9+1", the origin of the rough and different "THE iDOLM@STER" music [Kiri Nakazato's "2.5D" Idol Historia Vol.5

Nowadays, numerous "idol works" have been created for anime, video games, and other genres, and CD releases and real events are held every month by the casts who play the idols.

How were these "2.5-dimensional" idols, who freely move between two and three dimensions, born and how did they form the scene? Writer Kiri Nakazato, who has been observing 2.5-dimensional idols of the Showa, Heisei, and 2025 eras, has started the fifth installment of her popular series summarizing the history of these idols!

In the previous installment, we traced the history of Namco, which was the foundation for the birth of "THE iDOLM@STER" (hereafter referred to as "iM@S"). How did "iM@S," the originator of all current idol content, come to be so special? In this article, I would like to talk about it from the aspect of music.

The music for "iM@S" was created by Namco's (at the time) sound team. Recently, there are more and more cases of outsourcing sound production for idol content, but at that time, it was the norm for game music to be produced in-house by the sound teams of each company. Therefore, many of the top video game companies of the time, such as Sega, Taito, and Namco, were top-notch in terms of sound production. They also pursued techniques to create appealing music with the right number of sounds and tones to meet the hardware specifications and limitations, and as a result, each company developed its own unique sound culture.

In the early days of "iM@S," music was also created by in-house creators led by Hiroto Sasaki and others. However, at the time, Namco did not have a line of works based on "idol" motifs, and the team had no accumulated expertise in idol culture itself, so we were very concerned about what kind of music (songs) we should create. Therefore, at the dawn of development, they sought advice from Chiyomaru Shikura, who is now president of MAGES. and Shigeru Saito, a music producer who later worked on "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" and other works.

At the time, Chiyomaru Shikura and Shigeru Saito were involved in production at Cytron Digital Contents, a Kudanshita-based music and video software company that specialized in game music. It was there that the two were asked for advice because of their business relationship with Hiroto Sasaki of NAMCO. Mr. Saito, in particular, visited the Future Laboratory (Namco's development base) when it was located in Yokohama, where he had access to test machines and offered a variety of opinions. This was the moment when the essence of young producers who knew idol culture firsthand was put into the roots of "iM@S. Saito-san later joined the music label Lantis in 2005. This would later bring about a tremendous change in the music history of "iM@S," but that is another story.

As I have said, the sound for the early "iM@S" games was produced by a fascinating team with a diverse range of experience and understanding of idol culture, but with a top-notch team when it came to game music. Here is a list of the main sound staff at the time.

Hiroto Sasaki (the first sound producer. Director) ...... "THE IDOLM@STER" composer/arranger, "Ohayo! Breakfast" composer/arranger, "First Stage" composer/arranger, etc.

Koji Nakagawa (2nd sound producer) ...... "Positive! Composition, Arrangement

Hiroyuki Onoda/mft...... "Positive! Lyrics

Satoru Kanzen...... "Do the Magic! Lyrics, Composition, Arrangement

LindaAI-CUE...... "Agent Yoru wo Oukoku" Lyrics, music, arrangement

Jesahm...... "9:02pm" Composition/Arrangement, "Here we go! Composer, Arranger

yura...... "9:02pm" Lyrics, "Here we go! Lyrics

Go Shiina...... "Taiyo no Jelasi", composer/arranger, "Aoi Tori", composer/arranger for game version

Yuriko Mori...... "Taiyo no Jelasi" lyrics, "Aoi Tori" lyrics

For those who are interested in the music of "iM@S" and anime songs in a broader sense, these are big names to drool over. The core of the sound team at that time was Hiroto Sasaki, and around the time he left Namco around 2008, the responsibility for music-related matters shifted to Koji Nakagawa. Since then, Mr. Nakagawa has continued to be the nucleus of the PA booth at many "THE iDOLM@STER" related live performances up to the present day.

In addition to the above creators, Akihiro Ishihara, then known as Dire 1 from Namco, who later became the overall director of "THE iDOLM@STER," and Shunichi Uemura from Nippon Columbia, who was in charge of releasing music-related CDs for "iDOLM@STER," were added to the team, forming the core of the early "iDOLM@STER" sound It is fair to say that they were the core of the "iM@S" team. At the time of the development of the arcade version of "THE iDOLM@STER," there were six directors in charge of this title, and Mr. Ishihara was the first of them, thus calling himself "Dire 1. In the early days, Mr. Ishihara was (literally. If you are only familiar with one of the periods, it may be easier to imagine the production system of each period if you are vaguely aware of the changes.

Common points of sharp angles and disparities

The arcade version of "THE IDOLM@STER" released as the first "THE iDOLM@STER" had a total of 10 songs, 9 of which were the songs of each idol and "THE IDOLM@STER," which stood as the overall song. The songs they have (ex. Ritsuko Akizuki's "Do the Magic! and Kikuchi Makoto's "Agent Yoru wo Oukou"), but any of the songs can be sung by all idols. In fact, the original plan was to have only nine songs, but the individuality of each song was too sharp, so "THE IDOLM@STER" was added as a symbolic song to connect the entire work.

Conversely, the early "iM@S" music lineup was so sharp, reflecting the individual colors of the creators, that it was feared that there would not be a unified sense of musicality as a single game. Behind this was the belief of the first sound director, Hiroto Sasaki, that "the music for a game does not have to be game music," and that "the music for the first "iM@S" game should be more like the music for the voice actors and anime songs. There is no need to be conscious of voice actor songs or anime songs. The impact of the music as a piece of music is what is important. Although the direction of the music was different, the songs of the early "iM@S" series had a strong color and a unique character.

Among the sound creators who participated in the arcade version of "THE iDOLM@STER," I personally find the presence of Go Shiina, Jesahm, and LindaAI-CUE to be interesting. The music they created was not only sharp as sound, but was so unorthodox as game music with rhythm game elements. When we decided to create nine songs to be sung by idols, the fact that the epic ballad "Aoi Tori" and the moody, ultra-slow-tempo "9:02pm" were both included was in itself out of the ordinary. The version of "Aoi Tori" on the CD has a more relaxed tempo of 78 BPM (most people's image of "Aoi Tori" is probably this version), while the arcade game version of "Aoi Tori" has a slightly higher tempo of 106 BPM, which also shows the effort of the staff to keep the song within the framework of a rhythm game. I can feel the effort made by the game developers to keep the tempo within the framework of a rhythm game.

Although Jesahm has had relatively little media exposure, he specializes in mature, jazz-tinged sounds. He is also proficient in playing saxophone and other musical instruments. Personally, I have a strong image of him as a musician and a dedicated craftsman rather than a game creator. 9:02pm" is a perfect calling card for him. The jazzy, adult sound and the super vocals of Tomoaki Takahashi, who plays Azusa Miura, are a miraculous match, and have certainly expanded the world of the idol, Azusa Miura.

A slightly different character (and I don't mean blonde) is LindaAI-CUE, whose song "Agent Yoru wo Oukou" is a strange and exquisitely balanced song, in which she tries to do whatever she wants as a whole, but the tight kicking rhythm fits in well as a sound game. This is a strange and exquisite situation for Linda, who would later create a number of extremely evil high-speed scores for "Taiko no Tatsujin. The power of the song "Agent Yoru no Oukou" would later take "THE iDOLM@STER" to the next level with its breakthrough on Nico Nico Douga in the form of "NicoM@S" (a group of videos based on "THE iDOLM@STER"). Like "The Legend of Poison Mushroom" released in 2014, LindaAI-CUE is one of the artists who continues to be at the center of the explosion when it comes to the sound of iM@S.

In the early songs, Hiroto Sasaki and Megumi Nakamura, Jesahm and yura, and Go Shiina and Yuriko Mori were the fixed duo for the music. Among them, Yuriko Mori is a great lyricist who has provided lyrics for such masterpieces as "Dragon Ball" and "New Bikkuriman. I had vaguely thought that she had been chosen by Nippon Columbia, but in fact, Ms. Mori herself revealed in a text related to "Arakane no Kiki" (a solo song by Hajime Fujiwara of "THE IDOLM@STER CINDERELLA GIRLS" and the latest song she and Mr. Shiina wrote together) that the composer, Go Shiina, had offered the song through a friend of his. The song was written by KISARAGI Chihaya. It is interesting that they asked Mr. Mori, who also provided lyrics to Akina Nakamori, to write lyrics for "Aoi Tori", Kisaragi Chihaya's own song, and "Taiyo no Jelasi" is also interesting as it seems to bring 80's idol taste to iM@S.

Why don't you mention Mr. Satoru Kanzen and other creators? I think there are other creators, including Satoru Kamizaki, who should be mentioned in more detail. Rest assured that there will be a time to mention them in the later sessions.

The creators of these songs have created some of the sharpest songs around, but the hardest part is the idols who sing them. As mentioned above, in the early "THE iDOLM@STER" games, it was the norm for all songs to be sung by all idols. Therefore, the stoic vocalist KISARAGI Chihaya's singing voice becomes robotic in "Ohayo! Breakfast" and, conversely, "Aoi Tori" in which the energetic and young Takatsuki Yayoi sings a lyrical song, gave rise to numerous irregularities. Even the variations that would probably be subject to retakes and corrections in this day and age were taken on board as interesting features of the product.

However, this was accepted by the fans as a "personalized production experience" combining songs and singers that would never have been possible under normal circumstances. This was an unexpected phenomenon, but content that creates a boom that no one expected always has a series of such unexpected miracles that combine to create a huge swell of popularity.

There were many twists and turns before "THE iDOLM@STER" became the standard bearer of 2.5-dimensional idol content. However, the seeds of a miracle were certainly planted in the early 2000s.

(Text by Kiri Nakazato)