Comments on: Saki Original Soundtrack – Review

By: Anime Instrumentality Blog » Anime Expo 2010 in Brief: Music, Meetups, and Massive Fun

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 02:23:51 +0000

[...] Napple Tale soundtrack as tangentially related. I also decided to take the plunge and grab Saki’s soundtrack. Though I wasn’t that fond of it, it’s still good enough to warrant a few listens here [...]

By: Reminiscing over the Decade’s Anime Music – 2001 | Anime Instrumentality Blog

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:41:15 +0000

[...] of the tension-filled themes can get a bit repetitive with its ominous rhythms (sort of like how Saki’s can get a bit wearisome), the light-hearted moments and the graceful melodies are the tracks that [...]

By: zzeroparticle

zzeroparticle — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:36:21 +0000

@lelangir
Guh… I felt like the Nanoha soundtrack is where I got trolled majorly. After listening to the music in the anime, there were a few jingles that caught my attention and I was hoping they’d be prominent in the actual disc. Come time to listen to the OST and I found myself dying of boredom. There were some redeemable tracks, yes, but the majority of it was terrible.

@Yi
Yeah, what I’d do with this one is just create a playlist of the ones that’d catch my attention and go off with those. The others are just one shots at best.

By: Yi

Yi — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:54:41 +0000

When I watched Saki, I was expecting something that’s just functional and uninspired as well. However, a few songs did manage to be quite catchy. Still, I don’t think this is an OST that I’d loop and listen to for a long time.

By: Saki Original Soundtrack – Review | Anime Instrumentality Blog Wiky Blog

Saki Original Soundtrack – Review | Anime Instrumentality Blog Wiky Blog — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:54:30 +0000

[...] the original: Saki Original Soundtrack – Review | Anime Instrumentality Blog By admin | category: anime | tags: album-title, anime, artist, catalog, february-posted, [...]

By: lelangir

lelangir — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:22:20 +0000

I think another relevant example is Nanoha. All the music is pretty low-quality in that it’s all computer music….and the samples sound so fake. But in a way that’s what makes Nanoha so interesting sounding. Very childish but adventurous? hmm….

By: zzeroparticle

zzeroparticle — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 06:17:11 +0000

@lelangir
Yeah, the level of restraint this OST shows is one part I did not address in this review, so I’ll just do so here. In listening to this in conjunction with the show, I have to agree that it’s a perfect matchup since there was never a point during which I felt the music to be inappropriate. Having a bombastic soundtrack would undoubtedly ruin the mood of the series since this series (and the soundtrack) thrives by its simplicity and honestly, I can’t imagine any kind of music other than Watanabe’s that would work better (though Kouhei Tanaka’s work on Angelic Layer comes close).

Through the pretty melodies that this soundtrack pours out, I do catch the sense of joy that you touch upon and one cannot help but feel good after listening to it.

That said, as Reltair’s comment above notes, it’s not quite as appealing during some segments. The points where I penalized the album was towards the middle where they had a slew of emotional tracks that were a tad too samey and the competition pieces also suffered a bit from the techno beats that were a bit too repetitive. Did they work in the show? Definitely. The soundtrack on its own? Yes… but some variety would have been nice too. So I kept that in mind and chose a rating that I would consider a happy medium. So I gave it a 7/10 effectively, which I thought is a fair mark since it’d probably be a 6/10 without the context and a 8/10 with. Part of my motive is to get people who’ve never seen the show to give it a shot too. Maybe I didn’t convey it across too well, but that’s what I try to do =P

Anyways, this music is better than Toradora’s since as I noted, I never felt bored and I definitely agree that it’s better than Shinji Orito’s work on Clannad. If you look through the Clannad tracklist, you’ll find that most of the better themes are composed by Jun Maeda and I have no trouble putting Maeda on a higher pedestal than either Watanabe and Orito.

Good luck with PUREZZZZAAAA though. Maybe you should just listen to the soundtrack when it comes out and imagine what scenes it’d depict. Probably isn’t too hard an exercise either :p

@Reltair
And with that tl;dr response, I covered more or less your concerns. I think.

By: Reltair

Reltair — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:22:54 +0000

Eh, although the music was good when played along with the anime, I personally don’t find it as appealing for just listening to.

By: lelangir

lelangir — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:00:18 +0000

I think this OST has a lot of restraint, which is a very important quality I don’t think you’ve taken into consideration. While songs like Tokimeki no Toki may be full of long phrases and 16th note runs, there’s a delicateness to the harmony which really points out the composer’s virtuosity. The march in your sample, Shiai Mae, is very creative – if I remember how the whole thing goes, I’d rank it on par with Kouhei’s Gunbuster March, not in terms of orchestration but in structure and melody.

I’d rank this much higher than anime with similar target audiences like Kimikiss or Clannad, generally, I found this OST much more interesting than a lot of Orito’s stuff (save for a handful of extremely memorable pieces).

Throughout the anime I found myself constantly pleased at how well the music depicted the scenes. There was such a great gel between the two. It’s not like, say, Toradora, where the music was so-so but felt like it could adapt itself to any old romcom; but not Saki’s OST. Like I said, it shows restraint, but it’s also exuberant and energetic and fits the nearly-sarcastic tone of the fan-service-plus-GARmbling-mahjong-can’t-go-wrong atmosphere. I will look out for Watanabe with a watchful eye now. [but not if this means torturing myself with sEkretz 0taku purezzzzzzza~ щ (ﾟДﾟ)屮]