Tsutomu Narita, the main composer for GBF and a mighty skyfarer in his own right, was the guest on Granblue TV Channel, sharing stories about composing for the game, cursing himself with Oira ASMR, and more!
Opening gag
The opening gag is pretty tame this time, with Gran asking Narita what he puts into each of his performances. Narita says that he wants his sound (oto) to reach people (otodoke), which sends Siero into a round of giggling. Narita quickly says that it wasn’t meant to be a pun, making Siero sad.
Opening talk
Ono Yuuki teases Narita a bit at the beginning, saying that there were many requests for Narita to be on the show, since he is both the composer of the game and a voice actor, but Narita quickly says that he hates the sound of his own voice in the game, and hasn’t listened to his in-game lines.
Narita: “After I recorded my lines for Together in Song, I was completely wiped out. I bumped into Touyama Nao (Lyria) after I left the studio, and I begged her to take my place and do my lines.”
Katou: “That wouldn’t work on so many levels!”
Narita’s work flow
The first question for Narita is about his workflow for GBF music.
First step: Fukuhara Tetsuya (director, GBF) requests a song, leaving comments like “I want it to sound like this” or “I want this instrument to carry the melody”.
Second step: Work on actually composing the song
Third step: If the song requires any recording, go into the studio.
Narita himself records many of the guitar and bass segments.
The songs that were toughest for Narita
Asked about which songs gave him the hardest time during composition, he first cites The Ultimate (Ultimate Bahamut battle theme), because most battle themes run about 2.5-3 minutes, but The Ultimate runs for 10. FKHR’s orders were to make the phrases long, and just recording the bass line was exhausting.
When Stella Magna performs the song live, it’s one of their most physically demanding tracks.
The second song he brings up is Zero, the Lucillius battle theme. FKHR requested that song for the anniversary, and had many requests – including a final note of “I want this to be at least as long as The Ultimate.”
Narita’s third-most troublesome song is Tiamat Magna, which he says is because of his own mistakes. He mixed up his deadlines and submitted a song that would be used 2 months after Tiamat Magna was released, then realized that Tiamat Magna was coming first. He got a message asking him when he could get that song in, and he had to finish that track in just 2 or 3 days.
Katou: “What, that’s such a great song, how could you have done that in so little time?”
Narita: “It might have been because I didn’t have time to doubt my own work.”
Narita’s most memorable GBF tracks
Asked about the GBF songs he remembers the most, he starts with Lyria, the ending song of Girl in Blue. It was the first time he’d worked with Touyama Nao as a singer. He realized how serious she is as a singer when they first submitted her audio track for approval. She came back with questions about certain noises in the recording that he hadn’t noticed himself, and he was very impressed with her work ethic and attention to detail.
His second is Nahlhegrande, which is one of Katou Emiri’s favorites as well because it is so good at expressing the expansion of world.
His third made an impression on him for a different reason, Big Black Shadow – the April Fool’s version of the Bahamut theme. When the lyrics were handed to him, he giggled the entire time he remixed the original track. Kugimiya Rie (Vyrn) did very well at the recording, but Narita had the bright idea to insert “Oira” into the song in as many points as possible.
Narita: “We’re still recording live, so could you give me a bunch of Oiras?”
So… she gave him exactly what he wanted. 5 straight minutes of “oira”.
Ono: “It’s the oira equivalent of the thousand ground balls drill in baseball…”
The songs Narita worked hardest on
The three he lists are The Sins of Nahlhegrande, Reiche Island, and What Makes the Sky Blue.
He enjoys composing orchestral tracks, and he thinks are the best out of his orchestral work.
Out of the songs he’s done in Stella Magna rock and metal style, he loves Paradise Lost and Parade’s Lust, and Katou Emiri shares that love – she owns both of them on CD.
Narita: “FKHR requested rap, which surprised me. The lyrics came first, and I kept trying to figure out how to wrap the song around the words.”
Katou: “The first time I heard Parade’s Lust was in the Belial raid, and honestly, he was so weak that it would end way too fast. So I would sit around in the raid until the song looped, and THEN I would beat up Belial.”
Katou shares another of her favorites, since she seems to enjoy battle themes the most: the Grimnir battle.
Narita’s six elements
After correcting a quick flub, Narita introduces his six elements:
音 (sound) – for Music.
ゲ (G for Game) – for Games.
写 (for Photo) – when he leaves the house, he loves to bring his camera with him, including to Granblue Fantasy Fest.
Ono: “I feel like I’ve heard this story before…”
Katou: “Mmmmaaaaaaybe. When we see each other at events we compare camera gear with each other, and we always say things like ‘Wow, you bought that?’ as we show off.”
Narita is not very good at photographing people, and asks Katou to teach him her ways some day.
食 (food) – his meals are his favorite part of the day. He especially loves sweets, spicy food, and meat – Katou Emiri laughs as soon as he says meat, since he’s an infamous Unite and Fight grinder.
車 (car) – he likes to drive, and while he wasn’t able to drive to Granblue Fantasy Fest, he wants to do it some time and lug the band equipment with him.
話 (talk) – he enjoys talking to his in-game friends via chat apps while playing games. It relaxes him.
Dreams of Skyfarers
Katou Emiri is really into this segment, as Narita is a rank 250 skyfarer, and she wonders what he could possibly bring to the table for his requests.
He mostly makes musical requests, though:
First, he requests WMTSB The Movie (What Makes the Sky Blue). This is a very popular request among skyfarers, and Katou Emiri suggests that the MC be Djee-
Ono (Gran): “WHOA WHOA WHOA – why can’t we have both?”
Katou: “A Gran version and a Djeeta version? What if it was a two part movie, the first part would be the Gran version and the Djeeta version would be in the second half.”
The second request is a musical segment in Granblue TV Channel, which the hosts would love to flesh out the Granblue TV Channel eps.
Katou: “Awesome, so you’re coming back to play?”
Narita: “Wait, no, I just wanted to see it, I didn’t want to play anything myself.”
Ono: “So our studio band wouldn’t be Stella Magna?”
Narita: “I… I would have to make new arrangements for the studio.”
The rest of the episode involves Fukuyama Jun and the hosts getting massages, so we’re gonna skip that in the translation. See you next week, when Narita talks about his grinder style, and there’s a new Lyria’s Journal segment!