Soundtrack/Commentary/Bloom

## Bloom

The theme of the 29th instalment of the Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin music commentary is "Bloom", a song from the mini-game "Sakuna the Efflorescent".

In order to revive the rice fields that have been ruined by the volcanic ash, Sakuna and her friends go directly to Lady Kamuhitsuki for the Orb of Transformation they need. In return, they are ordered to exterminate the aphids that swarm the Tree of Creation. Unlike the previous dungeons, the mini-game begins with the player simply defeating the enemies while being careful not to let the health of the tree fall to zero.

This track was written for that scene, and as of writing this is actually the most recent track I've written, in November of 2019. While the other tracks were written around 2015-2017, this song was not on the original background music list and was added later. In fact, there wouldn't be room for mini-games until the game was in the final stages of development, so when I received the order for this additional song, I was thrilled that it was finally nearing completion.

However, this track is not a complete original of mine; there is an original song that exists. The mini-game "Sakuna the Efflorescent" itself has a story behind it, but for those who don't know it, I'll explain it from the beginning.

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is a game developed by an indie company called Edelweiss, originally a small team with only two members. Originally, Edelweiss was a small team of only two members, and while many companies and subcontractors were involved in the development of Sakuna, the core of the team remains the same today. One of their early works was a free game called "Fairy Bloom", an exhilarating combo action game where you have to hit enemies to defeat them - which is the basis of Sakuna.

This game's gameplay was incorporated into Sakuna, and the music was also created based on the request to arrange the main theme of Fairy Bloom.
You can listen to the mp3 of the original song here.

Incidentally, "Fairy Bloom" has since evolved into a game called "Fairy Bloom Freesia Encore", where the main theme was also arranged. It was also remade into a game called "Fairy Bloom Freesia Ultra Encore", ant the arranged version of the track is also used there. You can listen to it in the PV.

So, back to "Bloom", I tried to follow the melody and chord progression of the original song as much as possible, but I was told that I could arrange it any way I wanted, so I added some details. The biggest change was at the end of the C melody, where the original melody ended with a tonic chord, but I changed it so that it leads to the D melody with a dominant chord, because the B melody also ended with a tonic chord, so I didn't want the same form to continue. Also, the chord at the end of the first chorus, just before the loop, ended with Am in the original song, but in the arrangement, I changed it to B♭maj7 to make the ending ambiguous, so that the loop would not be boring.

I made a MIDI file from the middle of the C melody to before the loop.

(See the attached MIDI, 35\_sakase.mid, in the article.)

The four rhythms (drums, bass, guitar, and keyboards) emphasize the beat, while the percussion instruments (shakers, drums, and hyoshigi clappers) enliven the music, and the Japanese instruments (shakuhachi, flute, shamisen, and koto) play the melody. The guitars are strummed to create a sense of dynamism, and the bass and drums are played more. The bass line and the drum pattern just before the loop are particularly exciting parts, and I like them a lot.

Next time, I'll introduce the track "Resentment" for the boss battles in the second half of the game.