Ihatovo Monogatari Soundtrack, Tsukasa Tawada, 1993
Looking at Japanese developer Hect’s ludography, it is easy to assume that the company produced little of note, focusing instead on largely undistinguished simulation titles. Look more closely, however, and one finds Moon Crystal, a surprisingly polished NES platformer released in 1992. Then there is the following year’s Ihatovo Monogatari, easily Hect’s most ambitious, and certainly its most unusual, release. An adventure built entirely around exploration, with no riddles, battles, or other interruptions, Ihatovo Monogatari was based on the writings of Japanese author Kenji Miyazawa. Its locations and characters drew on several of his stories, while “Ihatovo” was a word Miyazawa himself coined to describe a rural utopia inspired by his native Iwate. Released only in Japan, Ihatovo Monogatari has continued to attract praise as one of the SNES’ true hidden gems.
Few of the online appreciations that have appeared in the years since its release fail to mention the soundtrack, and with good reason, since it is one of the 16-bit era’s most intriguing scores. It was written by Tsukasa Tawada, who by 1993 had already built up a considerable body of work across the NES, Game Boy, and PC Engine. Even so, little in his earlier output stood out all that strongly. His most substantial works to that point had been Earth Defense Force, the SNES port of Dungeon Master, written with Hikoshi Hashimoto, and the aforementioned Moon Crystal. Ihatovo Monogatari, however, propelled Tawada into much greater prominence. Later assignments would include work as a sound designer on the Dragon Quest franchise and, eventually, a role as one of Nintendo’s go-to composers for Pokémon games. Clearly, the Ihatovo Monogatari soundtrack still means a great deal to him, something made evident by the piano arrangements he uploaded to his YouTube channel in 2019.
As with his colleagues at Hect, there must have been something about this project that inspired Tawada to go well beyond his usual standards, because there is really nothing else in his discography quite like the Ihatovo Monogatari soundtrack. The opening “Title” already makes it clear that this score is something special. An exultant violin lead moves forward in strong, regular accents, giving the melody a ceremonial, almost spiritual quality. Underneath it, a lively flute ostinato bubbles away in a noticeably different metre, while soft brass chords provide support. The result is music that feels at once regal, welcoming, and playful, a surprisingly subtle emotional combination that Tawada continues to explore throughout the score.
It is precisely Tawada’s imaginative orchestration and harmonic writing, coupled with excellent melodic instincts, that makes the Ihatovo Monogatari soundtrack such a delight. Consider “Volcano Centre”, the score’s most fascinating and best-developed cue. Like several other tracks here, it carries a note of wistfulness, yet drifts at the same time through a haze of surreal calm. One of Tawada’s characteristic techniques is already fully formed here. His melodic and rhythmic progressions are often even and predictable on the surface, but what makes “Volcano Centre” so spellbinding are the heady chromatic intervals created when the woodwind lines harmonise. “Snow Passage Village” pushes this approach further still, relying almost entirely on the hypnotic, repetitive motion of its intertwining flute melodies, which thankfully prove haunting rather than tiresome.
These pieces demonstrate particularly well how Tawada’s work combines an earthy directness with hints of something dreamlike and otherworldly, wholly appropriate given the magical realism of Miyazawa’s fiction. Like Ihatovo Monogatari’s visuals, the music does not push the game towards surrealism as aggressively as one might expect from such literary material. Yet it still inhabits a sonic world that very few game soundtracks of its era resemble.
“Ihatovo City”, for instance, initially presents itself as a first-rate, if stylistically familiar, RPG town theme through its gorgeous pastoral melody. But Tawada then passes that melody to divided violins in their highest registers, producing a glistening string tone that subtly transforms the cue’s homey atmosphere into something more distant and elusive. “Kenjuu’s Village 1” adopts a related strategy, clothing its plaintive harmonica lead in generous echo so that the instrument’s usual down-to-earth quality aligns with the spaciousness suggested by the distant strings. Once again, the result is a deft reconciliation of opposites: music that sounds lonely and hopeful at the same time.
What “Ihatovo City” and “Kenjuu Village 1” also reveal is the influence of folk and pop music on parts of the soundtrack’s melodic language, something “Romantic Movie” brings fully into view. That cue turns out to be a country-rock ballad, built around acoustic guitar and deep, rumbling bass. Such contemporary sounds are unexpected, but they fit comfortably within the stylistic palette Tawada has established. “Music Festival” draws on another recognisable popular form, the waltz, to foreground the score’s underlying nostalgia. It begins on a fairground organ that evokes carnivals of long ago, before shifting, somewhat abruptly, into a full orchestral waltz. Even here, Tawada’s melodic imagination and care for detail keep the music distinctive. Notice how the string pizzicati fall on the third beat rather than the first, subtly unsettling the often rigid patterns of 3/4 time.
Occasionally, the score also ventures into darker regions, those parts of Ihatovo Monogatari’s world furthest removed from the warmth and hospitality suggested elsewhere. “Cave” evokes its eerie setting beautifully through gleaming strings and an oboe melody that sounds like birdsong echoing in the dark. More striking still is “Phenomenon IV”, which turns the score’s dreaminess into something nightmarish through spectral, static, dissonant violin chords, though enough vestiges of melody remain to soften the track’s harsher edges. The closing “Galaxy Express” then marks a return from the unsettling beyond to the human world, as another splendid oboe melody, joined by violins and solo cello, bids farewell. And when that last nostalgic oboe note finally fades, it is difficult not to feel that Tawada has perfectly captured Miyazawa’s Ihatovo itself: the sweet, impossible yearning for utopia.
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