Lyrical Deep Dive: 谷の底で咲く花は - A flower unplucked

When life is grim and your existence feels like a liability to others. When it seems like the world would be better off without you. When death seems like the easy option to take. When there seems to be no hope. What is it that keeps you going?

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I didn't think I would be writing about this song because its kind of a straightforward piece, but Aichi's live has taught me that there are people who still don't seem to understand this song very well, so here we are and I'm gonna give it my best.

Tani no soko de saku hana wa (谷の底で咲く花は) is the Cinderella Master/ solo song of Shiragiku Hotaru. The song is the 52nd Cinderella Master and was released in May 2019. This song marks one of the most surprising songs of that year, as it was announced before Hotaru was voiced, and dropped ingame way before we even got any preview on the 9th of Feb 2019, the earliest we've ever heard a CM before their typical April/May release date. The commu itself is one of the most well liked commus of all time, placing in the Top 3 commus for 3 consecutive years in Famitsu's Starlight Stage survey and gets my wholehearted recommendation. But enough of that we're here to talk about the song itself.

If that intro to this post signaled anything to you, make no mistake: Tanisoko is dark. It's very unlike almost any other song in the Idolmaster franchise and ventures into territory that idol songs generally stray away from. It has a very simple and quite easy to understand story going about to it, but the themes are very grim, almost unsettlingly so. This is quite essentially the general style of writing when it comes to Hotaru's content in the franchise. Almost all of her commus and story use relatively simple language, situations and imagery to communicate often highly profound thought provoking ideas about various things. This generally makes her written content easy to follow but also utterly engaging and interesting to read. This reason alone is why her commu content is my favorite to read in the franchise by far.

Tani no soko de saku hana wa literally means something like "The flower blooming at the bottom of the valley". It talks about a story of a flower blooming at the bottom of a valley. Quite literally what it says on it's tin, nothing unexpected. Now Hotaru is someone who's very closely tied to flower motifs. It's not immediately clear why this started to be a thing, but considering her family name is literally Shiragiku (白菊) or White Chrysanthemum that's not entirely surprising. A lot of her cards (if not all of them) contain depictions together with some kind of flower. Needless to say we're going to have quite a bit of flowers to talk about as we get into this so let's get started.

Standard fare: Translations are not meant to be perfect English and comprehensible sentences to give the reader who may not understand Japanese a chance to derive meaning from the original literature with the original contextual clues, instead of having someone else already making that interpretation for you. Read the discussion under each section for some suggestion on the interpretations.

空の閉じた　谷の底で
一輪咲いた　白い花

At the bottom of the valley, closed off to the sky,
A single white flower bloomed

Now this sets the scene of the story. There's a flower blooming at the bottom of the valley closed of the sky. It's not really clear how the flower even came to existence to begin with, but that's not really of importance to the story. This is a reflection of one of Hotaru's most well-know qualities, her association with misfortune. If you heard of Hotaru as a character, you probably at bare minimum know her as the bad luck girl. Being a flower blooming at the bottom of a valley without access to sunlight is an exceptionally unfortunate circumstance and this is how that quality is represented in the song. Now there's more to Hotaru than just being the bad luck girl, but that's a subject for a later time.

Now you might be inclined to think that the white flower is some white chrysanthemum considering Hotaru's name. However, this is not the case and you get the required information to confirm that in the immediate next line.

誰もいない　この場所なら
この身の毒で傷つけなくていい

if there's no one around in this place then
it would be good if the poison of this body did not hurt anyone

This part begins to explore the effects of Hotaru's association with bad luck. In a typical work, especially more lighthearted ones, the token bad luck girl is almost always played for laughs as some form of comedy relief. Hotaru does occasionally fill that role. However, this franchise doesn't shy away from exploring the real life consequences of being associated with bad luck.

Here we get to see one of the first psychological impacts of her bad luck. The belief that she carries that her bad luck has a negative influence on the people around her. This negative belief is personified in the poisonous body of the plant. Here we also get to see a description of the resulting behavior, the desire to self isolate. This is something that is reflected in a lot of Hotaru's material around the time she became an idol with the current production. For example in the Main Story commu for this song it starts with a flashback of her getting blamed for another production going bust and in Hotaru's memorial 1 she tells you the producer to stay away from her because she's afraid that her influence will spread. So you can see that the section describes a result of the psychological impact some of her past events.

So we were talking about plants earlier. The poison tells us we're actually talking about another white plant, this is the Lily of the valley, which is the actual human readable common name for the Convallaria majalis. Although specifically if we're talking about the bowl shaped iconic flowers that are associated with a huge amount of Hotaru's card art (or even the lamp in the MV of Step & Skip), it's technically the Convallaria majalis var. keiskei, the specific subspecies referred to by the Japanese name of this flower suzuran. Fortunately nobody needs to use any of these cursed scientific names and can just use Lily of the valley or Suzuran (鈴蘭) to refer to these. This plant is poisonous if consumed by humans or animals and seems to be capable of growing in somewhat shady locations. This type of plant is very closely tied to Hotaru as a character, and even the background of the MV and the album art contains these. In the Japanese language of flowers "hanakotoba", the Lily of the Valley represents sweetness, purity, humility and the return of happiness. Given this symbolism it's not hard to understand why this flower is associated with Hotaru as a character.

嵐の夜に　いっそ千切れてしまいたくて
ただじっと　終わりの時を待った
何も見えない　真っ暗な谷の底から
解き放たれる　その日の夢見て　眠りにつく

生まれ変わり　日向で咲くの

In a night of storm [I] preferably want to be completely torn to pieces
Just motionlessly, [I] awaited for the time of the end
Unable to see anything, from the pitch black bottom of the valley…
…[i was] set free. I fell asleep with and saw a dream of that day.

Reborn, bloom in a sunny place

The time has come for the song to truly go down the deep end. A dream about a stormy night. The dream about being overcome by the storm and reincarnating in a sunny place. To be overcome by circumstance and adversity, that the the thought of the end represents freedom and liberation. Needless to say this is not quite the kind of dream that you usually see in an idol song…

Depression, death and suicide. The theme of the chorus. It's easy to see how feeling unwanted and harmful to society can be an incredible mental burden to carry. The dark valley was her environment and the storm represents the events that she goes through. Instead of wanting to overcome the trial and challenges, the mentally defeated Hotaru contemplates the idea that it would be better to not exist. Motionlessly waiting for the end to come, representing the weight of depression on her shoulders, the loss of cognitive ability and desire to behaving in a rational self-preserving manner. The choice of words, the idea that this death means being set free combined with the amount of emphasis on this word and how the song then goes into a progression that's quite hopeful is almost unsettling. We're being sold the idea that this life is worth throwing away for the hope of a brighter restart.

This is what I was talking about earlier, the song and franchise is not afraid to confront some very real and intimidating topics and themes. They could have handwaved all of this and made Hotaru some comedy relief bad luck girl instead, but that's very different from who Hotaru actually is. If you're familiar with Hotaru at all, then you would know that her bad luck is really just the tip of the iceberg, and if you aren't then this song is one of the places where you might get a rude awakening and realize there's much more going on here. Other idols may have radically different reasons for being and other struggles before they became an idol, but Hotaru is the rare exception where what she needs is a reason to not end it all.

On a somewhat related note, Deresute introduced another iconic flower that would also end up bound to a part of Hotaru's character. That is the red spider lily or the higanbana (彼岸花). First introduced in Hotaru's SSR1, this particularly unsettling red flower ended up catching on in the fandom like wildfire and might be the reason her fes card literally has her as a red spider lily (look at the skirt and stocking design). Interestingly, this flower remains a deresute exclusive motif, as no mobamas card has been printed with one at the time of this post. These flowers represent passion, solitude, resignation/given up and painful memories. They are also often seen blooming in graveyards. Since they are also poisonous, they are planted to ward off unwanted pests in the graveyards. This is the reason they're associated with "painful memories" and by extension, death. Honestly the song seems to tie in very closely to the theme of her SSR1 and and the meaning of these flowers so I absolutely had to make sure I covered them. I'll bring this up again at the end of the writeup but for now let's move on to the next part.

空の閉じた　谷の底で
羽を休める　渡り鳥

At the bottom of the valley, closed off to the sky,
A migrating bird was resting its wings

So now we get introduced to birds. Hotaru and birds is another one of her recurring symbolisms, but it's significantly less common. She has like a few mobamas cards with feathers in them as well as one where she's sitting in a bird cage and her card line is about being a caged bird. In deresute her 2nd SSR is the one that has references to bird motifs and talks about being in a world that has lost its color. In most of these cases there is hardly that much of a connection between them. The most common theme is that Hotaru herself is a bird. It doesn't really help the understanding of this part, but I just thought it would be cool to bring up one of the reasons why it's more than just a coincidence or pure convenience that birds are present in this song.

彼は告げた　今夜　ここは
南からの雷雲に沈む

He informed [me], tonight here
From the north, thunderclouds will descend.

This is the setup to the climax of the song. The foreshadowing of thunderclouds descending on the place. The dream that becomes reality is quite a common theme in this franchise but most idols probably have a much less strange and depressing dream compared to this.

嵐の夜に　いっそ千切れてしまいたくて
雨風に　この体を委ねた
轟音の中　稲光　空に弾けて
待ちわびた瞬間のはずなのに　震えていた

夜が明けて　光が射した

In a night of storm [I] preferably want to be completely torn to pieces
In the wind and rain, this body [I] entrusted [it]
In the thunderous roar, flash of lightning splits the sky
This was supposed to be the moment I was impatiently waiting for, yet I trembled

The dawn breaks, light shined

The first verse, second verse, first chorus and second chorus all have one thing in common: It shares the respective opening line. The line of each section is very important when it comes to setting the scene, mode and tone for the segment. In this particular case it tells you about the setting being the constant in all 4 of these cases. It's that reminder that gently coaxes you to recall the connection between the various segments.

Now the time has finally arrived. The flower in our story is finally given a chance to face the end. The destiny that they longed for is within reach. The wording of the second line is a little strange, but it just implies something like "I offered my body [like a sacrifice] to the storm". The storm in this context representing death itself. It turns out death can be pretty scary. In this part we can see that there was a moment of hesitation, when confronting the end there was an instant of clarity that made her reconsider what it meant to go out like this. This is actually quite a lucky thing because not all depressed individuals ever get that moment or a chance to reconsider their course of action. Whatever the reason, it seems like Hotaru couldn't bring herself to that end and we've narrowly dodged the bullet (or maybe lightning) in this case.

It's quite interesting that it would be really hard to probably write an actual story detailing this because the game still has some age rating to preserve which means some things are totally off limits. I mean if Aki is not allowed to point guns at bad guys to protect people (Takumi's commu) and that part was quickly changed within days of addition, then what more talking about stuff like attempted suicide. It's almost a bit silly that in order to sneak in some discussion on such a topic they have to do it in the manner of songwriting which makes it open to interpretation and much less of a direct approach. There isn't any actual direct lore that explores this as far as I know which supports the argument that this is something they really couldn't write about outside of a song.

あれが青い空
あれが白い雲
あれが赤い太陽

That [over there] is blue sky
That [over there] is white cloud
That [over there] is red sun

Now that the storm is over, the skies have opened up. The composition at this part is in a stark contrast to the rest of the song, it's highly uplifting. It's conveying the sense of wonder about the things that couldn't be seen before this. Calling back to the setting of this piece, the blue skies, white cloud and red sun are all things that are for the most part absent from the setting before. You would think that such things would be incredibly basic things that a plant would experience throughout its lifespan, and you'd be right.

This is a direct reflection of one of Hotaru's desires, the desire to live a normal life just like any other girl would. This is directly touched upon in her drama track that came bundled with the CM. A large part of her character is that because of her circumstances and association with bad luck, she has a great deal of appreciation for ordinary things. Despite being such a simple section of the song, it has finally started to open up to talk about other aspects of her character.

なんて　ああ　なんて
世界はこうも美しいのか！

空を見上げ　思う
これが希望

What? Ahh how?
so the world even like this is beautiful huh

Look up towards the sky, to think
This is hope

The imagery in this whole bridge section is all done in beautiful contrast to the dark mood of the earlier half of the song. The appreciation for the world, and the beauty that lies within it. This is the symbolism of discovering the world of idols and that of the stage. Hotaru's motivation to become an idol started when she saw some idols on TV, and was impressed by their ability to make other people happy. She thought that maybe if she became an idol herself that she would be able to make other people happy as well. This gave her the direction she needed in life.

This world that was revealed to her, this new beginning, the life of the stage is what gives her hope. The hope that someday she could be useful to others, to make other people happy. The hope that she can someday be a positive influence to those around her.

嵐の夜よ　なぜ私を置いていった
身を灼くほどの憧れを見せて

嵐の夜を超えて　世界は変わってゆく
私自身は変われるだろうか
光を浴びて　クチクラをみなぎらせて強くなれるか
光に灼かれて朽ち果てるか

わからないよ　でも　ここで咲く

Night of storm… why did you leave me here
[You] Let me see [my] body burning degree of aspiration

Surpass the night of storm, the world becomes different
Can myself be changed perhaps?
Bathe in light, Can [my] cuticles swell and become stronger?
Will [I] burn and crumble to dust in the light?

I don't know, but this is where I bloom

The final chorus of the song is different and takes on a reflective mood. Why did the storm leave her behind, why was she allowed to see this hope? The second line doesn't really make sense as an english phrase, it's about her being able to discover her intense burning desire to become an idol through the act of discovering this beautiful world. The world of idols.

You see, the world didn't really change with this discovery. It's her outlook on the world that has. In order for her to rise to the challenge of becoming an idol herself, it requires some change. In this part she examines the new future that she is seeking and the inward change that will be required of her if she wants to reach the stage. The most notable difference here is the change in perspective. The perspective on the situation has gone from "Why am I stuck in such an unfortunate circumstance with no way out" and turned into "How do I make the most out of the circumstances I'm in". This change in thought process, the acceptance of the current reality but the refusal to stay where she currently is. This mental fortitude to defy and push past her fate towards the light, to get herself out of her hole through sheer force of will is the Hotaru that we've come to love.

There are two other major things to discuss in this section. First of all, a cuticle is a waxy protective layer covering the epidermis of a plant. Basically like a skin that protects the plant from the harsh environment. Perhaps for a moment you might have forgotten that this song is after all a story about a flower at the bottom of the valley. But fortunately for us this isn't terribly hard to understand even without any extensive plant biology knowledge. It talks about becoming physically and mentally stronger to weather the environment she's in. If the light represents her hope, then why does she need some kind of protective layering? Well I suppose that leads us on to the very next topic.

Now we can begin the important discussion about THE LIGHT. You see, up until now the song hasn't actually mentioned anything about light. The light that you see in your head is all a product of your imagination and just implied by the lyrics. The light usually carries some kind of important symbolism in this franchise and this time is no exception. The light generally refers to the stage, the spotlight of being an idol. Possibly the most iconic depiction of this is in the Cinderella Girls animation, the iconic episode Barefoot Girl where the producer confronts Uzuki, our proverbial Cinderella in this tale. Our Cinderella must choose between remaining in her dusty basement or take the step to return to the ball, illustrated with a spotlight shining on a mic stand on an empty stage. In our song, this light coming from the sky she's looked up to is her hope. The beautiful world that gave her something to live for. But all the same, the stage is no trivial affair. You can see here she's not sure if the light will have adverse effects on her. Will she burn up because of the light? Perhaps because of her other implied near death experience, she would be willing to chase this hope of a brighter future no matter how difficult the journey would be. And difficult it will be, as we know Hotaru experiences countless setbacks in her journey to become an idol. The very thing that she aspired to become has also become a source of painful memories for her, as all sorts of problems unfold around her and her production, causing several productions that she was in to fold, reinforcing the idea that she's the source of misfortune for others. The journey is not without its cost. That's why even after seeing the light, the future she desires is in sight but not yet within reach. This is reflected in the uncertainty of the section.

Not many songs end off with an I don't know, but this one does. More importantly this is informing us of one key thing, the coming to terms with her current situation. Where she is, the circumstances she was birthed into can't be changed. But throughout the story the major change is that Hotaru no longer resents and laments her situation but has chosen to rise to fight it.

An interesting thing to think about for this song that it is in fact ending on an incomplete journey. This song concludes on the hope of a brighter future. Most other idol songs will generally talk about idols in the phase where they are already at the solution, or perhaps the stage is where they discovered their meaning and purpose and answers. However, this song covers more about the past, the history and the background. It's telling you that the journey has just begun. Forget the returning to the ballroom, this Cinderella needs to take the next step after the spell. Perhaps this is intended as to further illustrate the point of Hotaru generally being on unequal footing and circumstance when compared to others. She needs the help of you, the producer to take the next step, to guide her to bring about the return of happiness, for both herself and for others.

And now I promised some discussion about how closely Hotaru's SSR 1 ties in to this song. Printed in July of 2017, 2 whole years before the CM and before she was even voiced,［手折られぬ花］白菊ほたる (lit "Unpluckable Flower") is the card we're talking about. The name of the skill which appears on the cut-in when the card activates is called "The dream that couldn't be abandoned" (諦められなかった夢) The awakened art for the card depicts Hotaru surrounded by Red Spider Lily, the forest and flowers around her are dark, but shining at her is a single bright light source. If you look at the 3D model, the shoes have a small Lily of the Valley on it. The default line of this card talks about a girl who walks a dark path surrounded by red spider lily. If you put together everything we've covered in this song up to this point, you can see how much this card and the song itself share a very similar message and convey a similar idea. Painful memories, dark path and a light in the darkness on Hotaru. It seems like this card itself could have influenced the writing of the CM, although as far as I know this remains unconfirmed as I haven't heard from the lyricist on this aspect.

And that brings us to the end of this writeup. This turned out to be quite long as I think that character songs always are supposed to be a reflection of the character itself and when you need to establish the link between them it can take a while because of the level of depth in the character. But I think it does convey what I mentioned earlier, the song itself is actually rather simple, but the amount of depth in the material and the amount of content that can be explored if you actually take the time to dive into it and think about it is substantial. That's just Hotaru's written content for you. If you enjoyed this song and its related content including its main story commu, which all talk about the mental effects of being always unlucky. You may be wondering what about the opposite end of the spectrum. Well, our lucky girl Kako doesn't have a CM nor a main story commu, but the event commu for Shiawase no Rule is this paradigm flipped on its head, so if you enjoyed this thought exercise and wanted to check out something more, that would be where I'd point you in.

To end off I present to you with some more lore about "The Light". This is an excerpt of dialogue from Chitose's commu, where Hotaru is having a major moment where she gives Chitose a motivational speech. The whole commu is arguably one of the most interesting commus of last year and thoroughly worth a read, but from just this section (that I unofficially refer to as "Hotaru's TED talk") tells you a lot about Hotaru's background, her growth, progression, inner strength and has some callbacks to her solo song. See if you can spot the references yourself. This part then goes on to be referenced again in the commu of Drastic Melody. I hope this, as well as all the things we've covered today shows you that Hotaru isn't just all about bad luck. The bad luck is just the tip of the iceberg, the bait to get you reeled in. When you've looked and examined what they've done with this character, thats when you begin to realize there's so much more that can be explored here.

「I can't possibly give up
That light… because I saw that light」
「[It was] that dark. And I was weak and couldn't do anything….
But when you step onto the stage, as an idol you're needed by someone.
In the spotlight, you're able to bless others」
「Each time you receive fanfare on the stage and letters of feelings [from fans] on this journey
You understand that you're needed. It gets conveyed [to you]」
「You don't know if those people will continue to support you [long term] but yet
I feel very happy and thankful about it.
It makes me think I want to be an idol forever.」
「[If I was] able to give up, there will also be things that bring me happiness」
「The stage light is like a curse
After [we get] Charmed by it…. Cursed by it
Until we arrive in the light, all we do is to continue stretching out our hand」
「After I found the meaning of living in the world of an idol,
I want to chase it until [the day] I die」
「Perhaps somewhere on the road there
There's a chance I might possibly hurt someone
But for me, Someday I want to repay that in an even bigger form」
「Isn't it great to have something that you can aim for?
If there is no purpose, there's no reason to live. Just [ordinarily] living
Being just not dead [without purpose]… when compared to that, I think it's always better」
「But if you're not cursed by it…
Even in a night with no light, there surely is happiness to be found. I'm sure of it.」