Discussion topic for Track 4 of Owari no Hoshi no Love Song: Flower Garden. Please support the official release by purchasing the album from iTunes! You can find a translation of the lyrics on ShiraneHito’s blog.
Please tag references to later songs or outside works with the [spoiler] tag, providing adequate context in parenthesis.
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This is a decent time to mention that when a song is vague about the charcters’ genders I default to the narrator being a woman and the other person being a man. For this song, I think the two characters are boys. In the first stanza, it’s mentioned how the person is “like a girl” when looking at the book, so that means they’re probably not like a girl at other times. This doesn’t have to be about gender; it could be about age as well, but I think it’s a bit darker than that. The final line in the stanza reveals that there’s prostitution going on here. My theory is then that these characters are effeminate boys that exchange their bodies for food (Jesus Christ, Maeda!).
I think the “like a girl” part here probably is meant to build up for the “innocent” part, since in the later stanza it gets darker as it goes on into about how the girl is getting food from prostitution (I believe it’s a girl 
); by using the word innocent here it establishes a contradiction of sort to further drive in the weight of the situation. Kind of like the guy’s perspective is saying that “hey, this girl is a prostitute, but when she’s “looking at colorful picture books”, she appears to be innocent like any normal little girl” or maybe “she’s look just like an innocent little girl when she read picture books, even when she’s going through all this shit” or something like that
“But you are fragile” and “You can’t take the air outside” pretty much sums up condition of the girl here well enough, metaphorically or not, she climbed those long ass stairs because she really wanted to go to the “surface” even though it ended up with her going into coma… makes me wonder what the role of the narrator perspective in this though, there’s certainly a possibility that they share the same line of work but I don’t think there’s many line that gives a hint to his/her identity.
edit: I noticed I said “guy’s perspective” on accident, I think that’s because in the previous songs there’s always a girl and a guy in the story… I don’t know, the narrator just sound masculine to me (lol)
I think you’re looking way to deep into that Helios, I’m more with Maebatame that ‘like a girl’ is more akin ‘like an innocent child’. The girl likes simple childish things like picture books and flowers, but she also takes a pussy pounding to make ends meet because this is not a world where you can stay innocent.
I think of it as more standard, the whoregirl has KeyAIDS, or at least isn’t strong enough to deal with this world, and the narrator wants to love and protect her, even dealing with how she has to be a whore to make ends meet. But then she, like all Disney Princess, I mean Maeda girls with KeyAIDS, wants to do more, with that childish innocence, she believes the rain will make the outside safe for her. She fucked up. Transitioning from KeyAIDS to KeyComa, the story ends there.
Moral of the story? Optimism is bad.
Wait that’s like the opposite of Futari Dake no Ark.
I do enjoy the song, it’s the best slow song on the Album in my opinion and with how low key and somber the events of it are, it fits. Not my personal preference in music however so it’s far from my favorite. The story is also a little too bleak for me, even for this album.
With more time on my hands and a decent Japanese dictionary at hand, I have to retract what I said. Knowing the meaning of 艶やか changes a lot. At first my impression was that this person was more of a victim, but it seems they were pretty comfortable and/or skilled with their trade. I was mostly baffled by Maeda writing about a prostitute anyway regardless of gender. That relates to my engagement curve project too. This is a much slower song than Killer Song, but I say prostitution is more fucked up than murder. For me this still translates into an increase in engagement, but it’s interesting how the song goes both up and down at the same time.
I really like this song. This has strangely become one of my favorites in the album (I have a different favorite), mainly because I’m rarely big on music that only has piano and vocals, but this one just works for me. I was wondering for a while what’s up with the undressing part in the lyrics, until I saw this thread… 
And here are my two observations based on that, and I want to talk about the music first. (I’m so sorry about my limited knowledge of music theory. T.T) There’s the piano, which gives this track a “quieter” vibe. In comparison, the previous tracks all have a lot more instruments in the mix. But the magic here is on the rhythm, which is, as I said about the Ark song, very Jun Maeda in style, weird rhythms and all.
For most of the time, the time signature is a 13/4, assuming each beat is a quarter note and not eighth. In this song, the 13/4 time signature sounds like a waltz, except that there’s one extra beat every four measures. Count along the song’s beat: 1, 2, 3. 1, 2 3. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3, 4.
And then at some point, the rhythm shifts to common time, the usual pop music rhythm, 4/4. Count 1, 2, 3, 4. But at some point, the meter shifts to 2/4 for one measure then to 5/4 to another one measure, then back to common time. After what seems to be the chorus part, the melody repeats, but the intro repeats, too, but with some vocal “ooh” in the mix. After the repeat, and an extra 2/4 measure, it proceeds to the last part of the song, which is also at 13/4.
The combination of simple instrumentation and the weird rhythm gives the music a quietly chaotic feel, which is so totally apt, considering the narrative of the song. The previous songs have a lot of flashy stuff happening, while this one is a quieter, but not any less messed up.
Speaking of messed up, again, I totally wouldn’t have figured that the song implied prostitution without reading this thread. But looking at the title, I realized something. The flower motif. Befitting the story’s theme, flowers are often associated to female sexuality, especially of virginity.
Which makes the story very 
. It can be interpreted this way: the girl wanted to see a world where she doesn’t have to go through such work. But the world is even more messed up outside, and practically, she’s better off staying. But she was pretty naive, and her escape costed her dearly.
A wilder interpretation that I have is that, in the “air” lyrics, it could possibly mean that life outside is so harsh that her body can’t physically handle it, that or she can’t really find food outside. She seems to be getting food in exchange of her work in what seems to be underground (oh god is this a weird pun), which adds to how rampant poverty is in the “Closed World.” Though, digressing a bit, this also happens irl. However, outside, food is harder to come by, so she might have fallen from hunger or overwork.
An even wilder interpretation is that she emotionally broke, after realizing that her dream of seeing a world where virginity can be a thing… is impossible.
Either way, wth Maeda.
Still doesn’t stop me from liking the song.
Well good, guess I wasn’t the only one to deduce prostitution from the song. I always wondered why her outfit was so… sultry, but I guess that sorta explains that. 
As for my own interpretation… I see this girl as somewhat of a “private” prostitute. Sheltered by some rich pig who keeps her for a quick fuck, she (obviously) doesn’t know about the rest of the world. Considering her attitude with her work though, I’d wager she wants to learn about the world in her own way. Basically, go from private to professional.
But, being the naive girl she is, she doesn’t realize the dangers of this, until it’s too late and the secret admirer of hers comes to lay her to rest.
tl;dr no, she never had KeyAIDS. But she did get real AIDS. And boy if that isn’t fucked up then I don’t know what is.
Well. Either that or it’s as the song literally says and the world is fucked up to the point that breathing the air outside will kill you.
That aside, I really do love the melody of this song. It’s simple, a bit repetitive, but quite attractive. The melody alone, I feel, could work very well as a background track. Heck, I could probably listen to this song on loop all day and wouldn’t get tired of it.
Wow…this all got more dark feeling somehow, for such a pretty song especially.
I feel like her existence is akin to the trope of the Hooker with a Heart of Gold in that we are supposed to think of her as this force of purity and naivitiy circumstantially forced into the sex industry because the world is in chaos. Despite the “stain” of being a sex worker, the singers esteem for her doesn’t fall.
I always end up picturing the singer as being a sibling - someone who has known her and loved her for a while - who would have reason to be protective of her and also probably be as burdened by her work as she was - maybe more so. I guess the singer could be a spouse too, but I always fall back on sibling.
図鑑 seems to have kind of a more formal feel to it than 絵本 for the term “picture books” - but the image of her looking over the books with excitement, that she seems to not know of real flowers - and thus can be thought to not have been around before or at least not been very old when the world became ruined as opposed to the singer who speaks with a darkness I feel is bred through having born witness. This makes me think she is also probably notably young.
And all the singer can offer her now is an imitation of her dream one she wont wake to appreciate, even though the singer can’t let go.
I really love this song - I’m kind of a sucker for sad piano songs with female. And then it has the super emphasized line of “The world will not return to how it was” right at the end and matter-of-factly is kind of an emotional punch to the gut. Especially as you look back at the suffering that has already happened on this album, and you realize there is no end for anyone here.
