Response: VIVARIUM "Faræphím Arc" Selective OST
Disclaimer: There are specifically omitted details regarding the story of "VIVARIUM," though some spoilers are revealed for the sake of clarity, and the rest omitted for its sanctity.
There are a lot of things cummulatively ending with the release of this selective soundtrack, both good and bad. Since 2020, I've primarily switched my focus of creative work from PARANOIA FUTURE_DATA, my previously primary story work, to VIVARIUM, which occurs in the same universe as the former. I have worked on this soundtrack — which you could consider incomplete, though "selective" in this case means that the main story is tackled — for over 5 years, similar to my recently released "ETERNAL EVERLASTING" extended play, starting in 2019. Over the years, I have dived head first into studying soundtracks from animation, television, and video games from various composers and teams, which all come together in this album. I'll go further into detail about my specific inspirations later in this blog.
For context of this album, the Faræphím arc of VIVARIUM takes place at the very end of the story, where Rio Lawrence — accompanied by Amelia Tachibana, Riselia, Lillie Tachibana, Reisz Krause and Adrian Graciana — makes his final steps into the heart of the underworld in search of purpose and the truth behind his past, only to be faced with betrayal, familial conflict, and all of their lives on the line.
The heart of the underworld — the Zeroth Layer — is the very core of the Alyssean continent, over 13 layers deep. Filled with mechanical animals, grotesque biotechnology, overgrown mountains and chasms, it finds itself a dangerous area, posed only weaker when approaching the Heart: the clockwork framework of the entire planet at its core, connected only by two people's lives.
By this point of the story, the crew have had their fair share of conflict both with others and among themselves, growing themselves stronger and bolder as they reach the most conflicting, dangerous, most inauspicious piece of their planet, a place not many others before them have approached.
I have put this album together with my blood and sweat to ensure that the characteristics of every character were spoken through motifs and callbacks throughout the soundtrack, from the melody in Antinomic Bereavement making its rounds through Passionary of the Time Traveller and This time, I will protect [you] / [another], or the Clockwork heartbeat from THIS IS WHO YOU ARE into Epitaphium Aeterna. To me, I have done everything I could to piece together the story in a way I could tell it without giving it up outright.
Constructing the Idea
I knew generally what I wanted to do for this soundtrack from this get-go, as I knew this would be the most dramatic and devastating piece of the story. For years, Hiroyuki Sawano was my greatest influence with his work on Attack on Titan, Guilty Crown, and KILL la KILL, among other many soundtracks, which shows a lot with the composition of melodies and drumwork on many of the tracks. Kensuke Ushio, known for Devilman crybaby, A Silent Voice: The Movie, and Chainsaw Man, was the greater inspiration for my softer works on the soundtrack, notably Augenbinde and THORNWALL.
By the time a few years passed working on soundtrack pieces — around 2022 — I came across the work of Yuki Hayashi, particularly with Kiznaiver, though he's most notably known for My Hero Academia. Coming across him was most certainly the best push forward for me as I looked deeper into his creative and recording processes, which became the reason that VIVARIUM (Final Encounter) and Find your Light came to be at all.
Of course, it goes without saying, most of my roots come from the works throughout the Pokémon video games, though a lot of research I particularly did for this was looking into Pokémon Black & White, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, and Pokémon Battle Revolution (which you can hear a lot of in Find your Light).
The Story Until Now
For the uninitiated, this story — though not overwriting any others — is preceded by PARANOIA FUTURE_DATA, which is the original parent story to VIVARIUM. Originally starting in 2015 as ETC — an RPG Maker story-based game similar to OFF and Yume Nikki — following Pin and Cushion, a duo paired up by fate and trauma; though eventually through some circumstances I eventually stopped working on ETC as lead developer (to my knowledge, it did not last too much longer after). Instead I went on to start working on Coëval with two other people, which similarly followed a duo of Rin and Whiskey, a fallen-apart boy and a half-demon girl who grew up together and come across Rin's counterpart: his Coëval, an identical mirror image to him. Though I don't have any of Whiskey's artwork, one does exist of Rin out there that I can't find. I do however have all of the music works I created for Coëval, which will be included in the Bandcamp download as a ZIP file.
Eventually, I didn't like the direction of Coëval, which lead to the definitive creation of PARANOIA FUTURE_DATA as we know it, starting out simply as FUTURE_DATA. From there, it went from simple travels in a vast world going between ground level and a floating city, preventing a permanent winter and solving dramatic mystery, to the time-travel disaster-preventing god-defying tragedy it is now.
Though I never stopped working on PF_D intentionally, while I was working on Sunrise Roadshow (while it was still called Vivarium in 2020), I wanted a story to go with the album similarly to Embers, my first major album under a different name. It originated as simply Rio Lawrence being the sole character of the story, though I eventually brought Amelia over from PF_D and rewrote her character in that story instead. Similarly, VIVARIUM, wasn't always attached to PF_D, but as I wrote the story and developed the characters and world more, it made more sense for them to branch across as details lined up and scientific settings behind technologies and different races came together. Now, without VIVARIUM, PF_D's story would not become as developed as it has, due to its roots in its now-predecessor.
Now you're caught up.
A Narrative within the Narrative
My goal, first and foremost, was to be able to tell the story of the Faræphím arc through my composition throughout the album. While I believe I achieved that, let me demonstrate exactly what I mean.
Ascending Light
First off, I primarily used motifs to iterate what relation each character has to each song. The most important, and only used once, is the Ascending Light motif — you can find this in Ray of Light from Sunrise Roadshow, and more notably, in Find your Light in this soundtrack.
I used this only once in the album as a callback to Sunrise Roadshow, largely to build similarities in composing style, but to also reiterate through Find your Light the themes that come with battling alongside your closest friends, working your way into an unknown hell. Likewise, this is why the Ascending Light motif does not show up later in the arc, as it (unfortunately) loses its relevance.
Time
Going forward, one of the two main motifs is the Time motif. You can hear this through Antinomic Bereavement, Passionary of the Time Traveller, and in a later portion of VIVARIUM (Final Encounter), primarily used as the foreground melody. This motif doesn't particularly relate to a character per se, but instead any character with relation to time manipulation or travel. In the case of Antinomic Bereavement, the crew is faced up against the king of the world's Clockwork heart, effectively the living heart of time for Cenifaera. I will not go into its reference in the other mentions, for purity of spoilers for the story.
Familia
Without going into deep detail for the sanctity of the story, the Familia motif is most commonly used in themes related to Rio or his familial relationships, so it is heard within Coronation to the Prince, This time, I will protect [you] / [another], Epitaphium Aeterna, Ignoscentia, and remains the main melodic motif of VIVARIUM (Final Encounter). It is by far the most important due to its implications, its repercussions, and the events it surrounds.
It holds much weight for when it is used, you know exactly who is involved.
Drawing out the Timeline
Of course, without the story being properly out there yet, I can't really spell out much. However, this selective OST was crucial in designing the timeline for VIVARIUM, as it helped seal off loose ends about specific story beats regarding almost all of the characters, including wrapping up Rio's primary story objective. But that being said, the selective OST isn't the be-all-end-all to the story — there are other events that happen upon the Zeroth Layer, however the selective OST gets straight to the point. What seems to happen at a glance just mere hours actually takes place over multiple days.
When you become more familiar with the cast of VIVARIUM — and you will, one day — you will likely look back on this OST and realize exactly not only why it's structured the way it is, but also how it fits in with the pieces of the story.
That's all for now for my response to this, and I hope you look forward to future endeavors within the VIVARIUM & PARANOIA FUTURE_DATA universe.
