Eminence Online

We're on the cusp of yet another anime season as the Spring 2009 single-cour shows are coming to close and new set of shows line up to take their place. While there are a lot of blogs and sites out there that do a good job of covering the prospects for this summer's offerings, this article will focus in on the music aspects of the shows, mostly in terms of what one can expect from the upcoming soundtracks.

The first is Aoi Hana, a show that I'll look forward to watching mostly because Kenichi Kasai (Nodame Cantabile, Kimikiss ~Pure Rouge~) is behind the director's chair and his track record when it comes to romance stories has been pretty good so far. So while the story appears to be in good hands, I'm much less sure about how well the soundtrack will turn out since I haven't paid attention to Takefumi Haketa's works beyond Someday's Dreamers, which had a subdued atmosphere and I never really watched Vampire Knight's so I don't really have a notion as to how the music worked there which means I can't really help you out here. Just enjoy the yuri romance and leave it at that.

Satoru Kousaki, better known as the composer to The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens, will be doing the music for the highly-anticipated Bakemonogatari which is about and directed by one of the more visually creative minds in the industry, Akiyuki Shinbo. The show will apparently have a mixture of some supernatural elements in the form of vampires, but apparently, there will be a wisp of romance thrown into the works. Given that Shinbo's eccentricities will be a big factor here, it's difficult to tell where this show will go, but it will be visually interesting. I'm also not sure how well Kousaki's works will blend in since he's not really known for dramatic fare (beyond maybe the sad version of the Kannagi OP), so we'll just have to wait and see.

CANAAN will be very much focused on the action, which means that Hikaru Nanase should be in familiar territory since he's done the music to shows like Chrono Crusade and Gravion, both of which had their fair share of action-oriented tracks. Speaking of action-oriented, Elements Hunters claims Toshihiko Sahashi, who's known for his work with Full Metal Panic, Gunslinger Girl, and the Gundam Seed franchise. Whether he'll take the militaristic route or the pure action route is anyone's guess, but I'll pay attention to a few episodes of this show even if the premise doesn't look all too appealing since the core focus of the story revolves around teenagers traveling to other dimensions to retrieve stuff. That's better known to the rest of us as the standard JRPG plot.

Yukari Hashimoto seems hard at work for summer with soundtracks to Kanamemo and Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou. The former looks to be a silly comedy/slice of life which means her works should fit right in if the soundtrack to Toradora is of any indication, though I wouldn't call her works remarkable by any stretch. Interestingly enough, Kanamemo will feature the three voice actresses who were prominent in Toradora so I guess that's just as well. I can't really say much more about Gendai Mahou though since there isn't anything about it that looks interesting, and since I'm not a big Hashimoto fan, I'll just give that a pass.

Spice and Wolf II makes a return with some good old-fashioned economic lessons, courtesy of Horo and Craft Lawrence. Not surprisingly, Yuji Yoshino reprises his role as the series' composer though I'm not sure whether he'll be reprising the themes from the first season of Spice and Wolf or whether we'll see a lot of new compositions. Regardless of what pieces will come forth, the first season had an excellent soundtrack that captured the series' medieval setting quite well even if it's not all that apparent at first. So while I'm not making any guarantees on this incarnation's music, I can give the first season's soundtrack a recommendation.

And if you were looking for some excellent prospects for music, look no further than Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 with none other than Kou Otani at the reins. I am expecting a lot of great things to come out of this soundtrack because Otani's ability to create that sense of tension has yielded a lot of excellent soundtracks such as the ones for Shakugan no Shana and games like Shadows of the Colossus. For people interested in light jazz/swing, Umi Monogatari will be right up your alley with tracks by Ken Muramatsu, who has distinguished himself as an excellent composer through his work on Kure-nai and Sketchbook ~full color'S~. How that will fit in with the overall theme of mermaids and magic is probably best left to your imagination, but I have the feeling that once the slice of life aspects become more prominent (it is a Juunichi Sato work after all), we shouldn't see any dissonance between the show's atmosphere and the music.

The big question mark this summer will be who'll be doing the soundtrack to Umineko no Naku Koro ni. This show, has been noted as the spiritual successor to Higurashi no Naku Koro ni which featured a gripping storyline revolving around a murder mystery that was thick with tension and encouraged viewers to speculate on the plot. Umineko will most likely follow in the murder mystery tradition in its anime adaptation and it should also be noted that the visual novel was known for having a solid soundtrack. As of this time, it's unconfirmed as to whether the in-game music will be used or if they'll resort to using an anime composer like what was done with both seasons of Higurashi. So while I can't say much about the music, the plot looks to be top-notch, and this show will land on my to-watch religiously list for sure.

This list obviously isn't complete since I've left out a quite few shows that either featured composers that I don't know enough to talk about or the shows' premises aren't interesting enough for me to pick up. Furthermore, it doesn't delve too much into the plot elements, eschewing it in favor of the music, though you should be able to tell which shows are going to be on my radar. Do keep in mind that preliminary expectations are precisely that: preliminary. As such, these aren't set in stone since you'll never know when your cutesy magical girl show will turn into a dramatic beamspam fest. Either way, I hope you've found some titles worth pursuing this summer and I look forward to seeing what people on here will be following.

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