A few nights ago, I woke suddenly after having a really bad nightmare still feeling the raw emotion of the dream while also frustrated that it was over and there was nothing I could do to affect it anymore.
Listening to Jigoku6, it feels intensely similar what I went through: A nightmare that Mori is experiencing but ultimately awakens from.
It starts in the waking world with Imaginary Carousel. This is her reality working in the entertainment industry, and it is the only song featuring another voice as only your voice exists in the dream. Being in the entertainment industry, she gets to work with so many talented people but the downsides of being in the public eye are very apparent. Both paradise and hell, but she loves being in it.
Drifting off to sleep, Future Island's placement in the EP makes more sense. Dreams rarely start off deep in your subconscious and, being in Japan, its popular culture is right on top. However, by the end of the song the black clouds start to appear in the final verse leading us into the meat of the nightmare.
Black sheep is more surface level, reflecting her daily life but warped to her negative perceptions of herself. The upside down world is one she constantly runs from out of fear of being tied down to it.
Going deeper, she reaches Six Feet Under where the heart of her insecurities lie. Mori saying that this was the most depressing song on the EP and that it is about self acceptance leads me to believe that this is the core of the nightmare. The theme of pushing through hell from the last song is flipped on its head as running from everything leaving nothing but ashes in her wake, the villain after all.
With her revelation, Your Not Special becomes the reverse of Black Sheep in many ways including the title. The nightmare is in full swing and the way that this song is produced reflects the industry standard that she had run from before with its use of autotune and K-pop inspirations.
Finally, we reach the end of the dream in Left For Dead Lullaby. Reflecting on her past works, she's prepared to let go of the dream and put her ambitions to rest. But, as the music swells, a spark is found in Live Again; a track produced and written by Mori herself. She awakens abruptly soon after from her nightmares to a knock on the door and a single thought, "Its not over."
Mori described this EP as, "a journey through hell," her own personal hell. The framing of the entire work as depicting a nightmare conjured up in her own mind during a restless night fits this description immensely. How she differs from my experience though is that her call to action at the end, presumably to make this EP, actively addresses the nightmare and provides an outlet for those emotions rather than just moving on with those feelings still underneath the surface. Jigoku6 may have been a nightmare to experience and produce, but its message to Mori and to the dead beats is a positive one: that this too shall pass and, when it does, the seeds planted will bear fruit.
