of discordant screeching of tritones on a 10 second loop while Ichinose turned it into a funk ballad. For Arkoos' sake, listen to this:
Old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wufz_8FOMzE
New: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLPAKP7slIc
Another one that is night and day is "Vermillion City". Ichinose takes the existing progression (which has two chords: I and V) and makes it sound intimate and inviting with some clever mode mixture. I especially like the iiø65 (Dm6) chord which gives it a very nostalgic feel:
Old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7yDXSq18mY
New: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zjUnLaJSNI
Finally, we have to do the "Trainer Battle" because it is like fifty times better than the original. I can't even tell you what he changed because almost everything is different besides the melody. He basically threw out Masuda's score entirely and wrote something good from scratch:
Old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fupfr_eVLPo
New: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLIF66XLL8Y
Just to give more perspective on who we're talking about, this is the same guy who wrote "Ecruteak City", "Azalea Town", "National Park", the "S.S. Fast Ship"* music, and the gen 2 credits theme. Almost every song you cherished from generation 2 is also probably written by Ichinose. Even "New Bark Town", "Route 26" and the "Surf" music were his compositions...
...and yet Masuda is first in the credits for composition.
 |
| The Funkiest Boat in Johto*: |
Here's me playing some Ichinose originals:
If I was going to pick a favorite track by Masuda in the entire series, it would have to be the "Elite Four Battle" music from Pokémon Black and White:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llnXhrCn9Yo
It is really manic, silly, and bouncy and I like the bizarre melody line and harmony. It's really good for a guy who typically gives up after two harmonies. I will admit that they guy has a good sense of rhythm. In fact, even as far back as gen 1, his battle themes and general sense of rhythm is impressive. That's why he was responsible for most of the battle themes in the entire series.
Also, you're sick for writing lavender town's theme (in both definitions of the word).
But this isn't even what I wanted to talk about today. Everyone who has studied Pokémon music discovers the truth about Masuda at some point on their journey through the generations. I want to focus on Ichinose's work in later generations for the remainder of this post. It was just important to give you the necessary context before I started talking about a guy who you probably don't know by name.
"Aspertia City":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HsoH-WNTtw
One of the funkiest themes in the series, Aspertia City thoroughly surprised me on my first playthrough of Black and White 2 (which was only about a year ago). It has this constant laid back groove that seemed oddly nostalgic, and my first thought was... is that Johto inspired or is this actually Ichinose? Lo, and behold, it was him and that blew me away because I never considered Ichinose had a specific style before.
Hearing how he established a groove with such ease made me realize that he takes a lot of inspiration from jazz and funk music. This also explains his massive harmonic vocabulary. I wouldn't say that he is exclusively capable of writing jazz-ish music because around half of his pieces are more in line with late romantic classical style. He seamlessly fuses the two together to create a highly friendly sound that evokes imagery of tradition, but also the energy of youth. That makes him the perfect choice to write a soundtrack for the ancient and storied Johto region, right?
 |
| Johto's Ecruteak City from the Anime |
Aspertia retains that sort of traditional flair with a heart of innocence. That, and it is harmonically similar to "New Bark Town" which is my home in the Pokémon world because Crystal was the game I played the most as a kid. I feel that this is intentional though. Ichinose likely knew that old fans would pick up on the similarity between the starting town themes and be transported back to when they were a kid and booted up their old sparkly game boy and game boy color cartridges. I can't imagine a world that he chose to use the same progression on accident.
"Tell us the progression, then!", I hear you cry! Okay, okay. He starts on a I chord and the fifth of the chord ascends by half-steps until it reaches "Te" which implies a V7/IV which then resolves cleanly to IV. If you were to write the roman numerals, it would look like I-I+-vi6-V7/IV. Because the bass note is "Do" the whole time, the progression has a very soft and comfy feel that perfectly fits the humble frontier town (now that I'm thinking about it, both towns are also on the border of their respective regions).
He develops this progression much later in the piece, as there is a section near the end where he goes Em-Eb-G/D-C#ø7 and then lands on C and does a VI-VII-i in E minor. Those four chords are cool because the only thing that changes between them is the root of the i chord moves down in half-steps. This mirrors how the "New Bark Town" progression moves the fifth up in half-steps.
That isn't the only thing that is neat about Aspertia's City though. There's a bunch of really pretty voicings of seventh chords at cadence points that feel exceedingly colorful and jazzy. The D7/A-E7 (bVII7-IΔ7) is so incredibly juicy. When the D7/A comes back, he recontextualizes it as a V7/bIII and resolves to a spicy bIIIΔ7.
"Battle! Frontier Brain":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U730ft9yESk
"Battle! Frontier Brain" from Pokémon Emerald feels like a natural evolution of "Route 26" from G/S/C. Back in his GameBoy days, Ichinose would generate a triumphant effect by descending in the bassline over a held out tonic major chord (until writing this, I didn't realize how often he just sits on a tonic chord and moves a single voice by step!). This progression was used in the chorus of the "Frontier Brain Battle" to create loads of energy.
The brightness of the held out tonic major chord also supplies a strong modal brightness that contributes to the manic energy of the piece (I don't know if you could tell, but I like manic music). Those athletic arpeggios during the chorus outline the tonic chord being prolonged and add some much needed motion to a progression that does not have that much built in to it naturally.
There's a couple of other cool things in the piece that are worth mentioning as well. The dominant prolongation starting in the sixth measure is just evil. It never resolves. The chorus just starts in E major which is the V chord in A minor, the key established in the first five measures. I have been obsessed with this effect ever since I heard it for the first time. It is so invigorating, as all the tension that has been building up feels like it bleeds into the chorus without resolution.
The VI-VII-v-V/IV is a variation of a Jpop progression (VI-VII-v-i in minor; IV-V-iii-vi in major) that never goes out of style. The brightness of this figure, compared to the transition before it, can not be understated. It shines even brighter because it plays right after the most dense and sinister portion of the track.
All together, this track is just twist after turn. The reason it keeps your interest on multiple listens is that the moments of deception are placed where you wouldn't expect making it take many listens to pin down what he is doing. It's fantastic writing.
"Route 23" (I had to find a longer one so you could hear the loop shenanigans):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhkYg2oVRfw
"Route 23" from Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 uses a progression of major chords that ascend the octatonic scale to build more and more tension. Variations of this progression can be found all over Japanese music including in "Farwell" from Pokémon Black and White (which is by Shota Kageyama), but this track takes it way further.
The piece begins with IV-V-VI-VII in Eb minor. This progression is made out of major chords that alternate ascending by whole- and half-steps. A scale that is built like this is known as an octatonic scale.
What is really insane about this progression is that the last chords of the piece are D-E-E-F# which also imply either IV-Vs in major or VI-VIIs in minor, and then the F# functions as VII of the first chord of the piece which then continues the ascent by moving up the octatonic scale. The choice to repeat the E major chord in the loop section is meant to give you time to hear the chord as a simultaneity, as it functions as a dominant the first time, but a pre-dominant the second, in order for the progression to continue. This is so unbelievably clever, I don't have vivid enough adjectives to describe how insane this is. What's even more insane is how it sounds. It had me so pumped that I had to stop for several minutes and appreciate it on my way to Victory Road. Absolute insanity.
After the the VII chord in the intro, Ichinose goes down to an invigorating V with a lowered fifth that moves to V7 before the cadence in Eb minor.
The progression in this section is identical to the figure near the loop in Aspertia City (i-VII+-III64-viø7), which is meant to remind you how far you have come on your adventure. The next four chords develop this concept by doing it in the opposite direction creating the progression, iv7-viio7/V-i64-V (he sneaks in a b5 on that V chord right as it resolves). This is also another unique example of a tonic function chord that holds steady in all voices but one (I wonder how many of these he can come up with?). The last four measures of the A section are another octatonic ascent (iv7-VII-VI/biii-VII/biii). A neat feature of the last two chords is they are recontextualized as IV-V of the B section which is in A major. Every chord has so much intention and purpose behind it. It's such tight composition.
Anyway, this was a long theory lesson on Mr Ichinose (or Ichinose-san or whatever) and how jaw-droppingly wonderful his writing is. Shout out to the Nintendo fandom wiki who have collectively parsed through ten million interviews to get the credits for this music. Nintendo is so incredibly secretive about their music and refuse to give proper credit to their composers, so I'm happy someone cares. Projects like these keep this music alive.
I hope you enjoyed this deep dive, and good evening,
Evan Davis
All chord charts and diagrams created and owned by me. If you would like to use any of my figures, contact me at evandavispiano@gmail.com for permission.
Comments
Post a Comment