This is a song that I discovered during the spring of 2020, during the
quarantine. During this time, I found the musical artist Itoki Hana and listened
to most of her works. This song in particular I enjoy not only because of its
melody but also because of its unique themes and story. The song presents itself
as a stereotypical tale of a princess trapped in a tower, guarded by a dragon,
who waits for a brave knight to rescue her one day. The number "73" is repeated
over and over as the number of knights who have died trying to save her. This
song occurs as she sees the 74th knight try to climb the tower to save her, and
the princess laments being trapped for so long.
The subtitles are presented in
three colors: one for the princess' spoken dialogue, one for the knight's
dialogue, and one for the princess' inner thoughts. The princess looks on in
seemingly abject sadness as she watches the knight die from the traps and the
dragon in the tower.
Then, the tone of the song drastically changes as it is
revealed that the princess actually fears the knight rescuing her. It is
revealed that she is the one who actually set the traps, gathered the monsters,
and imprisoned herself in the tower, and that she fears that she will lose this
aspect that "makes her special" if she is ever freed. The song ends as the
princess, now revealed to be the true monster and a dragon herself, kills the
knight as he enters her chambers, and we are left with the final number
"seventy-four" as the total count of all the knights who have fallen trying to
save her.
Of the Japanese media I have consumed, I have often seen the theme of
adopting Western fairytales or tropes and adding twists to them that surprise
the viewer. In my opinion, this song acts as the perfect example of taking a
trope and using it to subvert expectations. The other artist in this song, Toby Fox, is a well-known music composer and video game developer. He has said before that he was strongly influenced by Japanese role-playing games like the Mother series (Earthbound) in both his music and his game development.
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