Uh oh! Looks like this is going to be a regular column now on Otaku Aniverse. That's right Sound of Anime is back with another set of amazing soundtrack releases from our good friends over at Geneon formerly Pioneer animation. So take a load off and set back and read what we have to say about Geneon's latest soundtrack releases.

FLCL - Fooly Cooly - Addict

Run Time: 50 min

SRP: $14.98

EDP#: 52202

Street Date: January 20, 2004

The Low Down

When I saw this soundtrack, I was like "hmmm, I wonder what this is about?" I'm an anime fan and all but I haven't seen all of FLCL yet so I didn't know what to expect. I know what you're thinking "what the hell you reviewing it for?". Well honestly, I wanted to see what FLCL was about and the type of music it had... so basically I was curious about it.

"AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! It's J-Rock!" Was the first thing I said when I popped the CD in. Since I'm a hip hop fan, I was very tempted to take the CD out and jump on it. Don't worry I didn't. I took a breath and said "It's cool, I can listen to this.... without being bias too.... I hope.". To my surprise, It wasn't that bad an only the first several track are rock. After about track 8, the music changes up for a bit with different music sytles like J-Pop and dance; however, the soundtrack is mainly J-Rock. So if you are a J-Rock fan you won't be disappointed in this soundtrack even I, a hip hop freak, found most of the music groovy and great to listen too. Whether or not you'll like this soundtrack is entirely up to you but I would at least recommend listening to a few songs.

Enough of my personal thoughts! Let's get down to the facts about this soundtrack. The CD comes with a 10 page booklet that lists all the songs on the CD, the lyrics for those songs that have singing in it, pictures of characters, and the credits for the musicians, soundtrack staff, animation staff, and a little about StarChild Records. A disappointing feature about this soundtrack is that it's not mastered in Dolby Digital, DTS, Pro Logic 1 or 2, or any other surround sound format. To me, that's a big boo because I have a 5.1 system and I like my music to be in 5.1 surround sound. That doesn't mean the sound is bad but I still prefer to see surround sound on a soundtrack. The soundtrack also features 21 songs that consist of either vocals or instrumentals. It is mostly instrumentals but there's some vocals to listen to if you are more into vocals and not instrumentals.

Rating: 7/10

His and Her Circumstances – Act 1.0

Run Time: 70 min

SRP: $14.98

EDP#: 52192

Street Date: January 20, 2004

The Low Down

Hey all you Kare Kano fans, it’s finally out the soundtrack to the Gainax’s love anime, His and Her Circumstances Act 1.0. I saw this CD and said “Gotta review it!” Even though I’ve only seen the first DVD, I still felt it was appropriate for me to review it. Hey I saw the first DVD so reviewing the first soundtrack seems logical doesn’t it?

Oh man! This CD was great. I was all over the place with this. Maybe my opinion is a bit bias but I honestly think this is a well-put together and very beautiful soundtrack. Yes it’s beautiful the music literally make love to your ears. Ok maybe I’m getting a bit emotional about it but wow it has a great composition of music. This CD is worth checking out and if you like J-Pop, Concerto, March, and Jazz music this is the soundtrack for you. If you loved hearing the songs in the anime you will love hearing the songs on this soundtrack.

Down to the facts! Here it is this wonderful CD comes with everyone’s favourite 10 page booklet that list the songs on the CD, the lyrics to for the songs with vocals, a few pictures of Yukino and Souichiro, and the credits for the anime, soundtrack, and art work. This booklet also comes with beautiful background art work which makes it pleasing to the eye. Even though this is a good soundtrack, I’m disappointed and heart broken to report yet again that this CD has no surround sound component. It’s not really important to have surround sound tracks but think about it. You briefly hear these songs in the anime on a DVD that has 5.1 surround sound. But yet when you listen to the music on the soundtrack it’s in stereo. I believe if they are going to encode the sound on the DVD in DTS or Dolby Digital then at least do the same on the soundtrack to keep things consistent. The soundtrack also features 24 songs mostly instrumentals so if you are looking for any vocals you won’t find many here just 3 or 4 songs and that’s about it.

Rating: 8/10

Norihiro Tsuru & Yuriko Nakamura – Beginnings

Run Time: 42 min

SRP: $9.98

The Low Down

I don’t know what to say about this soundtrack. It’s quite different from what I’m used too and it’s not exactly a soundtrack for an anime. This soundtrack is brought to you by the popular violinist Nirihiro Tsuru and the internationally known pianist Yuriko Nakamura. I, myself, haven’t heard of them but the music on this CD is very good and quite smoothing. If you see the cover of this CD I’ll bet you’ll recognize the drawings. The artwork was done by Yoshitaka Amano who is known for doing art work in the field of animation, video games (Final Fantasy) design, illustrations, and popular art.

I had to listen to this soundtrack carefully because it wasn’t what I was expecting. The songs were well done and are very beautiful piece of work. One thing I noticed it seemed like each song was a theme song for a town in final fantasy. Probably thinking I’m crazy but it honestly seemed that way to me. This is not a soundtrack I would recommend to young people like me but if you ever see it. It is worth a shot to listen to. I think this soundtrack is for more a mature audience.

Now here are the facts about the soundtrack. This soundtrack comes with an amazing illustrated 2 page booklet that lists the musicians who were on the CD and what instrument they played. It also had the credits for the soundtrack and special thanks to the people who helped out with the making of the soundtrack. The soundtrack features 10 songs from which consist of 9 instrumental songs and only 1 song with vocals. It was mastered in digital stereo audio so again no surround sound but it was good the composition of the music made up for it so you won’t even care if it has surround sound or not.

The Rap up

This isn't all the music we've been listening to, oh no. We got a whole pile of soundtracks to go through here, expect another episodes very soon.

-- Cullen Wilson, Otaku Aniverse