Fantasy Requiem

2025年10月8日 2025年11月20日

phant0m_wp

A Japanese ritual of sound, memory, and vanishing light.

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🩸 About the Track

“Requiem of Illusions” is a composition for what cannot be laid to rest — the echoes, the memories, the faint voices that linger after disappearance. The piece exists between dream and dissolution, fusing the pulse of taiko with the fragile resonance of koto and shakuhachi. It does not tell a story but rather opens a space — where sound becomes ritual and silence begins to breathe.

Part of the Phantom Tone project, this track continues the exploration of transient beauty and spiritual decay. Its language is born from contrast: destruction and serenity, prayer and detachment. In listening, one stands at the edge of illusion itself — neither living nor lost, but endlessly reverberating.

🌑 Concept & Worldbuilding

At its core, “Requiem of Illusions” reflects three thresholds of being:

Existence ⇄ Illusion： When does perception become delusion? The song suggests that illusions may be the most faithful form of truth.
Silence ⇄ Sound： Every tone implies its vanishing. The melody is shaped by what is no longer heard.
Remembrance ⇄ Forgetting： Memory resists closure — a requiem sung for those who never reached peace.

🕯️ Motifs & Imagery

Glass and Lantern： fragile vessels of light that inevitably crack.
Wind and Night： the dissolution of self, scattering emotion like petals.
Prayer without Faith： ritual as persistence rather than salvation.

📜 Lyrics – Original Japanese

[Intro (taiko & koto groove)]
玄冥の鼓　燦爛に堕つ
琴の斬刃　夢幻を裂く

[Verse 1]
昏冥の虚経　幻葬の環
玻璃獄の楼　燐光を孕む
魍魎も　永劫を偽り
泡幻に墜ち　理を喪う

[B-Melo 1]
空漠の綾　無窮の幻像
黙祷の環列　声も零れず

[Chorus 1]
空想鎮魂歌　哭けど哭けど
命なき徒　魂魄も無し
空想鎮魂歌　虚妄の響き
永遠は崩れ　ただ風に散る

[Verse 2]
寂滅の幻揺　灯を喪う
幽玄の楼蘭　朽ちて舞う
魑魅すら　常住を持たず
命題さえ　夢幻の如し

[B-Melo 2]
輪廻の螺旋　幻砂に墜つ
帰還も無し　虚空を抱く

[Chorus 2]
空想鎮魂歌　詠えど詠えど
時は喪せ　境界も無し
空想鎮魂歌　絶界に咲く
命なき花　夜に揺れる

[Outro (shakuhachi fade)]
声も零れず　祈りも無く　闇に帰る

Official Lyrics: https://ishipos.com/phantomtone/lyrics/fantasy-requiem/

🌑 Folklore Origin – The Void Realm of Yomi and Lost Souls

This track is shaped by Japanese afterlife folklore,
evoking the desolate realm known as Yomi—a shadowed land where
light cannot reach and where even wandering souls eventually fade.
The lyrics draw heavily from imagery connected to mōryō and
chimimōryō, the formless spirits that drift between life and death,
losing their purpose in the cracks of the world.

Phrases such as “昏冥,” “幻葬,” “玻璃獄,” “魍魎,” and “魂魄も無し”
echo classical depictions of a domain where identity dissolves
and even the concept of self becomes a fleeting illusion.
This aligns with Buddhist-inspired folk belief about the spaces
that exist “between worlds”—neither life nor death, neither body nor soul.

The chorus’s refrain, 空想鎮魂歌 (A Fantasia Requiem),
suggests a requiem sung for those who no longer possess a body,
a voice, or even a name. In these myths, countless spirits wander
without memory or direction, crumbling like sand in the void,
unable to be reborn in the cycle of rinnē (輪廻).

Imagery such as:
・幻葬の環 (circles of illusory burial rites)
・玻璃獄の楼 (glass-bound prisons of the dead)
・寂滅の幻揺 (tremors of extinction)
・幽玄の楼蘭 (phantom ruins in the dusk)
・輪廻の螺旋 (spirals of rebirth collapsing)
depicts a region similar to the “shadow kingdoms” found in
ancient Japanese mythology, where spirits lose their form
and eventually return to kurayami—the primordial darkness.

In this interpretation, the song stands at the crossroads of
Japanese Folklore × Afterlife Mythology × Ritual Hip-Hop,
portraying a requiem for beings who vanish before even reaching the gates
of rebirth. It is a landscape of broken prayers, fractured souls,
and illusions drifting quietly into the evening wind.

Anime World References

This track builds a desolate, metaphysical landscape—collapsed civilizations, fading spirits, and a requiem echoing into a void where even time has lost its shape. To help listeners visualize its aesthetic, here are three anime works that share a similar cosmic, ruin-born atmosphere:

Xam’d: Lost Memories（亡念のザムド / Xam’d: Lost Memories） – A world of dying light, wandering souls, and collapsing structures. Its themes of shattered eternity, unstable identities, and luminous decay mirror the song’s imagery of 幻葬の環, 玻璃獄, and illusion-born extinction.
The Garden of Sinners（空の境界 / The Garden of Sinners） – Aestheticized void, philosophical deathscapes, and a world where borders—life, time, identity—dissolve. This resonates with the track’s motifs of 輪廻断絶, 無窮の幻像, and prayers that vanish without sound.
Haibane Renmei（灰羽連盟 / Haibane Renmei） – Quiet ruins, fading memories, and souls searching for meaning in a world stripped of salvation. Its fragile portrayal of rebirth, guilt, and empty prayers aligns with the song’s depiction of 命なき花, 幻砂, and requiems echoing into darkness.

These titles are not direct influences, but worldbuilding touchpoints that help international listeners grasp the atmosphere of Japanese Folklore Hip-Hop expressed through this cosmic requiem.

Tags:
Japanese Folk Belief, Yomi, Afterlife Mythology, Mōryō, Chimimōryō,
Lost Souls, Rinne, Void Realm, Japanese Folklore Hip-Hop,
Phantom Tone, Ritual Hip-Hop, Shadow Spirits, Soul Dissolution

🪶 Afterword

This work is a requiem not for the dead, but for memories that persist. It reflects the tension between presence and disappearance — a state where creation becomes mourning. The track concludes not with resolution, but with surrender, letting the final note dissolve into the void.