Around this time of the year back in 2009, I discovered the old Daicon III animation video. I thought it was pretty charming, however I was immediately troubled by part of the song that plays in the video.
Pay attention to the part from 1:25 until 1:50.
My favorite composer is Koichi Sugiyama. I think he's a genius. However, that section immediately reminded me of the credits song from Dragon Quest VII:
Pay attention 3:35-4:00. The rhythm section and tempo are different different, but the chord progression and melody are exactly the same. My biggest concern that came to mind was that Sugiyama plagiarized, which would definitely tarnish my opinion of him. So what has occured since then has been a journey in which I attempted to find the composer of the Daicon video, as a means to vindicate Sugiyama.
I soon found out that the Daicon video actually used splices of songs from other shows. That gave me hope, since I knew that Sugiyama did the soundtracks for several shows at that time period. I looked up those shows and found three possible candidates:
- Gatchaman the movie - Cyborg 009 (1979) - Space Runaway Ideon.
I first thought it'd be Ideon, since that show itself is referenced in the animation of the video. However, after reviewing the soundtrack I did not find the right song. So I tried moving on to Cyborg 009 and Gatchaman, but I could not find their soundtracks.
I've been looking for them for years, but they're particularly difficult because they're old and have several incarnations. But today i've finally had my breakthrough. I found this on youtube
That video edits 3 tracks from the 1979 Cyborg 009 soundtrack. Apparently the musical phrase in question serves as a major motif for the show, and some of the arrangements used are even MORE like the Dragon Quest 7 song. So in the end, Sugiyama was not a thief, as I feared. He's just a lazy bastard. And I can live with that. I actually think its awesome.
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"One of these days, I'm gonna find a loophole my friend." - Man in Black
Congratulations! I'm glad your quest is finally over. Unfortunately, it underperformed in the ratings and there won't be a sequel. Chin up, because at least this means you can tackle something else, like fishing!
bah, I'd rather take up something like eyebrow threading.
But seriously, I can't even begin to express how relieved I am at my findings. Sugiyama is a huge role model to me and the doubt I've had that he could be just copying other people's music was depressing.
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"One of these days, I'm gonna find a loophole my friend." - Man in Black
Hellsing has a song, Bodhitsattva of Cathedral, that came out when the anime aired in 2001.
there's a track in Ace Combat 4, released also in 2001, called Prelude.
sound familiar? i remember checking this earlier and found no connection between them, but it's pretty clearly the same song until the former completely changes.
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The King Wang. Listen up Urinal Cake. I already have something that tells me if I'm too drunk when I pee on it: My friends. - Colbert.
This reminds me of when I discovered my BY FAR LEAST FAVORITE song on the Final Fantasy 8 soundtrack recently.
My favorite song from the Chrono Cross soundtrack (yes, this is relevant) is People Imprisoned by Desiny, sometimes also known as Prisoner of Fate.
Well on the FF8 sountrack there is a song called 'Drifting' and drifting is a pretty "meh" song in its own right but it basically consists of something that is vaguely familiar to the VERY beginning of PIBD just before it picks up. And so I just had FF8 on shuffle and it got to that song. I was doing something else and I didn't really notice what I was listening to but my entire being was tensed up because I was expecting the song to go in a particular direction. And instead of building in some epic way it just repeats. And repeats. And repeats. I was just incredibly annoyed and ill at ease until I realized that I was not listening to PIBD, but it was enough of an audio cue in its similarity that it just completely thew me out of my groove. (I was doing some pretty heavy yard work at the time)
PIBD - Chrono Cross:
Drifting - FF8
After much closer listening I can pretty easily tell the difference now. It isn't the same exact arrangement or anything, but it was just close enough.
I don't think they are THAT similar after close listening and the way the songs develop (or in the case of drifting, fail to develop and simply repeat) are completely different. Not a huge deal anymore it was just majorly aggravating at the time.