始まりの唄 (Sakura Resets insert)

There is a quality to Ryokuoushoku Shakai's sound that belongs specifically to the hour just before rain arrives — the air electric, the light still soft. "始まりの唄" opens with clean guitar arpeggios that feel hand-placed rather than strummed, each note given room to breathe before the band fills in around them. The rhythm section stays restrained, almost conversational, allowing Nagare Haruya's voice to carry the weight entirely. Her tone is warm but not saccharine — there's a slight grain to it, like morning light through thin curtains, that makes even optimistic lines feel hard-won. The song belongs to the tradition of Japanese indie rock that treats gentleness as its own kind of courage: no sweeping crescendo, no dramatic turn, just the steady accumulation of small, sincere moments. Lyrically it circles the idea of standing at a threshold — not the arrival, not the journey, but the precise moment before either begins. The arrangement opens slightly as it progresses, a texture of keys emerging beneath the guitars, but it never breaks into anything louder than earnest. It suits a quiet scene, a season turning, a character realizing something about themselves they can't yet say aloud. You'd reach for this song on a morning when something is about to change and you're not sure you're ready, but you're going anyway.