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Anonymous asked:
weird question, but do you get Pokemon vibes from Hidekuni Horita’s music?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VGNLocgwdw
I remember feeling it with this song from Mario & Sonic 2016 and it’s something I’ve kind of noticed in his music since then. I feel like you’d be the best person to ask about this since I know you’re a fan of both, and I imagine you’d better understand what makes them similar then I would. That or I’m just really confused and this has zero Pokemon vibes, one of the two.
Actually, yes! This is something I’ve legitimately thought about before, so this question isn’t weird at all to me. In particular, I think he has a number of similarities with Hitomi Sato specifically.
Some traits I identify with both composers are: weirdly phrased melodies that sort of feel like they’re actively resisting trying to be “catchy,” transposing chords, lots of doubled voice lines (parallel harmony), and rhythmic oddness (Sato tends to do more syncopated, over-the-barline stuff while Horita will more often just use odd time). When Horita writes cutesier, major key music, his instrumentation also ends up being pretty similar, in terms of the mix of keyboards and synth noises and so on, and his melodies can get really eerily similar.
Skimmed a bit through my stream jukebox playlist and picked out a few Horita tracks that have a bit of a Pokémon-ish feel to me (the Sonic one isn’t confirmed him but I’d wager it is):
This is in a chill jazz style that reminds me of Sato’s town themes; the first minute in particular before the sax takes over is really similar to “Virbank City” from Black2 & White2. The sax melody for the rest of the track has a refrain that shows up a few times but otherwise is kinda rambling and rather syncopated in a way which makes it kinda tricky to follow along with it, which is what I meant earlier by resisting catchiness; Sato does this a lot too.
0:20-0:37 in this has Sato-esque parallel movement and sound design, and then right after at 0:40 the melody and arrangement sound a little bit like a quirky Sato character theme.
Lots of doubled lines in this one too. The little plucked melody breathers at 0:23 and climax melody at 0:37 (especially with the chord change at 0:42) also sound pretty Pokémon-like to me.
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