The theme of Oicho - mabanua

At around 1:00 in the track “The theme of Liu”, the electric guitar part plays a phrase from the melody of Joe’s theme in the Season 1 soundtrack. Go to my WordPress post if you want audio links (including an ugly MIDI recreation) because tumblr won’t let me embed more than one.

From a meta standpoint, I think this represents the influence that “Gearless” Joe had on Liu, how spiritually connected they are even on a musical level. But from an in-universe perspective, it highlights the eminence of “Gearless” Joe’s legacy in the sport of Megalo Box. Seven years after his Megalonia debut, the echoes of Joe’s ring music still play every time Edison Liu fights.

Did lots of freaking out on Discord yesterday about this, but I’m putting it here too because I’m still just as surprised Pikachu about it and I just want to shove mabanua’s genius in everybody’s faces- basically, listening to Nomad’s soundtrack and thinking “wow this is really familiar, I wonder if-” and then doing some (very quick and sloppy, ignore that it’s messy please) audio mashing, I present the following:

00:00-01:40 left ear: MEGALOBOX (S1) right ear: Theme of Sachio 2 (S2)

In S1, the theme of Megalobox is the closest thing we have to Joe’s theme, and considering the plot point in Nomad about how Sachio is trying his hardest to be a Joe replacement, it fits perfectly that his S2 theme wouldn’t be a variation on his S1 theme (which was pretty substantially different except that his S2 theme’s arpeggiation is the reverse of his S1 theme’s), but rather a variation on Joe’s theme (even changing the key from Am in S1 to Dm in S2- coincidentally, the same key as the theme of Megalobox)... but it’s not a variation on Joe’s theme only, which leads to-

01:45-03:15 left ear: MEGALOBOX (Emotional) (S1) right ear: Theme of Gansaku Nanbu (Sorrow) (S1)

Yes, I’m only discovering 3 years afterward that Nanbu and Joe’s themes were tied together, with notable points where they go very dissonant- paralleling Nanbu and Joe’s character arcs in S1. I especially like how they occasionally echo/answer each other, as if they’re on the same path but juuuust slightly off. (And of course, they resolve at the end...)

3:30-4:55 left ear: MEGALOBOX (Emotional) (S1) right ear: Theme of NOMAD (S2)

Finally, (even though this mixing is more of a mess than the other two and I apologize skjkjdhkj) the theme of Nomad (or what we could call Joe’s S2 theme) which I’m not sure to describe as a western, key-changed descant, supplement to, or evolution of the og Megalobox theme (maybe a mix of all three), illustrating that yes, Joe has grown older, but he’s still himself despite everything. Also worth noting that he’s moved away from Dm (the “saddest” key) to Em7, a spectacular parallel to the theme of hope that ran throughout all of S2.

tldr; Team Bangaichi are a family, they are intertwined even musically, and even through distance and loss they always will be, mabanua is living in 4040 and I have a lot of feelings!

n_o_a_3_

1st EP 「Too Young」

2021.01.29 Digital Release

1: Too Young Prod by KSUKE [MV]

2: Better Prod by Ryosuke“Dr.R”Sakai

3: Friends? Prod by mabanua

4: Multiverse Prod by Chaki Zulu

5: LIGHTS UP feat. SAAY Prod by NOA / MILLENNIUM [MV]

(pre-release live stream with millennium (starts at 9:11))