The Melancholy Of Akane Rin

I saw, on MassivelyOP last night, that there was a new Neverness To Everness trailer out, promoting the arrival of Akane in the next update. The piece, by the always-reliable Chris Neal, mentioned that it featured a cover of a song called God Knows.  

I didn't know it and it comes from an anime I'd never heard of either - The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya - but then there are a lot of songs and animes I don't know. Almost all of them, really.

It was late when I saw the post. Intrigued as I was, I didn't have time to watch it then. Now I have. Oh, boy...

Let me begin with the set-up. Akane is a twenty-something (I'm guessing.) woman, who used to be in a band. These days, she manages an underground club that puts on live music. She seems to be the only employee, although there's an owner who shows up sometimes.

Through some wily teenage manipulatory techniques, Haniel and Nanally, who have already persuaded the Appraiser to join them on drums, somehow manage to get Akane to agree to front their (Newly formed and barely competent.) band, The Whoots!!! They rehearse a couple of times and they don't get much better but Akane helps them by putting them on, bottom of the bill, at the club. Luckily for them, she comes on with them and basically carries them with her professionalism, experience and actual musical ability.

When the next update lands, on October 21, it will feature a storyline centering on Akane and the band and what happens after that. I have no idea what's going to happen but based on the trailer, it's going to involve a big step up from bottom of the bill.

Here's the trailer. It's over six minutes long but that's the same song twice, the first time with the female version of Zero behind the drums, the second time with her male counterpart in the seat.

I'm very glad Hotta chose to do it that way. I'm even gladder (Is that a word?) they did it in that order. Watching the male Appraiser didn't do much for me but watching the version I play...

I don't think I've ever had an experience quite as strange, while watching a game trailer, as seeing my own character performing an entire song, live on stage. I literally got chills down my spine at one point. It was weird.

As I've said in the past, I'm not one of those players who tries to make characters that look as much like them as possible. Neither do I see my character as a representation of myself. Even with that distancing, though, I do end up having a close relationship with any character I play for as many hours as I've played Flora. She might not be me but she also is me, in a way, whether I like it or not.

Of course, when you play any game where the central character isn't one you've been allowed to create for yourself, you're going to see them appear in promotional material, doing all sorts of things. Fighting, usually. But I don't fight much in real life, especially with monsters. It's not something I find kicks up a lot of memories for me. Well, not of anything other than playing video games.

I don't play the drums, either. But I have been in a band and I have played in front of an audience, albeit not one as enthusiastic as this. And I have sat behind that kit, in the game, as that character, and tried to play those drums. The way those experiences, memories and levels of realities overlap feels a little disturbing, psychologically. Or at least it does for me.

Luckily, the version of the Appraiser in the video is one hell of a lot better at playing the drums than I am, either in the game or in real life. Like probably everyone who's ever been in any kind of rock band, I did get our drummer to let me have a go on several occasions. It always looks so easy. It is not.

 

I kind of hope there isn't too much actual drumming in the story when it comes, although I bet there is. I'll just have to suspend disbelief, the way I had to about the speed at which Haniel and Nanally improved. Seriously, it was like three rehearsals...  

The song itself is excellent. Also incomprehensible, for me, since Akane sings it the original Japanese. It is Akane, too, or rather it's the Japanese voice actor who plays her, Ikumi Hasegawa. (The voice actor for the English dub is Cristina Vee. I don't know if she's going to sing in English in the game...) No word on who did Akane's impressive shredding, though. If that was Hasegawa, too, I can't imagine why she's still working as a voiceover artist.

Naturally, the first thing I did after I watched the video was look up the anime. What I know about anime could fill about two sides of A5, if I wrote it in capitals with a felt pen, so it's not much of a surprise that something described as "one of the most iconic animes of the 2000s" was completely new to me. 

I skimmed the massive Wikipedia entry ("Contains an excessive amount of intricate detail."), trying not to pick up too many spoilers, and it looked very much like something I'd enjoy, so I ran one of those "Where can I watch...?" queries, to which the answer was, unsurprisingly, Crunchy Roll. I also checked out the DVD situation because who doesn't want physical these days? I might go that route but cost-wise an add-on sub for Crunchy Roll on Prime seems like the obvious choice.

Or maybe I could watch it for free on YouTube? 

It's not on YouTube. But guess what is? The original version of God Knows, as it appeared in the anime. Now I've watched it, I can see The Whoots!!! cover is very faithful, not just in the way it sounds but in the performance and how it's shot. Take a look.

I'm impressed with the dedication and attention to detail. They've even dressed the Appraiser in something that's a clear call-back to what the drummer wears in the anime. This has clearly been a labor of love for someone.

I think it makes for a great, positive example of the way pop culture doesn't so much feed on itself, as is often said, but reinforces and learns from itself. Back when I started this blog, we were still in the tail-spin of post-modernism. I loved post-modernism (Still do...) but it did sometimes carry an unfortunate taint of superiority - even disdain. I'm very happy to see that the modern version, maybe we could call it pan-modernism, has largely lost that brittle, critical tone and replaced it with warm joy.

Moving away from the metafictional influences, there's also a trailer shedding some light on Akane's back-story. It's called "Letters To Me" and even though it's purely musical, with no dialog at all, I warn you it's a bit of a tear-jerker.

I'm a bit vague on the provenance of that one, which once again is the same song, twice, one each for the female and male versions of the Appraiser. It's not on the official Global NTE channel but several fan channels have it.

Although it's supposedly about Akane, the video really leans into Aurelia's story. She used to play drums in Lines, the band they were in, before he esper powers manifested and she lost the use of her legs. Some of it is flashbacks but some is presumably part of the new storyline. If that's true, it looks like it's going to be an emotional one.

I hope it is. It's the kind of story these games do best, in my opinion, and why I currently find them so much more appealing and rewarding to play than the high fantasy titles I've played for decades. I'm really looking forward to it.

And I'm looking forward to watching The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya. Now all I need is for Hotta to announce there's going to be a Neverness To Everness anime and I'll be all set!