Music / Kalafina

Clockwise from top: Wakana, Keiko, Hikaru

Yei-hei-heeeee-yei-heeeeeei...yei-hei-heeeee-yei-heeeeeei...

—Magia

Power Trio Girl Group produced by Yuki Kajiura. Originally debuted in 2007 as a duo (Wakana and Keiko), Kalafina later expanded into a quartet of sorts, at least until one of the girls departed under mysterious circumstances. Have sung themes for The Garden of Sinners, Black Butler, Sound of the Sky, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Fate/Zero, and a few other works. Their sound is very heavily associated with Nasuverse and Madoka works.

Unfortunately, 2018 was not a good year for the group. On February 2018, Yuki Kajiura left the group after her departure from her agency, Space Craft Produce. On April 2018, Keiko left the group but Wakana and Hikaru remained together to work on musical activities. Later on August 2018, Wakana decided to pursue on her solo career and on November 2018, Hikaru also left her agency. On March 13, 2019, Space Craft Produce shut down the fan club, officially disbanding the group.

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Releases by Kalafina:

Singles:

• "Oblivious" (2008)
• "Sprinter/ARIA" (2008)
• "Fairytale" (2008)
• "Lacrimosa" (2009)
• "Storia" (2009)
• "Progressive" (2009)
• "Hikari no Senritsu" (2010)
• "Kagayaku Sora no Shijima ni wa" (2010)
• "Magia" (2011)
• "To the Beginning" (2012)
• "moonfesta" (2012)
• "Hikari Furu" (2012)
• "Alleluia" (2013)
• "Kimi no Gin no Niwa" (2013)
• "heavenly blue" (2014)
• "believe" (2014)
• "ring your bell" (2015)
• "one light" (2015)
• "blaze" (2016)
• "into the world/Märchen" (2017)
• "Hyakka Ryouran" (2017)

Albums:

• "Re/oblivious" (2008), which is more of a mini-album
• "Seventh Heaven" (2009)
• "Red Moon" (2010)
• "After Eden" (2011)
• "Consolation" (2013)
• "THE BEST 'Red' and 'Blue'" (2014)
• "far on the water" (2015)
• "Winter Acoustic 'Kalafina with Strings'" (2016)
• "Kalafina All Time Best 2008-2018" (2018)

Associated with the following tropes:

• Album Intro Track: "Overture" for Seventh Heaven, "Al Fine" for Consolation and "into the water" for far on the water.. "Overture" features music from The Garden of Sinners and "Al Fine" features lyrics that describe every other song in Consolation's tracklist.
• Big Rock Ending: Virtually every upbeat song gets one of these during their concerts.
• Blade-of-Grass Cut: Used in a few videos:
  • "Fairytale" has shots of a grandfather clock and ripples in water.
  • "Hikari no Senritsu" has shots of foliage.
  • "Magia" focuses on random aspects of the set.
  • "Symphonia" has more shots of foliage.
  • "Moonfesta" has even more shots of foliage (among other things).
  • "ring your bell" has mostly windmills, fields and white flags.
  • "Märchen" has mostly candles, chairs, lightbulbs and dolls.
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: Wakana and Keiko, respectively.
  • Hikaru sometimes joins in, playing Tsukkomi for both Wakana and Keiko.
• Bonus Material: The usual. Preordered singles and albums mostly come with postcards, posters, or other similar photographic bonuses. Preordered DVD releases came with mousepads. Some special editions come with extra content on DVD. One single even generously provided us with instrumentals of all three tracks.
• B-Side: Worth mentioning because virtually every B-Side is excluded from an album unless it's got a connection to some sort of other property. "Serenato" is the only B-Side unrelated to The Garden of Sinners or Fate/Zero that made it onto an album, namely Seventh Heaven.
• Coordinated Clothes: The members normally help plan their own outfits, so the dresses are usually similar in color and style but with subtle differences.
• Cover Version:
  • They covered See-Saw's "Anna ni Issho Datta no ni" live in 2010. Kajiura herself wrote special English lyrics for the bridge.
  • The next year they covered Fiction Junction YUUKA's "Nowhere" at the same event.
  • In January's LisAni 2013 they performed a cover of ClariS' "Connect", which was also specifically rearranged by Kajiura.
• Cute Little Fangs: Hikaru.
• Elegant Gothic Lolita: Evoked now and again by various costumes, although recently their outfits have been in different styles.
• Epic Instrumental Opener: Used in their concerts. One of the most common ones leads into "Oblivious" and features a recording of Wakana singing one of the The Garden of Sinners themes.
• Epileptic Flashing Lights: Adore live.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: A reoccurring aspect of Kalafina's wardrobe, whether it be in sleeves or the cut/hem of their skirts.
• Giant Poofy Sleeves: The dresses of Hikari Furu.
• Girl Group: To the extent that the normal audience at any given Kalafina concert (in Japan, that is) seems mainly made up of men.
• Gray Rain of Depression: Evoked in the music video for "Kagayaku Sora no Shijima ni wa", in which rain suddenly starts pouring down.
• Greatest Hits Album: THE BEST "Red" and "Blue", which are two seperate albums.
• Group Picture Ending: Used in their first DVD release, "Red Moon".
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Magia's costumes.
• Idiosyncratic Cover Art: Virtually all of their releases, Regular or Special Edition, sports a picture of the three members in a certain setting. However, this is subverted by Oblivious (Wakana veiled◊ or bare-headed◊), re/oblivious (text only), Sprinter/ARIA (with Maya◊), Lacrimosa (Wakana or Keiko◊), and Kalafina 5th Anniversary LIVE SELECTION 2009-2012 (text only◊).
• Inaction Video: In the video for "Seventh Heaven", the members, all wearing huge headdresses and shown only in headshots, smilingly lipsynch the song, while in the background, a somewhat odd fairytale featuring animal protagonists is told via puppet show.
  • In "Hikari Furu", the members literally stand in place for the entire video while the camera pans across and around them.
• Incredibly Long Note: Hikaru gets one at the end of "Magia".
  • Hikaru gets another one in one live of "destination unknown" where she holds the final note for 14 seconds.
• Long Hair Is Feminine: Wakana even grew her hair long to match the other two.
  • Averted after Hikaru cut her hair short in 2014 and has kept it short ever since.
• Love Nostalgia Song: The best example is probably "Kiichigo no shigemi ni". It begins with the protagonist wishing for an endless joyful summer and "just a bit of love", but the final verse proves that it's all been a reminiscence:
  The frozen forest still
  dreams of summer's light
  Within the brilliant wind
  we're smiling even now
• Lyrical Cold Open: "Sprinter" is perhaps the most famous, but "Eden" and a few other songs also apply.
• Lyrical Dissonance: "Hikari no Senritsu". For all the bouncy sound, the song is really about "the sound of the sky", loneliness, hope, and the wait for a better tomorrow.
  • "Hokage", even with its incredibly string heavy and sad-sounding composition and Wakana's tragic sounding voice as lead, Yuki Kajiura has commented that the song is actually very uplifting and happy.
• Miniscule Rocking: "Overture", "Intermezzo", "Kotonoha", "Al Fine", "dolce" and "into the water". Worth nothing that all five of these pieces have lyrics and are virtually full songs in themselves.
• Misery Builds Character: According to an interview, Wakana considers performing before an audience to be the greatest trial of her life, and once seriously considered leaving the group because of how uncomfortable she is during concerts.
• Mood Dissonance: Watch Keiko smile as she sings minor-key songs with lyrics full of angst.
  • The lyrics of "Sprinter" are about yearning, loneliness, and the decision to follow a different road for one's one good. And, while singing arguably the most emotional part, lyrics that translate to "I want to see you/ You're my dearest/ I want to see you/ I love you so", the members likes to grin and point at random members of the audience.
• Non-Appearing Title: Somewhat subverted. Some English titles appear in Japanese in the songs lyrics, examples include "akai tsuki" in red moon" and some songs don't include the title at all.
• Ojou Ringlets: Wakana sports this at times. Keiko also has her hair like this occasionally.
• One-Word Title: Most of their non-Japanese titles including "oblivious", "Kyrie" and "storia"
• One-Woman Wail: Wakana in "Signal". Ironically enough, she was apparently supposed to sound sexy.
  • There's also one in "Oblivious", sung in the recording by professional soprano Hanae Tomaru, but by Wakana and Hikaru during lives.
• Rearrange the Song: "Magia [quattro]", i.e. the original "Magia" with the addition of copious amounts of string instruments.
• Recycled Lyrics: This being Yuki Kajiura, there are suspiciously similar phrases in quite a few songs. The most obvious is probably "Yume no Daichi", which apparently got its title from a line in "Hoshi no Utai".
  • Add their song "Alleluia", theme of "Mirai Fukuin", to the list. The word was used all the way back in the lyrics of "Red Moon".
• Rooftop Concert: In 2011 Sony rented a building, decorated it lavishly with pictures of Kalafina, opened a cafe in said building, and culminated this "Kalafina Week in Shibuya" with a short rooftop concert by the group itself.
• Self-Backing Vocalist: Keiko harmonizes with herself in several songs.
• Sequel Song: "Hikari Furu" could be considered this to "Seventh Heaven". Both songs feature a somewhat New Age arrangement, a slow tempo, a dramatic build-up, and a lot of vocal switches.
  • "blaze" is considered this to "One Light", both being released a barely a year apart, being from the same anime and both being harmony heavy and upbeat songs about pushing through.
• Singer Namedrop: Unintentionally done every time Hikaru sings...well, "hikaru".
• Singing Voice Dissonance: Keiko by a mile.
• Softer and Slower Cover: The acoustic version of "Sprinter" as released in their fifth anniversary live album.
• The Oner: The video for "Hikari Furu", all done in a single take to reportedly "capture the song's emotions" more fittingly.
• The Something Song: "Yami no Uta", or "The Song of Darkness".
• Title Track: Seventh Heaven, Red Moon,Consolation and far on the water all have one, while After Eden does not.
• Unplugged Version: They've done a few concerts with their songs completely rearranged (by their band's keyboardist, for some reason) to fit with piano, acoustic guitar, strings, and percussion.
  • Their Winter Acoustic 'Kalafina with Strings' Album includes multiple songs from their acoustic lives, such as "sprinter", "fairytale", "dolce", "Alleluia", "ring your bell" and "Kimi no Gin no Niwa".
• Vocal Tag Team: This is basically the entire concept of Kalafina. Even songs dominated by one singer, such as "ARIA", "Tetotetometome", and "Sorairo no Isu" also feature one or more of the others singing some major part.
• With Lyrics: Several songs.
  • "Seventh Heaven" is a vocal version of Shiki's theme.
  • "Storia" is a Japanese version of the Kajiurago theme for the show Rekishi Hiwa Historia.
  • Same goes for "Snow Falling", known as an official cover of "Snow is Falling" from The Garden of Sinners.
  • "Hikari Furu" and "Mirai" are vocal (and in the latter's case, Japanese) versions of "Sagitta Luminus" and "Credens Justitiam" from the Puella Magi Madoka Magica soundtrack.
  • "Märchen" is a Japanese Cover of Zaregoto's Main Theme.

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