SSCX-10018: CREID Yasunori Mitsuda & Millennial Fair

[DarioEMeloD]

What's the source for the romanization for メビウス?
I have a tracklist that titles this track as "Mebius", and hearing to the lyrics it's more accurate than "Mobiusu" or "Möbius" (that doesn't mean I'm right, though XD)

[LiquidAcid]

I think it comes from the game background. There is some in-game usage of german terms, like 'Jugend' (I'm still not sure if there is a hidden reference to 'Hitler Jugend'...)
Möbius could be another term, however I haven't heard that one yet (currently playing the game, so please don't spoiler anything, k?! *g*)

[DarioEMeloD]

Maybe (haven't seen 'Möbius' or something like that on the game... yet XD)
Anyway, there is Balto (Bart) and Dajil (Dazil), so the track name doesn't need to be exactly like the game name (and remember that these are 'japanese version' names)

[LiquidAcid]

The question of de-romanization however doesn't arise for these other tracknames you listed. It's already 'BALTO' and 'DAJIL' on the scans, so we'll just go with that.

The problem is to guess the roman term that was used as 'input' for the katakana on track 10. And the most obvious guess is 'Möbius' - at least from my perspective. E.g. I have no idea what a 'Mebius" should be. However English isn't my native language, so probably the term _does_ exist there.

[DarioEMeloD]

English isn't my native either (and I'm a failure at japanese XD) so that's why I'm asking, and I don't know what 'Möbius' means (altough it's not in english [I guess]), but that seems to be the correct one...
But the romanization listed as 'Mobiusu', and since there's no official english track names, there's some kind of contradiction here =P

[LiquidAcid]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moebius

The most 'popular' term is probably the Möbius strip, named after the german mathematician August Ferdinand Möbius.

But the romanization listed as 'Mobiusu', and since there's no official english track names, there's some kind of contradiction here =P

Where did your 'romanization' come from?

Keep the infamous 'orijinaru saundotorakku' in mind, which appears when doing a naive re-romanization of 'オリジナル・サウンドトラック' (Original Soundtrack).

[DarioEMeloD]

Originally Posted by LiquidAcid

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moebius

The most 'popular' term is probably the Möbius strip, named after the german mathematician August Ferdinand Möbius.

I don't think they would make a song about him in a videogame soundtrack XD
There's the 'Möbius crater', that sounds more related to me, but still doesn't seems to be correct

I've found the lyrics from the song, and the last verse says 'subete o nosete meguru mebiusu' (translated as 'in this turning Moebius')
Come on, what does möbius/moebius/mobiusu/mebiusu means?! ToT

Originally Posted by LiquidAcid

Where did your 'romanization' come from?

Isn't it the same as 'romaji'? If not, then I'm sorry (there are a lot of terms here that I'm not very familiar with, I'm still learning)

Originally Posted by LiquidAcid

Keep the infamous 'orijinaru saundotorakku' in mind, which appears when doing a naive re-romanization of 'オリジナル・サウンドトラック' (Original Soundtrack).

Yeah, you're right, but 'Original Soundtrack' does mean something we all know =P

I guess Möbius could be something like Creid ('believe' in irish)

[LiquidAcid]

Originally Posted by DarioEMeloD

I don't think they would make a song about him in a videogame soundtrack XD
There's the 'Möbius crater', that sounds more related to me, but still doesn't seems to be correct

I wasn't implying that the mathematician was related to the track title. However take a look at this:

Science fiction stories sometimes suggest that our universe might be some kind of generalised Möbius strip

It probably has a deeper symbolic meaning in this context. 'Science fiction', 'universe' -- here we have at least some sort of connection to the game.
Just like a circle/ring is a symbol for 'eternity' (also see the infinity symbol from maths), the Möbius strip might also be a symbol in the game context (I can really only guess here).

Originally Posted by DarioEMeloD

I've found the lyrics from the song, and the last verse says 'subete o nosete meguru mebiusu' (translated as 'in this turning Moebius')
Come on, what does möbius/moebius/mobiusu/mebiusu means?! ToT

I'm quoting the 'translated' lyrics:

Walk until the end of the world
Let us open the rusted door
In this place where everything has ended -
a couple's road begins

In this eternal blue sky
10 billion stars hide from our eyes
The truth I see when I close my eyes is here.

There is always someone leading me
There is always someone who is decieved.
More than fate, this power is
Enveloping our world.

With the turning of a page, a story opens,
and 10 billion dreams are spun
I am not afraid of the memories we will share.

Let me listen to your beating heart
Let my body hear words it can understand,
So we can travel to a far greater destiny.

In that moment of warm joy
10 billion nights shake
Do not cry, time takes care of everything.
In this turning Moebius.

In my opinion two concepts are used here:
(i) infinity/eternity - two people walking on the moebius strip are eventually going to reach their starting point ('In this place where everything has ended') once again
(ii) the feature that both 'sides' of the moebius strip are actually one and the same, and that you reach the other 'side' when traveling on the strip

This is probably very far-fetched, but from my perspective japanese storytelling has the tendency not to differentiate between good and evil that much compared e.g. to Hollywood movie scripts (you have the good guys and the bad guys, however it's rarely explained why the good guys are good, and the bad guys are bad). A good example are probably the studio Ghibli animes.
So this _might_ be what (ii) implies: there are no two sides, there's no absolute evil / no absolute good - everything is just shades of grey.

And _maybe_ the traveling couple realizes that after reaching their destination. The infinity concept would imply that the process repeats, meaning that you can only understand this (point (ii)) when continously walking your path in life ('What matters is the journey, not the destination.')

Originally Posted by DarioEMeloD

Isn't it the same as 'romaji'? If not, then I'm sorry (there are a lot of terms here that I'm not very familiar with, I'm still learning)

Sorry, I completly missed that. Hmm, this is of course a 'brute-force' re-romanization. I don't know if that's intended -- maybe the romaji tracklist are supposed to retranslate the katakana like that, not sure...

Originally Posted by DarioEMeloD

I guess Möbius could be something like Creid ('believe' in irish)

Maybe, but then we would need someone who's proficient in the Irish language. Anyone?

[Xenofan 29A]

There's certainly no reference to "moebius" in the game. As you say, it's a symbol of the concept of infinity.

[Medina]

Isn't Millennial Fair a group? We don't have one in the database. Just wondering if they're considered to be a "real" group if they're just one for this album. Also I think it's kind of weird that we consider "Yasunori Mitsuda & Millennial Fail" to be part of the title since they're the artists / performers, but I guess it does appear in every single place that "CREID" appears.

EDIT: Tetsuko Honma and Eimear Quinn were given arrange credits when they really did vocals, which would mean they should only have their performer credits. At least that's what I read in the booklet (I don't see where it says they also arranged the lyrics or anything). But I won't change it for now, in case someone knows something.

[Cedille]

Originally Posted by Medina

EDIT: Tetsuko Honma and Eimear Quinn were given arrange credits when they really did vocals, which would mean they should only have their performer credits. At least that's what I read in the booklet (I don't see where it says they also arranged the lyrics or anything). But I won't change it for now, in case someone knows something.

Those arranger credits were actually removed, but not unlinked yet. I think we can add Yoko Ueno as the arranger instead.

[Medina]

Oh that's weird, now that I check the edit album page, I see they're not in the arranger field. Well, I don't think that's anything I can work with, so you do your thing (unlink and all that). And I agree, I was wondering if we should add Yoko Ueno to the arranger list or not.

[Cedille]

I tweaked the note and credits. Interesting that the unit which later became ACE was involved in the Xeno series even before Xenoblade.

[Hellacia]

I actually listened to this for the first time ever a week or two ago. I was completely underwhelmed. Just last night, I played through the whole thing again, and that time I began to really understand and appreciate some of the songs. Just finished it again a couple minutes ago, and overall I think it's a pretty decent CD. I really like about half the tracks on their own merit (2, 3, 4, 5, 10). Between Techie's vocals and Joanne's vocals, I'll pick Joanne's any day, but Techie is still really good. The other half of the CD isn't bad by any means, just not really memorable to me. But it's a decent CD and I'm glad I finally listened to it after all these years (hell, over a decade).

[Kaleb.G]

Originally Posted by Medina

Also I think it's kind of weird that we consider "Yasunori Mitsuda & Millennial Fail" to be part of the title since they're the artists / performers

I agree with this, and if we still include it based on "artist album" precedence, wouldn't we use the slash ("/") notation?

Also, Millennial Fair probably should be included as a an artist group.

[Hellacia]

I addressed this in the Album Title guideline thread and used this soundtrack as one of the examples, and blah responded with some thoughts.

Originally Posted by Gigablah

CREID is one of the earliest entries in the database, so it was submitted before we had any semblance of guidelines in place. Nowadays we also place major priority on how the publisher officially transcribes the album title, so this appears to support your case: http://www.procyon-studio.com/disco/cd_creid.html

"Yasunori Mitsuda & Millennial Fair" is essentially the "artist" portion of the title, so given current standards (and ignoring the publisher's transcription) it would be "CREID / Yasunori Mitsuda & Millennial Fair", with the separator in between. However there's also the obi to consider, which has the additional prefix "Xenogears Arrange Version".

My preference would be just "CREID" for the first line, and dump the full title -- Xenogears Arrange Version "CREID" / Yasunori Mitsuda & Millennial Fair -- in the alternative title section.

I also think we should just use CREID as the title, since it's the real title. Yasunori Mitsuda and Millennial Fair isn't a title, it's the people who composed / arranged / performed the music. It would be like adding Composed, Arranged & Produced by Nobuo Uematsu to every Final Fantasy album just because it appears near the title every time (because it just about does). Maybe with singles albums, we want to handle things differently (though I still don't know why), but this isn't a single.

[Kaleb.G]

Sounds good. I did it all. I wish there was a way I could re-order the listing of performers so Millennial Fair was second in the list (behind Mitsuda) rather than last, but it's all complete.

[Cedille]

Originally Posted by Kaleb.G

Sounds good. I did it all. I wish there was a way I could re-order the listing of performers so Millennial Fair was second in the list (behind Mitsuda) rather than last, but it's all complete.

I think the way we normally do is "Millennial Fair (Tetsuko "Techie" Honma, Eimear Quinn, Yoko Ueno, Koko Komine, Hitoshi Watanabe, HATA, Tomohiko Kira, Davy Spillane, Laurie Kaszas, Kinya Sogawa, Haruo Kondo, Maria Kalaniemi, Anne-Marie O'Farrell, Laoise Kelly, Maire Breatnach, Tamao Fujii, KALTA), so that each individual performer also gets credited here.

[Kaleb.G]

Originally Posted by Cedille

I think the way we normally do is "Millennial Fair (Tetsuko "Techie" Honma, Eimear Quinn, Yoko Ueno, Koko Komine, Hitoshi Watanabe, HATA, Tomohiko Kira, Davy Spillane, Laurie Kaszas, Kinya Sogawa, Haruo Kondo, Maria Kalaniemi, Anne-Marie O'Farrell, Laoise Kelly, Maire Breatnach, Tamao Fujii, KALTA), so that each individual performer also gets credited here.

Interesting. I didn't know we could do that. Thanks!

[roxfan]

It's an old discussion, but I just wanted to add that メビウス (or メービウス) is how the Japanese transliterate the German name Möbius/Moebius. For reference, see this article.

[Nisto]

Can anyone recommend any other soundtracks/albums with the same warm/organic/folksy and occasionally mysterious sound as this? Especially BALTO. Every time that track pops up in my playlist and I hear that intro, I'm stuck.

I guess I would also compare the overall style of this to Iblard ~Iblard Hakubutsushi yori~ / Mirai MUSIC - particularly the first track. It's the closest I can think of at least.

[Jormungand]

Originally Posted by Nisto

Can anyone recommend any other soundtracks/albums with the same warm/organic/folksy and occasionally mysterious sound as this? Especially BALTO. Every time that track pops up in my playlist and I hear that intro, I'm stuck.

I guess I would also compare the overall style of this to Iblard ~Iblard Hakubutsushi yori~ / Mirai MUSIC - particularly the first track. It's the closest I can think of at least.

I second this request from Nisto. The closest I could find is directly from Zabadak, of which there are many Creid-esque (though perhaps not Creid-quality) tracks.

[Ramza]

Some of ... though not ALL of ... the tracks on the two "Melody of Legend" albums should fit the bill.

I also think some of the tracks on "The Celtic Link" have some tracks that have some similarities to BALTO. (for the record, ... I mean, all of CREID is amazing, but BALTO is second-for-second one of the best arrangements I've ever heard).

https://vgmdb.net/album/74959

[student41269]

Originally Posted by Nisto

Can anyone recommend any other soundtracks/albums with the same warm/organic/folksy and occasionally mysterious sound as this? Especially BALTO. Every time that track pops up in my playlist and I hear that intro, I'm stuck.

A fairly obvious choice would be Mitsuda's Kirite, if you haven't already tried that.

Yoko Ueno was a common factor in a lot of stuff like this at the time. You could also try Orrizonte or her earlier solo album Voices.

[Nisto]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

I never heard of Zabadak before - I came across the Water Garden album and was pleasantly surprised by some of the tracks. Also, slightly off-topic, but funnily, the synth part in "Windy Hill" has me thinking of Iblard again, as it sounds quite a bit like track 3 on Iblard ~Laputa no Kaeru Machi~ Soundtrack.

I will check out the two albums you mentioned as well, Ramza. And I agree with you - all of these tracks are gorgeous.

I heard of Kirite lots of times, but don't think I ever did get around to listening to it for some reason, so it wasn't entirely obvious I guess. Good call.

[Cam Redding]

Hello, I am from the future. The year is 2023. I am happy to report that it is indeed likely "Moebius" that is the reference here. As this name and the infinity symbol has been re-used to represent the antagonist faction of the most recent game in the series - Xenoblade. A series that has since (surprise) become canon with previous Xeno series. You wont believe me, but its true. All this to say: good work those of you who attempted to localize these track titles over a decade ago!

[Mac_Tear]

This is absolutely off-topic here, but after Xenoblade 3 Xenogears definitely NEEDS a proper remaster/remake. They produced an anniversary concert, so why not revive the game as well? Square Enix, come on!

Spoiler:

I mean, they even hinted some Xenogears music in the final battle of Xenoblade 3: Future Redeemed and the ending theme even features Joanne Hogg, so are these indications that something is on the way...?

[Sherkel]

I'm convinced we're getting a Saga remaster. Gears, though, seems too much like it would have happened already if it were possible.

[Phonograph]

Originally Posted by Sherkel

I'm convinced we're getting a Saga remaster. Gears, though, seems too much like it would have happened already if it were possible.

you're convinced? sorry but except saga emerald beyond, I don't see a new saga remaster
saga frontier 2 never been announced and minstrel has maybe not had good sales coz they overadvertize it, it's even becoming embarrassing for them
as for xenogears, the game is bad it doesn't deserve a remake or they need to remove all the psycho/philo crap

[Sherkel]

Well I, for one, doth desire the power!