j1m0ne’s blog

Tis the season for ‘me-too’ best of lists! Kicking things off is the anime music section - thank God I have all those TWIJ columns to refresh my memory as to what was released throughout the year, cos I’ve got a memory like a sieve. As a note the 2007 Oricon calendar year ran from 25th December 2006 to 17 December 2007, so anything released between those dates is eligible.

Singles
Top 3 Anisong Singles
Junpaku Sanctuary. Chihara Minori

I was unprepared for the 180-degree turn in Minorin’s musical direction but after just one listen to Junpaku Sanctuary I was sold. It may have taken a while for her music career to shift gear but surely only great things can come from Hara-tan.

Uninstall. Ishikawa Chiaki

One of the most memorable anime themes in recent history, kinda makes up for the lack of See-Saw. I still haven’t gotten around to finishing Bokurano, come to think of it…..

Bird. Shimokawa Mikuni

Not enough people remember that this single exists. Bird is a wonderful song, one of Mikuni’s best. I spent most of my Paris/Cologne trip earlier this year with this single on repeat - it’s a shame that the album that followed this sucked.

Top 3 Image CD Singles
-So what’s the difference between an anisong single and an image CD you say? Well, the image CD is usually for a specific character from a specific anime. Anisong covers everything from anime themes to releases by anisong artists (your Ali Projects, Okui Masamis etc) and seiyuu. Vague to most people maybe, but it sounds clear enough in my brain ^^;

Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu Character Song Vol.8 - Koizumi Itsuki. Ono Daisuke

Kimokakkoii (creepy cool) is the way Ono Daisuke will be described for the rest of his voice acting career. Question is, who is more kimokakkoii - Itsuki or Hosaka? Regardless, Ono has one of the best vocals (amongst male seiyuu) and Maggare Spectacle is just horribly addicting.

Hayate no Gotoku! Character CD 2 - Maria. Tanaka Rie

Technically an album, but really… if you dump all those ridiculous 5 second voice snippets it’s a single. Maria’s CD is the pick of the Hayate bunch cos both her songs are fantastic, and it’s Tanaka Rie after all.

Sakura Addiction - Hibari Kyoya version. Kondo Takashi & Iida Toshinobu

Perhaps this should be listed under the singles section, but I don’t like the Mukuro version…. Anyhow, Sakura Addiction is definitely one of the surprises of the year. Incredibly, in the 5-6 weeks since its release the single has sold more than Hirano Aya’s three singles in total.

Albums
Top 3 Soundtracks
-For me, a good soundtrack is not only about how well it goes with the show but also how the music stands by itself - would I want to listen to it on my iPod repeatedly? Although I appreciate the diversity and inventiveness of something like Kanno Yoko’s Cowboy Bebop score, I can’t bear to listen to it in one setting - it just bores the hell out of me.

Asatte no Houkou OST. Mitsumune Shinkichi

I remember saying at the beginning of the year that I’d eat my hat if this wasn’t on my end of the year ‘Best of’ list…..thankfully I don’t have to. Piano-based soundtracks have the tendency of becoming terribly repetitive (hello, Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto) but no such problems with Mitsumune’s score, which is cheerful and contemplative in equal parts - it’s a perfect fit for the series.

Shinkyoku Sokai Polyphonica OSTs. Nanase Hikaru

For an anime with its basic premise rooted in music, it’d be a bit of a disaster if the soundtrack turned out to be rubbish. Nothing to fear with Hikaru Nanase at the helm, as she provides an epic score (shame about the rather average anime). I still wonder how she managed to produce 58 tracks for a 12-episode series though….

Seirei no Moribito OSTs. Kawai Kenji

I was actually surprised to hear Kawai compose a score with such a traditional feel to it; guess I’ve been too used to hearing his battle-heavy scores in recent years.

Top 3 Vocal Albums
sorachoco. sorachoco

Seiyuu albums are generally poor quality; lacking depth, devoid of tunes/singing ability & instead relying on said seiyuu’s popularity just to shift a few copies. So sorachoco (Hanamura Satomi & Inamura Yuuna)’s debut effort is a nice surprise- fresh, cheerful and full of spunk.

Hakoniwa Note. kukui

Criminally, I forgot to review this when it was released back in October ^^;; This is kukui’s first proper album - it’s been somewhat long coming for fans who’ve been following the project since their refio days (back when riya of eufonius was the vocalist). Their unique dreamlike sound is maintained throughout the album, with a couple of pleasant surprises throughout.

GREAT ACTIVITY. Mizuki Nana

It’s not hard to see why Nana-chan is the biggest idol seiyuu of the moment - she’s got the singing chops and the music to back it up. GREAT ACTIVITY isn’t her best work, but it’s still streets ahead of the competition.

Top 3 Anime Image/Variety Albums
Gift~eternal rainbow~ Character Mini Album

I don’t have a clue what Gift is about, but what I do know is that the music is great. Not even Shimizu Ai’s crap singing can spoil it. Too bad there’s only 5 tracks on this (the other seiyuu featured are Koshimizu Ami, Shintani Ryoko, Kawaragi Shiho and Miyazaki Ui).

sola Image Song Album: Oratorio

An easy way to not make anime image albums sound shit - hire actual singers/vocalists to write and perform the tracks instead of seiyuu who can’t sing to save their lives. And oratorio is a great example of this, with established songwriters such as Yuumao, eufonius and Hata Aki creating an album that fits the world of sola.

Zetsubo Kayo Daizenshu

A late entry on the list, but this album is just too damn good. It captures all the Zetsubo-sensei characters perfectly, and there’s a good mix of styles to keep things fresh throughout. It was funny to learn that the version of GoGoGo Beauty (Kaere’s joke song) here is actually a re-recording; apparently the first take was so crazy that the music director had to tell Kobayashi Yu to tone things down a bit.

Best Drama CD
-I didn’t actually listen to a lot of drama CDs this year (less than 10 that weren’t based on an anime), so it was easy to make my choice

Mushi to Medama to Teddy Bear

This horror/fantasy story is based on a series of light novels by Akira. Kawada Shinji voices Sakaki Guryu, a senior high school teacher who, on the night of his birthday encounters a serpent (Kobayashi Yu) who prophesies that his girlfriend Rinne (Koshimizu Ami) is going to be brutally killed by a spoon-wielding ‘demon’ named Guriko (Noto Mamiko). Sakaki refuses to believe the serpent’s words, until later when he comes across a young girl holding a spoon……

There’s a lot more other background story to the tale that’d take a few pages for me to summarise, but I enjoyed the CD a lot - seiyuu performances were good and the story was solid. There’ve been 6 volumes of the Mushi to Medama novels released so far, so what are the chances of an anime adaptation?

EDIT: The last post is gone cos I messed up the titles, wayyy.

Posted on December 19th, 2007 under anime music, best of • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback