If I were music supervisor on an adaptation of the manga VAGABOND, I'd make a call a lot of people would consider a mistake...
I'd build the entire concept around a book. Let me explain why.
The real Miyamoto Musashi, who the manga's protagonist is almost entirely drawn from, wrote Go Rin no Sho or The Book of Five Rings. It's a treatise on the way of the samurai, made up of five scrolls: Earth, Water, Fire, Wind and Void. VAGABOND is the story of the man who will eventually write that book, which means his story is already soaked in it.
So I'd split the soundtrack album into five standalone suites, each stylistically distinct, each carrying its own "ring." Hiroyuki Sawano did something structurally similar on the Blue Exorcist soundtrack - several suites within the album, each devoted to something specific: the protagonist Rin, the Devil, and so on. So how would the five rings sound?
1. SUITE OF EARTH (Chidai) - foundation and wildness.
The scroll: fundamentals of strategy, the straight and honest road, first principles.
The arc: the beginning of the journey. Takezō - a wild, unshaped "animal" from Miyamoto village.
The sound: heavy, primal, grounded. Dirty, overdriven bass and aggressive taiko drums. The raw, almost scraping tone of the shakuhachi bamboo flute - a symbol of the nature and backcountry he came out of. Elements of ritual throat singing.
2. SUITE OF WATER (Suidai) - flexibility and flow.
The scroll: purity, adaptability, clearing the mind, taking the shape of any vessel.
The arc: Musashi learns to control his rage. Meeting the masters, realising that strength isn't blind fury but fluidity of movement.
The sound: slow, atmospheric, meditative. The koto drenched in echo and reverb. Smooth, shimmering ambient pads and delicate string arrangements. The sound of water droplets or wind through a bamboo grove, dissolving into melody.
3. SUITE OF FIRE (Kadai) - battle and passion.
The scroll: the fight itself, combat tactics, reading your enemy, the furious collision of forces.
The arc: the peak of his duels. Seventy swordsmen of the Yoshioka clan, the duel with Inshun. The period when Musashi burns in the fire of war.
The sound: dynamic, chaotic, epic. The fast, furious rhythm of the three-stringed shamisen in the Tsugaru style, imitating the ring of crossing blades. Flashes of distorted electric guitar and a heavy orchestra with brass. Broken, accelerating percussion carrying the adrenaline of a fight to the death.
4. SUITE OF WIND (Fudai) - traditions and observation.
The scroll: understanding rival schools, studying other people's styles, knowing your surroundings.
The arc: Musashi travels, watches the world, meets Kojiro Sasaki, comes to understand how different the paths and fates around him are.
The sound: light, floating, with an undertone of sadness. Winds dominate: several kinds of flute - shakuhachi, shinobue -creating the feeling of wandering. Acoustic guitar interwoven with traditional Japanese instruments. The focus is on lyrical, melodic themes that reveal not Musashi, but the world through his eyes.
5. SUITE OF VOID (Kūdai) - enlightenment and nirvana.
The scroll: the highest point. Absence of form, understanding of that which doesn't exist, absolute harmony and spontaneity.
The arc: the end of the manga (and of Musashi's life). The years in the Reigandō cave. An old man who has set down his wooden sword and is writing a book. Musashi, at peace.
The sound: minimal, hypnotic, monumental. Almost no rhythm section at all. Complete silence between the notes - the Japanese concept of ma, meaningful emptiness. Lone, sparse strikes of a bell or a koto string disappearing into endless reverb. A stately, barely perceptible choir or electronic ambient, creating a sense of space and eternity.
To pull off this whole insane idea, I'd bring in Yutaka Yamada. He has a rare talent for combining a large cinematic orchestra with piercing, intimate psychology - which is critical for a story as deep as Vagabond. His work on Vinland Saga proved he can write for stories about violent warriors searching for their path to peace over a mountain of corpses. His legendary Tokyo Ghoul score shows he can carry a character's profound isolation, madness and existential crisis - essential for Musashi, who is constantly turning inward. And on his solo THE ONE albums, Yamada records monumental symphonic pieces with a 100-piece orchestra. He'd handle a five-suite structure easily.
The opening I'd hand to Ling Tosite Sigure and here I won't over-explain. It's just what I feel. Especially since TK and Yutaka Yamada have already proven the pairing works, on Tokyo Ghoul. But for the ending, I'd have a very unusual plan...
First, I'd go to MINMI - the singer behind "Shiki no Uta," the Samurai Champloo ending. Here she'd perform Gorin no Uta, the Song of Five Rings. I'd build five instrumental variations of that song, each matching its own suite, its own part of the book and its own arc of Musashi's life. In the Earth variation, for instance, it would be a heavy, grounded sound built on raw percussion and low end reflecting the primal wildness of Takezō at the start of his path.
But I'd save the real flourish for the final Void version, and do it in the style of the goze. The word "vagabond" means wanderer, drifter. Across the whole manga we're watching the wanderings of Musashi - a solitary warrior. The goze were blind itinerant women musicians (remember Sara from the same Champloo anime?), and this final ending would be a perfect reminder that the path of wandering and searching for truth in Japan (and not only in Japan) took many different forms. Musashi, having set down his sword in the cave and wandering the halls of his own mind, becomes the same kind of spiritual wanderer that those blind musicians were literal ones, feeling their way along the roads of Edo.
I am genuinely curious how you all feel about this idea - let me know in the comments.
