In a way, I grew up with Susumu Hirasawa's music: when I was twelve, my mother decided to get me into the manga Berserk. I was already a diligent anime fan so I torrented and watched the 1997 anime on my own. For the sake of this Web page, let's not discuss whether that was appropriate.
She also had me watch Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue at this age, which led to me finding Paprika on my own. I heard his music and I had become entranced, but at the time my music taste was limited to CASCADE and Lemon Demon, so I did not care to look further into it.
My "proper" introduction is a little more special to me, so please forgive me for rambling.
In the tail end of my high school years, I tended to a website much like this one. It wasn't much compared to what I have now: some fanlistings—a hobby I later gave up on—and broken links to pictures of my art. I had some information on my favourite band at the time, which a precursor to a few fansites I kept for it afterward. The best thing about the site was probably the main design.
I kept a little blog though. It would have been better off replaced by a Dreamwidth page, but I digress. By a miracle, despite the entire site being made in a text editor saving changes right to the server, I have the files safe on my hard drive. My first blog post, from the 20th of February, 2023, is as follows:
Lately, I've been in love with pikopiko bands. I need to look for more of them! I haven't been able to stop listening.
I'm really loving Shinjuku Gewalt, Pinokiwo, Sandwich de 120pun?, and Floppy. Especially Floppy! There are some songs by them where you can really obviously hear them using the 2A03 sound chip, which is the chip used to make all the music on the NES/Famicom.
Now I'm a nerd for this entire spiel, but goodness I love music made with the 2A03, and even if Floppy edits it etc. in modern DAWs and such, it's really impressive that they make use of the 2A03 at all. They get really creative with it :-)
But back to the topic. I'm looking for more pikopiko bands to listen to! If anybody has recommendations, feel free to give me a shout and I'll tell you what I think :-) you know my E-Mail! And if you don't, it's right on my "About the Webmaster" page.
The ironic thing about this entry is that I don't think the band FLOPPY use the NES for music at all, despite their frontman Sharaku's old NES-controller microphone. The real chiptune culprit: LSDJ for the Gameboy.
I wasn't very bright. But I had enthusiasm.
Well, a while after an exchange in a YouTube comments section, on the 2nd of March, I got an email in my inbox. The person I had briefly talked to about music had done some snooping around and found my website. Subject line: Thanks & some (gratuitous) music recommendations.
I will spare you most of the mail because it is not important, but this was my official introduction to Susumu Hirasawa's works. The beginning of the end, so to speak.
This paragraph is where the gratuitous side of my recommendations begin. FLOPPY and the groups/musicians surrounding them are all influenced by Susumu Hirasawa's band, P-MODEL; it's not hard to find samples of and references to P-MODEL and Hirasawa in their work. FLOPPY even covered a P-MODEL song, and they frequently collab with past P-MODEL members like Miura Shunichi, Teruo Nakano, and Hajime Fukuma. (Collabed with Fukuma, I should say. RIP.) I have the feeling that FLOPPY's circle is especially influenced by P-MODEL's "revised" lineup, responsible for the albums Fune, Electronic Tragedy: ENOLA, and Music Industrial Wastes: P-MODEL OR DIE. Listen here.
It actually took me forever to get to the albums explicitly mentioned here! Not really as songs—I had a habit of listening to whatever YouTube threw me, which meant I was largely familiar with the tracks—but it took a lot time for me to sit down and just listen to the goddamn albums.
But I digress.
I was hungry for new music and I had just been handed more music. Who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth? Immediately, I look up P-MODEL, and my life is changed...
...as evidenced by my old messages to people, which I somehow still have logs of. Despite being given explicit album recommendations, I fall trap to strange thinking: if I have to listen to a band, I have to check out their first album. So I'll go listen to P-MODEL's first album.
Who did I think I was? At least I liked what I heard.
From here on I was doomed: it was a process of listening to more music either thrown at me by YouTube or by this new friend. As I learned about the music itself I also learned a lot about Hirasawa as a person.
He is an interesting man, to say the least, but there is so much to respect him for.
A disregard for social norms will, obviously, bring a more creative and more innovative person the freedom he needs to get his ideas out there. But when it also leads to getting really into QAnon or telling his followers to drink bleach... not much I can say to defend such a man! ha ha ha. I'm just grateful the music is so good.
Hirasawa will always take a backseat to the slightly younger old men whose music I love, but I am very grateful that he has inspired so many wonderful musicians, and his music will always be very special to me. If it weren't, this section on my site would not exist.
In fact, if it weren't, this site would not exist at all. I had a lot of issues in the past. If not for Susumu Hirasawa's music I might not have made it out of my situation. Music has been the backbone of my existence for as long as I can remember. I certainly do not want to experience it again, but overdosing while listening to Siren had me rethinking a lot of things.
I am very grateful for the "right place, right time" incidents that led to me falling in love with this man's compositions and beautiful voice. I am grateful for the wonderful friend who got me hooked in the first place, and for all the friends I've made thanks to this!
