After over 80 hours, I’ve finally finished Sakura no Uta. It’s hard to know how to begin processing something like this. For starters, I came in expecting a story about art. What I found instead was a quiet, raw meditation on the pain of living, the burden of memory, and the fragile joy of creating something, anything, in a world that doesn’t promise meaning.
This is not to say it is perfect; SakuUta has its rough edges. The biggest problem is that it meanders, especially in the first 30~ hours. Its ideas swell beyond its narrative at times. But it lingers... It speaks to something that'll resonate with many: the experience of not just growing up, but continuing to live when everything around you has already moved on. And for me, it was personal in a way that no other game has been.
Right from the start, the game pushes back against the whole “tortured genius leaves behind eternal masterpiece” idea. The first scene is a funeral. A famous, talented painter — Naoya’s father — is buried beneath the falling sakura. People mourn, but there’s already this quiet understanding that he’ll be forgotten. The petals fall, the world moves on, and some new genius will take his place. It isn’t really treated cynically but rather in a solemn, honest atmosphere.
Art, in Sakura no Uta, isn’t about permanence. It’s about transience. It’s about creating something in the moment, often for someone else, often anonymously. The mural gets painted over. The watercolor bleeds. The sculpture is broken. These aren’t tragedies. They’re just part of the natural cycle. The world changes. Things disappear. And yet, something about that makes them even more beautiful.
物の哀れ — the pathos of things. That soft awareness of impermanence. The gentle sorrow and deeper appreciation that comes from knowing everything is fleeting.
Although SakuUta touches on a lot of different themes, this is what stuck with me the most. I’ve always cared about art. I’ve admired it. I’ve felt moved by it. I’ve wanted to create, and then hesitated, again and again. Most of that hesitation has come from fear — fear that what I make won’t matter, that it will be terrible, and it’ll never be "enough." But, perhaps I had the wrong idea of what art even means.
That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.
The characters don’t make things to be remembered. They make things because they’re alive. They create as a way to stay tethered to the moment. Impermanence isn’t something to fear here. It’s the very condition that makes beauty possible. Meaning doesn’t arise from what endures. It comes from what is offered, even if it vanishes tomorrow.
The sakura fall. The watercolor bleeds. The murals are erased.
There’s something incredibly tender about that. One of the most moving things the story does is show how entropy — this slow unraveling of things — isn’t framed as failure. It’s just life. People drift apart. Memories fade. Buildings collapse. Even the most genius artwork becomes forgotten with time. But that doesn't make the effort meaningless. If anything, it makes it more precious. Because you knew it wouldn’t last, and you gave it anyway.
That’s why SakuUta isn’t just a story about art. It’s about living through art. About responding to life, not with grand statements or ambition, but with small, genuine gestures. Kenichirou paints for the people he loves. Akashi creates because it simply brings him joy. And Naoya — he doesn’t paint to be seen. He paints as a reaction. His art is never about reaching upward. It’s about reaching across.
Even Rin, the undeniable genius, learns that isolation doesn’t make art more pure. Beauty doesn’t mean much if no one sees it, if no one feels anything in return. Art happens between people. It happens in the response, in the echo.
And that’s what makes the story feel so human. It doesn’t ask you to be exceptional. It doesn’t ask you to make something that lasts. It just asks you to care. To try. To offer something of yourself, even if it’s imperfect. Maybe that’s a painting. Maybe it’s a moment of kindness. Maybe it’s just showing up when someone needs you.
Entropy is always there, humming quietly in the background. Everything breaks down. Things fade. People leave. But SakuUta doesn’t treat that as a reason to stop. It treats it as the backdrop. The condition we all live within. And in that space, creation becomes less about resisting time and more about responding to it. Because things fall apart, we create. Because we know it won’t last, we give it anyway. Even if it fades. Even if it’s forgotten. That moment mattered. And in that, there’s enough.
I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –
Of Chambers as the Cedars –
Impregnable of eye –
And for an everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky –
Of Visitors – the fairest –
For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –
– Emily Dickinson