Mothy – Evils Theater (I)

Analysis Part I: Tracks 1 & 2; “The Daughter,” and “Servant of Evil.”

“Saa, hizamazuki nasai!

Oh, Mothy, how i love thee; the way thou twist mine heart as thou brutally fuck my mind never ceases to make me swoon.

Mothy, a Vocaloid producer best known for his song, “Servant of Evil”, is a somewhat reclusive Japanese man who composes music, writes novels, and scripts comics.  In an interesting twist, most his works are set in one continuity, and, while they can be appreciated on their own, the stories are best appreciated when it is understood how they relate to each other.  His first album, Evils Theater, released 17 May 2009, is unusual among his albums in that it doesn’t follow a common theme.  In spite of this, all but two of the eleven songs on the album take place in the same world, so this weakness is somewhat abated.

The album opens up with “Aku no Musume”, or “Daughter of Evil”, which is given the alternative English title of “The Princess of Lucifer”.  The song was originally released on Nico Nico Douga on 6 April 2008, and can be listened to with (somewhat grammatically incorrect) English captions, here.

Musically, the song is upbeat and somewhat repetitive, as if mimicking a folk song, which gives off a feeling of detachment from the events, like something read about in a history book.  The song mostly uses live instrumentation, but includes Kagamine Rin’s original voicebank and a sample of a guillotine falling.  Lyrically, the song takes us to the kingdom of Lucifenia, a province in Evillious, the main setting of mothy’s universe.  Here, a vainglorious princess lives in luxury as her people are starving, and grows envious when a blue-haired man she’s arranged to marry decides he would rather marry a peasant girl, from the country of green.  Riliane, in her jealousy, orders a genocide campaign against the green country, and is oblivious to the suffering she caused around her.  The people revolt, led by a swordswoman clad in red, and is caught and executed.  She goes down into history as the “Daughter of Evil”

That said, the song mentions a servant with a similar face to hers, which leads in to the next chapter of our story, one which is much more heartbreaking.  “Aku no Meshitsukai”, or “Servant of Evil”, was released on NND on 29 April 2008, and has the alternate title “His Significance of Existence”.  It can be listened to here.

Musically, the song parallels its companion piece, Daughter of Evil.  With this said, it sounds notably more melodic and emotional, especially in the ending coda.  The instrumentation is once again mostly live, with Kagamine Len’s original voice bank and a sample of a guillotine accompanying them.  Lyrically, the song retells the story of Daughter of Evil from the point of view of Allen, the princess’s servant.  Allen begins the song by recounting that he is her twin brother, separated from her when they were children due to “selfish adult reasons” that are elaborated on further in supplementary novels, which are outside the scope of this analysis.  He falls in love with the girl in green from the previous song, and when Riliane orders her death, he laments that he must always serve her, but wonders why he can’t stifle his tears.  In spite of this, he continues serving Riliane, just to see her smile.  When the revolution starts and Allen realizes Riliane will be killed, he switches clothes with her, and gracefully accepts his death.  His final thoughts before he dies, are that if he is reborn, he wants to be with her again.

Riliane is loosely based on Marie Antoinette, with parallels appearing in their lax attitudes concerning their subjects’ suffering, their love of sweet breaded foods (brioche for Riliane and cake for Antoinette), and even Riliane’s full name, Riliane Lucifen d’Autriche, contains a French phrase meaning “from Austria”, and Antoinette was an Austrian born queen of France.  Riliane’s apparent beheading also is in reference to Marie Antoinette’s own.  Daughter of Evil is one of seven songs in the Evillious setting to represent a cardinal sin, in this case, pride.  Riliane’s surname contains Lucifen, an obvious corruption of Lucifer, who also appears in the alternate title for “Daughter of Evil”.  Lucifer is said in tradition to represent the sin of pride.  The song also makes mention of her horse, Josephine, which seems an odd detail, if not for horses also being associated with pride.  Riliane’s pride is what leads to her ignoring her people’s suffering, and to her jealousy of Michaela, the girl in green, which led to her selfish decision to order genocide.  However, her pride leads to her downfall, as her actions were deemed too heinous, and she was overthrown.  Allen, like Riliane, has an overabundance of pride, albeit not in himself.  Rather, he places his pride in Riliane, whom in his eyes, can do no wrong.  In his defense of her, he allows a woman he loves to be killed, and lays down his own life, just to make a spoiled brat happy.  The song’s music video, linked above, flashes several quotes.  These foreshadow later revelations, and also appear in the novel, Daughter of Evil: Clôture of Yellow.

Analysis of the rest of the album will be uploaded shortly.

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