"Skies Forever Blue"
, released in 2022, is the second collaborative single by American video game developer and composer Toby Fox and J-pop musician Itoki Hana. The song revolves around a hero and his sidekick in a handheld Role-Playing Game just after finishing their journey, as the sidekick contemplates their adventure and muses over her feelings for him. The song was accompanied by an Animated Music Video by OMORI director Omocat, one of Fox's other prior collaborators.
This song and music video provide examples of:
- All in a Row: Throughout their journey, the girl protagonist tends to follow behind the boy protagonist. When the game restarts, she leads instead.
- Animated Music Video: The song's music video consists almost entirely of pixel art animation, tying in with the fact that it's narrated by a character in a Role-Playing Game.
- Animation Bump: While most of the music video is animated in the same simplistic style as an 8-bit video game, the animation becomes a lot more fluid, detailed, and dynamic when the player wipes their save file to start a new game, which acts as an apocalyptic event to the game's characters, as well as in the closing moments of the video, when the girl finally confesses her love to the hero.
- Art Shift: While most of the music video is designed to resemble an 8-bit RPG, a few shots feature pans across more detailed still illustrations. Additionally, the middle section of the video, which is set in the real world outside of the game, is depicted as a series of white-on-black still sketches.
- Aspect Ratio Switch: The first half of the video is in 1:1, matching the aspect ratio of the Game Boy Color and tying in with the 8-bit handheld game setting. When the player turns off the game, the footage zooms out to a 16:9 display and stays that way until the closing credits, which return to the 1:1 format.
- Call of the Wild Blue Yonder: As the two protagonists stare into the ocean. The girl protagonists dreams of swimming like the Iwundar fish. During New Game Plus, the two dive into the ocean to do so.
- Cannot Spit It Out: At the end of their journey, the girl protagonist tries to say something to the male protagonist, but decides to put it off for another day.
- Cardiovascular Love: Presumably the pink Heart Symbols at the bottom of the girl's robes is because she wants to confess her love, and she's the love interest.
- Dream Apocalypse: The player of the game the protagonists are in starts a new game. This is depicted as a cataclysmic event.
- Flash of Pain: The final boss's sprite seen at the beginning of the video shakes then flickers before dropping down and fading away.
- Framing Device: The video takes place in a handheld RPG being played by a kid in the real world.
- Futile Hand Reach: The boy protagonist to the girl as the game restarts.
- Generic Doomsday Villain: We never know how exactly the world was threatened by the villain, and it's not important. All that is important about the villain is that, by being defeated, the protagonists' journey is now over.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The player of the game the protagonists are in names the girl protagonist after one of their own loved ones. This makes the girl feel loved.
- Heroic Mime: The boy protagonist doesn't say much. The conversations with the girl protagonist has all his dialogue omitted and inferred from the girl's reactions. By the lyric's statement, he goes long lengths of time without saying much of anything, only "Yes" or "No":Even if the only things you say are yes or no I'll see blue sky
- Hit Points: Seen at the start of the video, the boy and girl end their battle with the final boss at 35 and 23 respectively.
- I Can't Dance: As instruments and musical notes swirl around the two protagonists, the boy protagonist asks the girl to dance. She rejects with this line.
- Love Confession: The core of the song focuses on the girl's attempts to tell the hero that she loves him. She succeeds in the end.
- Mana Points: Seen at the start of the video, the boy and girl end their battle with the final boss at 12 and 4 respectively.
- Minimalistic Cover Art: The artwork for the single simply depicts the boy and girl's simplistic overworld sprites and the song title in plain text atop a solid, sky-blue backdrop.
- Nameless Narrative: None of the characters are named. The only proper name introduced is a species of fish.
- New Game Plus: Years after the game is completed, the player of the game the protagonists are in decides to start a new game. The girl protagonist displays awareness of it, and manages to do things a bit differently the second time around.
- Peggy Sue: In the New Game Plus, the girl's awareness allows her the confidence to take charge of her own feelings. Instead of being led by the boy protagonist, she leads. Instead of fantasizing about swimming the ocean, they jump right in.
- Pink Girl, Blue Boy: The protagonists are blue and pink, and are gender-coded as male and female.
- Punny Name: The Iwundar fish's name is a less-than-subtle play on the phrase "I wonder," tying in with the introspective tone of the lyrics.
- Retraux:
- Hana's vocals early in the song are bitcrushed to give the impression of them being sampled audio in an 8-bit video game.
- The game depicted in the music video is a handheld Game Boy Color game, with the graphics to match.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: When the player wipes their save file to start a new game, the girl presumably casts a spell, given that she takes a pose and yells something right before circles start appearing, then she remembers the events of the previous run, allowing her to turn it into a New Game Plus file and take greater initiative in her and the hero's journey rather than being a passive observer.
- Shout-Out: The title is likely taken from the line "I believe in skies forever blue" in "Pollyanna", a song from EarthBound Beginnings.
- Villainy-Free Villain: The player starting a New Game Plus is what starts the apocalypse, but they don't seem to realize the consequences of it.
