j1m0ne’s blog

It’s the albums’ turn to get some harsh treatment.

H20~FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND~ OST. Fujita Junpei

Congratulations to those who persevered to the end with the abomination that was veH2O~Footprints in the Sand~. It was a show that left me cold by the end of the first 23 minutes, and at that time I wish it had left me blind as well. But thankfully, my hearing was left intact as the one good thing that came out of those wasted minutes was the music. The best parts are mainly made up of sweeping string-laden pieces such as The bridge & Hitoribocchi no Senaka - their arrangements are certainly befitting of the Elements Garden name. Even the ‘comedy’ tunes on the album are somewhat amusing rather than just being plain annoying. I think this has just overtaken true tears’s OST as my favourite anime soundtrack in 2008 so far. GJ, Fujita Junpei.
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Zoku.Zetsubo Gekiban Senshu. Hasegawa Tomoki

I was quite looking forward to this as I’ve been enjoying the show’s music so far. Things starts off on a good note with the main Zoku theme, which sounds like something you’d hear in a depressing sob-story movie, where at the end the hero returns to his hometown after fighting monsters for 6 years only to discover his entire family has been massacred by zombies. Or something.

Tracks 4-6 are my favourite group of songs on the CD; all whimsical, nostalgic ballroom pieces. It mostly goes downhill from there on unfortunately, with a bunch of odd, repetitive tunes featuring weird harmonica solos and of course, that dreadful Nonaka Ai song - I can’t quite recall which episode it was from. Ugh. Although the second season has more interesting theme songs, the soundtrack from Season 1 is definitely much better. As if we haven’t gotten enough of Zetsubo-sensei, there will be a image/theme song best of compilation album to be released on 14th of May that features a new track by Ohtsuki Kenji feat. Kimura Kaere called…. 豚のご飯 (Pork Rice). Hooray for insider seiyuu jokes! (豚のご飯 is something Kaere’s seiyuu Kobayashi Yu keeps proclaiming as being her favourite food).
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ARIA The ORIGINATION PIANO COLLECTION II - DIPARTENZA. Senoo Takeshi & Kubota Mina

Another piano collection…I’ve never been big on arrangements that feature a sole piano. It’s just that I’ve already been spoilt with the original versions that it all feels flat hearing a few dinky keys. That, and I’m more of a guitar person anyway. Just ignore this one and get the original soundtrack if you haven’t already.
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Makino Yui. Makino Yui

Oh yes, I still think Makino sounds like a leaking helium balloon. But there’s no point being able to sing brilliantly if the songs suck, right? Thankfully, Yui doesn’t suffer from the latter problem, there are plenty of good songs here to get stuck into - it’s a good mix of upbeat tracks and ballads. The non-acoustic version of Yokogao is sublime, Tooku Made Ikou a slice of very enjoyable laidback, breezy pop that sounds perfect for a lazy summer afternoon and Solfege is really soothing.

Despite the fact that the three singles from the album (synchronicity, Spirale & Sketchbook o Motta mama ni) didn’t set my world on fire, they fit in perfectly well here. A case of where the whole is more than the sum of its parts - that makes it two good albums out of two for Makino now. It also debuted in the top 20 of the Oricon daily, which is pretty surprising considering the indifferent chart performances of the aforementioned singles. Good for her, hopefully it sells steadily and ends up higher than Tenkyu no Ongaku’s overall chart position of No.36.
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YOU&YU. Kobayashi Yu

So here we are, Kobayashi Yu’s debut album. As she promised, it’s a predominantly ‘rock’ affair, with a couple of ballads thrown in for good measure. So how does it stack up against Makino Yui’s fine effort? Yakusoku and Zetsubo ni Saku Hana are the picks of the bunch - both fine pop-rock songs with big, friendly choruses. Then we have Mix Juice de Max Power, which is…. bizarre, to say the least. This is also one of the two Kobayashi-penned lyrics, and amazingly pokes fun at herself in many ways. C’mon, it features gorilla chanting as well as the legendary line そしてナイジェリアで会いましょう (So let’s meet up in Nigeria), and also other random lyrics like ‘Sliding down Mt. Everest, grazed my butt’ and ‘I drank the water of the River Nile and got a stomachache’. What.The.Heck? Someone’s gotta be writing all this for her, I don’t think her brain has the capacity to come up with all that.

Other than those three tracks (and the four already released), there’s not really much to write home about; they mostly fit neatly into two categories - dullard ballads (Ashita no Kimi, Sunao na Kimochi) or plodding mid-paced ‘rockers’ (Akai Chapel, the title track). Average debut, but I’m hopeful that there’ll be better things to come.
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SAVIA. Kawada Mami

For some reason, I’ve never truly gotten into Kawada’s music despite being a KOTOKO devotee. There was the odd song I liked (IMMORAL, radiance, Hishoku no Sora) but otherwise there’s just something about her that leaves me a bit cold. I think it’s the fact that she sounds way too much like KOTOKO for my liking, and I’m not particularly fond of her ‘rock’ style.

None of the songs from the singles preceding SAVIA particularly impressed me either, I think triangle and Beehive were the only ones I vaguely liked. Out of the new tracks, only TRILL and portamento didn’t make me yawn. I was certainly glad when the 60 minutes of SAVIA were up, and it’s an album I don’t think I’ll be revisiting anytime soon.
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Posted on March 28th, 2008 under anime music, this week in japan • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback