“Theme of Sachio 2″: Analyzing how mabanua conveys Sachio’s character development through music
At first glance, Sachio’s Season 2 theme sounds pretty different from his Season 1 theme, and for good reason; he’s a very different character. But if we look closely, there’s a good amount of continuity as well.
If I had to describe the sound of the arpeggio melody in the S2 theme, I’d call it a glockenspiel (EDIT: In hindsight, it sounds more like pitched up strings, but everything in this paragraph about the S1 theme still holds). You can also hear a similar sound throughout both of his S1 themes (starting at around 0:10) as well as what sounds like a marimba (starting at around 0:28), also a mallet percussion instrument. In the production interviews included in the Season 1 Blu-ray, Moriyama mentioned that the vision for Sachio’s theme was a hip-hop sound with a childish feel. Because of the glockenspiel's bright, clear timbre and its association with toy instruments — and therefore childhood — I think the mallet percussion instrument family represents Sachio’s youth and innocence.
In addition to the instrumentation, Sachio’s S2 theme keeps some of the same musical language as the first: lots of arpeggiation, with stepwise moving bass notes. The main arpeggio melody is descending this time, though, instead of ascending, which might represent how Sachio has lost his way in the years since the first season. While in Season 1 Sachio served as the moral backbone of Team Bangaichi, inspiring the adults to work together and fight for their dreams, in Season 2, he is one of the most conflicted characters, suffering from the most internal strife of all the kids, and the last to accept Joe back into their lives.
This strife is further emphasized by the tinny, strained sound of the glockenspiel — in contrast with the soft, resonant tones used in the S1 theme — perhaps representing Sachio’s struggle to exist in an adult world while still a child. Mabanua also adds heavy, distorted bass and a wailing electric guitar to up the angst. The dirty-sounding bass is reminiscent of that used in Joe’s theme from Season 1, but it isn’t the only thing Sachio has picked up from Joe musically in Season 2. The key has changed from A minor in Season 1 to D minor in Season 2, the same key as Joe’s S1 theme, and there are a few melodic elements that evoke Joe’s theme as well. Namely, this section starting at around 0:37.
The first section (red) reminds me of the very last phrase from Joe’s S1 theme, and the second section (blue) reminds me of a repeated phrase from Joe’s S1 theme which can be heard first at around 1:30. Track 1 in the playlist above contains the excerpt from Sachio’s theme and Track 2 contains both of the excerpts from Joe’s theme below.
The third track in the playlist is what it might sound like if Joe's and Sachio's themes were combined. The way the melody in Sachio’s theme sits on the C# (ti ti ti ti do) makes me think it’s going to transition into Joe’s theme every time I hear it so I wanted to create how that might sound.
But, crucially, that doesn’t actually happen.
And it’s a beautiful musical representation of Sachio’s character arc — the way he tries to emulate Joe, fails, and then ultimately realizes that he is his own person. When the two of them finally reconcile in Episode 10, the track used is “Theme of Sachio 2 (Sollow [sic])”, a track which is certainly sorrowful, but is far more evocative of Sachio’s S1 theme with its ascending arpeggios and melancholy guitar. Perhaps the mallet percussion is lost as he sheds his false idea of what maturity means and genuinely matures as a result.
The Episode 13 epilogue adds one final piece. While the shift in key to D minor at first seems to represent Sachio’s misguided attempts at taking Joe’s place, by the end of the show we find that Sachio has in fact assumed Joe’s role as the young man chasing a dream, and that Joe has assumed Nanbu’s role as a father figure. The shift in key for Sachio is a musical passing of the torch in the same way as Joe passing on his motorcycle and taking ownership of Nanbu’s old truck.
Fun Fact: The blue phrase from Joe’s theme is directly quoted in Liu’s theme!
