Anime OST's?

I'm only one Movie 1 of like 8, but something I've noticed is the OST is amazingly well done.

I feel like doing some typing now so instead of just posting youtube links I think I'll just provide some commentary about some anime soundtracks.

Aku no Hana
I like this one.  I just recently watch Aku no Hana for the first time and really enjoyed it.  The music here is mostly electronic and atmospheric, creating a textured soundscape of depression and a spiritual sense of anxiety.  I love this kind of ambient music and would like to discover more of it.  I won't say it's "amazing" or technical, because it's not, this kind of stuff isn't rocket science by any stretch of the imagination, but it can really grab you and take you to another place if you let it.

Arjuna
This is a strange one and I honestly don't listen to it much.  Yoko Kanno's style can be, eccentric at times to say the least and her sense of style is really all over the place in this show.  The show itself was highly disappointing for me and one of the biggest let-downs of an anime show I think I've ever seen.  That being said, there were some aspects to it I liked and the music accompanying some of those moments and themes were nice.  "Feel the Circle" is by far the best track here and one of the main reasons why I wanted to add this to my music collection.  But then the next track goes into an awful rock-n-roll sound that is just cantankerous and noisy, in a bad kind of way.   Overall, there's just too much diversity and strangeness here for me to really love it as a whole, and my negative feelings towards the show itself doesn't help.  There's just too much to absorb here, the music is all over the place and doesn't guide you through the story like a good soundtrack should.

Cowboy Bebop
Do I even need to talk about this one?  It's probably the most popular anime soundtrack in existence, on top of the fact that it's from one of the most popular anime series of all time.  This is probably the only place where Yoko Kanno's eccentric style was a bonus to the final product.  She really proved a skill for overcoming the boundaries of genre and in doing so did something that very few composers anywhere in the world can do, write music that both participates in a genre while defying it at the same time.  Cowboy Bebop isn't strictly jazz and blues, it's a unique and different interpretation of those genres that you won't hear anywhere else.  But once again, Yoko Kanno's style is kinda all over the place, but for Cowboy Bebop it works, and makes sense in the context of what that show is and what happens in it.  "Too Good Too Bad" is one of my favorites, it has this playful tone, but also sounds serious too, it perfectly captures Spike's playfulness in how he never takes moments of action and combat seriously, in a very rogue-ish, Han-Solo-ish kind of way.  "Adieu" is a BEAUTIFUL song, damn I wish there were more songs like this in this show, in other anime, I wish there were more songs like this in the world.  I do however think that the soundtrack to Cowboy Bebop is overrated.  I've become very exasperated with seeing gushes of effusive praise for this music, when I think it's nowhere near the greatest soundtrack in anime.  It's good, but it's not THAT good.

Ikoku Meiro no Croisee
This show quickly became one of my favorites, and the music had a part in making me fall in love with it.  It's very simple music, most tracks consisting of just a handful of instruments, but it is all very well done and fits the show perfectly.  The unique thing here is the idea of a few Japanese performers getting together and creating music that perfectly matches the environment of late 1800's Paris, France.  And it works great!  I don't know how they did it.  Ikoku Meiro no Croisee is a show that brought warmth to my life with it's characters (all of them) and the music reflects that perfectly.  It's a great soundtrack to put on when I don't feel good in the morning and it always makes me feel better.  My favorite track is  track #8, "Hiizuru Tokoro no Shoujo," I love the way that the piano notes lazily drift over the strings underneath it.  "Egao ni Wink" is also fun to listen to, it makes me smile.  This music is fun, it's comfy, it's "cozy."

Well... when I started this it was my intention to go through my entire anime soundtrack collection, but I did not predict that I would go into such detail with each one.  I really love talking about music but it's something I rarely get to do.  It's getting late now and it's past time for me to start drinking so I'll stop here and come back to this later.

24638

Just based on your opinion of Cowboy Bebop I'm gonna give the other anime you mentioned a try.

Em. wrote

24638

Just based on your opinion of Cowboy Bebop I'm gonna give the other anime you mentioned a try.

Hey, that's great, thank you Em.  You may like some of them, not Arjuna though, seriously, that show was very disappointing.

Ergo Proxy
Mostly electronic and industrial sounding, good only if you have a taste for this kind of thing.  I like this kind of music, but honestly I think that this stuff is kinda weak if you're looking for stuff that is emotionally impacting.  It's mostly vibe and atmosphere, which isn't inherently bad, but the material here just lacks substance.  "Romdo Overshadows" is my favorite track, and "Wombsys" is also a good one, from a very memorable moment in the show.  I also think that Ergo Proxy has one of the greatest OPs in all of anime, second only to Cowboy Bebop, and I'm not just saying that because of the song.  I do love Ergo Proxy, and it's score is a good one, just not very memorable.

The Vision of Escaflowne
Wow... just... WOW!  What can I possibly say about this music that's not an understatement?  I love this score.  The track I usually listen to first, "Flying Dragon" captures the feeling and overall tone of this show perfectly, it seals up everything I love about the fantasy genre.  I love fantasy and sword-and-sorcery, more so than science fiction.  Fantasy films are rare, GOOD fantasy films even more rare, but a fantasy anime from an Asian country that barely has a grasp on European-based mythology and what makes it great?  That's a fucking diamond in the haystack.  Everyone loves and remembers "Dance of Curse" and yeah, it's great, a powerful and hard-hitting track that punches you in the chest with choir vocals and doesn't let up until the very last moment; in particular I really love the string section where it sounds like a waltz that's gone out of control.  But a part of me dislikes how much attention this one track gets though.  In every thread you'll see on other message boards about Escaflowne, you'll see talk of this one piece of music, when I think that the score as a whole should be discussed.

Honestly I think that the track "Epistle" is every bit a powerful as "Dance of Curse" and is more meaningful to me because the scene in which you first hear it blew me away (the action scene near the end of episode 14).  "Shrilly" is another favorite of mine, I love how it starts off small but grows larger and more out of control.  I love the use of strings in that piece.  "Ne Zu Mi" is a great track too; I love the playfulness of it.  "Arcadia" is a great, operatic track and has and excellent use of strings.  I love the last approximate 45 seconds or so of this track, I wish that string section at the end lasted just a few more measures, it has that bitter-sweet ending feeling and I love it!  "Blaze" is another fantastic track that heavily relies on vocals.  What I like about this one is the feeling of shock and revelation, it just sounds like it should go along with a "Luke, I am your father!" type of scene.  "Chain" is also good, capturing the feeling of going to fight where the odds are stacked against you.  That nervousness, that tension of preparing for battle is so crystallized in this track.  "Hitomi Theme" is also good.

But the one I really want to emphasize is "A Far Cry."  This is my favorite piece from this soundtrack and that's saying alot.  Those strings, those beautiful, sorrowful strings.  There's so much going on in this piece.  Sorrow, doubt, fear, desperation, agony, pain, loneliness, awakening, realization, revelation, regret, anxiety, ...... I'm searching for another word to sum this up but I don't think there's a word in the English language that can wrap up every feeling contained in this one piece of music.  If there's a word for "the pain of being alive" let me know.

One thing I don't like about fans is that I think they give too much credit to Yoko Kanno for this soundtrack.  She wasn't the only person responsible for this masterpiece, there was also Hajime Mizoguchi, who composed some equally great segments of this score.  Especially when you consider Yoko Kanno's (again, I'll used this description) eccentric style which is present here again, I think she gets a little too much attention for this score.  There are some wierd track in there like "Country Man" or "Ask the Owl" which are completely unnecessary and unpleasant to listen to.  "Machine Soldier," "Market Place," "Medicine Eater," "Godds Drunk," no one cares about that crap and no one wants to hear it.  Also the all-caps on the songs titles is annoying.  Because of this I put together my own "Unofficial Mega-Mix" of just the good stuff that's worth listening to, in a specific order that to me is the best listening order.

In spite of it's flaws though, the score is fantastic.  And I'm going to make this statement and I'll stand by it:

THE MUSICAL SCORE SOUNDTRACK OF
THE VISION OF ESCAFLOWNE
COMPOSED BY YOKO KANNO AND HAJIME MIZOGUCHI
IS
OBJECTIVELY
THE GREATEST
MUSICAL SOUNDTRACK
OF ANY JAPANESE ANIMATION
EVER
OF ALL TIME.

Nothing else even compares to it.  There are some others that get close, but no other anime soundtrack goes as far to covering such a wide range of feeling, emotion, and action and does it as expertly well as this score.  It's just the greatest, period.

more later

Your lie in April OST.

I really like #45 in this one

I get some sweet chills everytime I listen to this:

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvzCmV3_12c

Eros wrote

I really like #45 in this one

This boy knows what hes talking about

Even if the anime's reception wasn't that well-received, I still really enjoyed Guilty Crown and its OST. This is probably my favorite track:

28059
 
 God damn. I've still yet to watch Guilty Crown, but the soundtrack is top-tier.
 Frankly, I could imagine this playing in a film of some sort.
 
 What's your take on the show as a whole?

Personally I enjoyed it. Although there were a lot of plotholes, arguably some of the characters made up for it; even supporting characters like Tsugumi are very likeable. I also liked how original the setting was and the feeling of not knowing what to expect in the next episode.

PSG has a great OST in my opinion.
#based Teddyloid

Totally love this song since I've experienced Aimer live.

K project OST is pretty orgasmic

If this doesn't fill you with joy then you are probably a bad person.

I love nearly all OST's of Jigoku Shoujo.

Example given;