Mercurial Tapestry

Category: Sakura no Uta

  • Sakura no Uta – a post mortem

    If I had any regrets regarding this 2 yearlong reading of Sakura no Uta, it would be that I never did get around to finding something to say about Pica Pica. The route is unique because it focuses on what I consider the true action taking place throughout the story, the sacrifice of those that…

  • Art, Joy, and the Eternal Perspective

    This essay is part of an ongoing series on Sakura no Uta. It contains spoilers for the content through The Happy Prince and Other Tales. The transition from What is Mind to the Happy Prince can be outlined in the questions asked by Paul Gaugin and Nagayama Kana, Where do we come from? What are We?…

  • Mind, Body, and the Transcendental Dialectic

    This essay is part of an ongoing series on Sakura no Uta. It contains spoilers for the content through What is Mind?  The transition visual of Mizuna in the cage evokes the ancient Greek concept of “soma sema,” that the body is the prison of the soul. This is a concept closely related to Plato’s…

  • Fool the World

    This essay is part of an ongoing series on Sakura no Uta. It contains spoilers for the content through A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs.  “Red” is the name of a color. When uttered in isolation, there is no additional meaning to be drawn out of the word. But when Kenichiro shouts “Red!” Naoya knows that…

  • Rhapsody in Black

    This essay is part of an ongoing series on Sakura no Uta. It contains spoilers for the content through Zypressen.  To play on the words of Nakahara Chuuya, Zypressen is a fairy tale of two. Black and white, eternal and fleeting, male and female. Up until this point in the game, nowhere has the creator’s…

  • Night on the Galactic Railroad

    If you engage in any sort of Japanese media commonly exported to the West, there’s a good chance that you’ve been exposed in some way to the imagery in Miyazawa Kenji’s Night on the Galactic Railroad. Whether through the book, the movie, or the countless scenes inspired by them, the journey of Giovanni and Campanella…

  • Learning, Memory and Knowledge

    This is the first of a series I plan on writing as I read through Sakura no Uta. It contains spoilers for the Olympia route. All images are from the game and do not belong to me. “What is it you’re looking for?” “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”[1] We usually think of learning…