Search - Shinkichi Mitsumune :: Revolutionary Girl Utena

A Great Anime Soundtrack In More Ways Then One!

Kevin T. Rodriguez | Citrus Heights, CA United States | 08/16/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Anime soundtracks have had a hard time catching on in the US. Back in the early 90's Pioneer toyed around with anime soundtracks with some of their Tenchi Muyo CD's, and then Viz decided to dabble into the anime soundtrack scene and release the soundtrack for one of the "Ranma ½" movies. These CD's had difficultly finding their way into stores, they didn't sell that great, and ultimately people decided that anime just wasn't popular enough to release anime CD's here. Then in 1998 a company called Anime Trax releases some anime CD's with varying level's of success (with their "Samurai X" soundtrack being the only one to make a serious splash), and ultimately they too seem to abandon the idea of bringing anime CD's over to America.



By 2003 anime CD imports have reached an all time high, and Pioneer and Bandai have decided to get serious about releasing anime CD's once again. Bandai's strategy is to release some of their CD's in special collectors set's for their shows to get people hooked on the music and recommend it. Pioneer's plan to pick up soundtracks for some of the more demanded soundtracks while picking up music for some of the newer shows that are in the spotlight more. So far anime CD's have finally started to become profitable enough to continue releasing them, but many of the American releases are still plagued with problem (not all of which are Pioneer's and Bandai's fault).



One of Pioneer's better releases have been the US release of "Revolutionary Girl Utena." Not only has all the beautiful background music made it onto this CD, but the full length versions of all the vocal songs have made it onto this CD intact. To explain why this is such a big deal you need to realize that one of the biggest problems plaguing most anime CD's today is that what usually makes someone want an anime CD is whether or not they like the opening and ending songs. They may still like the background music, but if anyone tells you that they bought an anime CD with no interest in the OP and ED songs then that person is most likely lying to you.



The songs are what ALWAYS catches people's attention first, and THEN everyone notices the BGM! However most CD's only have the TV sized versions of the songs and not the 3-4 minute version of the songs. This is a problem that is still being worked out, but luckily the Utena soundtrack has all of the shows vocal songs in their full length glory. And this is an essential piece of information as one of the things Utena is best known for are the catchy songs that play out during the show, and luckily Pioneer was able to get them all here for this excellent CD.



However what's even more amazing is that they also managed to include Utena's excellent score on the same CD, which makes the value of this CD even better! I'm guessing that Pioneer had to pay a higher licensing fee to make this CD as good as it turned out (as most companies keep saying that the CD's need to sell so many copies before they can begin to think about making the CD's the way fans want them to), but the extra expense was worth it in my opinion. For fans of "Revolutionary Girl Utena" this CD is for you! It has the whole song and BGM collection on one compact disk, and it's at a very affordable price! Here's hoping all future anime soundtracks are as good as this one is!"