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Prior to the 2023 Genshin Concert, I had a pretty privileged upbringing. My parents brought me to the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra with some regularity, and with it plenty of lectures on what an orchestra is or isn’t.
I don’t mean this in a snooty way, mind you, this is just the direction I’m coming from. When I hear about the growing number of orchestra performances celebrating games and other pop culture, it’s something new and foreign to me. Admittedly, there’s that latent gatekeeping instinct to imagine the auditorium turned into a mosh pit or something.
As I walked out at the end of this year’s Genshin Concert, I had two major thoughts in my mind. The first was how the hell am I going to get home now with KL traffic, and the second was this: Genshin Impact has broken into the kind of cultural zeitgeist that many IPs would only dream of.
The Magic Of Music
If you’ve never been to a live music performance, it’s easy to see this all as more of a show of force than an actual performance. “Games with orchestra concerts” is a very exclusive circle, and both to the snooty and unappreciative you could easily argue why bother going to listen to music when Spotify is right there. The skepticism that this is anything more than an ad for a mobile game is understandable.
Yet, as I sit there in the hall, watching a bona fide orchestra play the soundtrack to me grinding commissions, I can’t help but be amazed. Just like seeing a statue in person vastly overpowers any photograph of it, there’s just a magic to being in that auditorium as it plays those familiar tracks. Being able to see the Malaysian Philharmonic play their instruments absolutely adds to the experience, and the projector screen featuring in-game cutscenes helps sell just how hype it is hearing Termination of Desires live.
It’s not just the big tentpole pieces, either- every single song just feels more alive when you’re in the same room as the people playing it. Every regional combat theme, every boss theme, even some of the cutscene tracks- they’re just absolutely intensified by witnessing the fruits of all that preparation bare in real time.
Despite that, there is a nice amount of Genshin-ism thrown into the show as well. While orchestras aren’t typically the place for cheering, there’s something deeply endearing about seeing the entire hall audibly gasp at the opening notes of Rex Incognito, or scream at the sight of Childe. It’s just what Genshin fans do- and it’s why this IP is as massive as it is. In fact, even seeing people manage to turn up in cosplay and somehow still adhere to the orchestra’s dress code is a feat in and of itself, kudos to the Genshin fans for pulling that off.
Breaking Out
Look, you’d be an idiot to discount the cultural footprint of Genshin Impact. While Honkai Impact 3rd may have laid a lot of the groundwork, Genshin exploded in more ways than just raw income- mobile games have changed since its release, with the amount of so-called Genshin Killers all living and dying aiming for the spot it takes.
Despite this, the insistence that social media shows you only what you want to see makes this hard to feel online. If you’ve never heard of Genshin, you likely won’t (outside of maybe the odd YouTube ad).
It’s in this way that the Genshin Concert really cements HoYoverse’s foothold in public consciousness- this isn’t just flying in one artist to sing their co-branded single, this is a whole orchestra, playing the game’s music for two hours. Off the top of my head I can’t think of many other game IPs outside of Final Fantasy to have done something similar, and much to my chagrin I don’t think many others will, either.
In that sense, the 2023 Genshin Concert is something incredibly new. It wasn’t just “Orchestra night but Genshin”, nor was it “Genshin event but Orchestra”. It was a very nice culmination of both cultures. It’s like seeing JoJo’s Araki redraw other manga characters- it’s a chance to see a thing you love through another lens, and walk away with an appreciation of either component. I mean, how else would you describe a massive queue just to snag a photo with the show’s conductor, Naohisa Furusawa?
It’s definitely not for everyone- there’s a reason orchestras have always been seen as more highbrow, but for the people who can go for them they’re the perfect vehicle to heal a tired soul.
