• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Chikorita157's Anime Blog

The thoughts, reviews and analysis of Comedy, Romance, Drama and Slice of Life Anime of a College Student

  • Home
  • About
    • Commenting Policy
    • Banners
  • Blogroll
  • Reviews
  • Archives
  • Guides
    • List of Suggested Manga
  • Podcast
  • Subscribe
    • RSS Feed
    • Feedburner
    • Comments Feed
    • Add to Feedly

Angel Beats Original Soundtrack – Final Thoughts

August 11, 2010 by chikorita157 2 Comments

Since zzeroparticle and ETERNAL reviewed the Original Soundtrack very nicely, I don’t feel the need to review the whole soundtrack over again. However, I do feel that I need to share my overall “too long, don’t read” thoughts about the whole soundtrack because it sounded so good.

I do have to admit, even though the plot of Angel Beats and Girl’s Dead Monster’s songs are a big mess, the Angel Beats Orginal Soundtrack does not disappoint. The big surprise that everyone doesn’t seem to notice is that the synth songs. Although they have the Jun Maeda style, they are actually composed and performed by a synth group called “ANANT-GARDE EYES.” Most of these synth songs primarily sound like video game music, primarily music from role playing games like Final Fantasy for example. The video game style music fits pretty well with the overall setting of Angel Beats since it’s a virtual reality purgitory afterall.

From the whole soundtrack, my heart, my most precious treasure, kanade, Ichiban no Takaramono (Orig. Version) and theme of SSS stands out the most. I will pretty much discuss the mentioned songs on why  they sound better than the other songs in the soundtrack and my overall thoughts about the soundtrack as a whole.

my most precious treasure and Ichiban no Takaramono (Orig. Version)

There is no doubt that this song strike the listener’s emotions. The overall feeling of my most precious treasure and Ichiban no Takaramono provided by the piano and string instruments makes it a beautiful song. The song starts off with melancholy and sadness to feeling of accepting the fate. I think this song have done its purpose very well.

As for Ichiban no Takaramono (Orig. Version) sung by karuta, it has the same feeling as my most precious treasure. Compared to Yui’s version of Ichiban no Takaramono sung by LiSA, karuta’s version was calmer and had emotion. Even though the lyrics are the same, Yui’s version just doesn’t have the same feeling because of the vocals just sound rough that pieces my ear. The obvious flaw of Yui’s version make it obvious that the original version of Ichiban no Takaramono sound 10x better.

kanade

Tenshi Kanade is always a kind and quiet girl that the SSS seems to bully for no good reason. The song, kanade fits her personality well with its calm and smoothing feeling. Played when Otonashi and Tenshi meet with each other.

my heart

“my heart” is a piano version of My Soul, Your Beats. The slowness of the song gives it a more emotional feeling compared to the original. The ballad version of My Soul, Your Beats sounded very nice. Even though Lia’s vocals were good in the original song, it was slightly messy.

This kinda reminds me, “To the Same Heights” got the same treatment when it was rearranged into what we know as Clannad’s After Story’s Opening Theme, “Toki wo Kizamu Uta”.

theme of SSS

Life is unfair? This theme pretty much conveys the whole message of the song with the chaos and the lack of satisfaction from the SSS members’ former life. The emotional feeling that ANANT-GARDE EYES’s created makes it feel so similar to Jun Maeda’s emotional songs that people could mistake the creator of the song.

Overall Thoughts

The battle themes in the soundtrack sound very familiar to a battle scene in a Japanese Roleplaying Game. They give a sense of conflict and such. Besides the battle themes, there are the slice of life and the character themes that go well with the story.

Not to mention, the soundtrack also contains Brave Song with the extended intro.

Compared to previous Key soundtracks I heard, Angel Beats soundtrack was a bit different out of the bunch. The visual novel soundtracks had a lot more feeling and emotions depending on the scene and suitable for use in Anime. Because of the setting of Angel Beats, there is no way to have visual novel style soundtracks because it wouldn’t work right. The video game synth style was the only way to go and it did pretty well.

Overall, the Angel Beats soundtrack impress me like the previous music I heard from Kanon, Air and Clannad. It was different, but it was an enjoyable two hour listen. By listening to the soundtrack, it can even melt away some of the bad feeling from the inconsistent storytelling. Definitely give this soundtrack a listen and you might get amazed by what you listen to.

Overall Score

9/10 ¶

Advertisements

Share this:

  • Share on Tumblr
  • Tweet

Related

Filed Under: Angel Beats!, Reviews
Tagged With: ANANT-GARDE EYES, editorial, Jun Maeda, key, music, opinion, OST

This post was handcrafted by…
chikorita157 - who has written 2,713 posts.

Author and Owner of Chikorita157's Anime Blog. If you want to learn more about me, see the "About chikorita157" page.

Liked our content?

Feel free to leave a comment, share the post on social media, or linking back to this post on your blog post. You can also support us on Ko-fi as well.

If you want to receive future posts in your WordPress.com reader, you can follow this blog by clicking the button below. Note that the Likes system is permanently disabled.

Follow Chikorita157’s Anime Blog on WordPress.com

Also follow us on Twitter for the latest blog updates and Anime/Manga/Video Games related tweets
Follow @chikorita157

Reader Interactions

2 Comments… read them or add your own.

  1. zzeroparticle says:
    August 12, 2010 at 11:24 pm • Magical Level: 57

    The four (well, five) pieces you highlighted at the very end are definitely the cream of the crop. Synth is fine within the context of the anime, though out of it, some of them are more hit or miss than the piano stuff which are definitely hits. If nothing else though, it does represent a different sort of direction for Maeda (and ANANT-GARDE Eyes) and I”d say they did pretty well here.

    Reply
    • chikorita157 says:
      August 12, 2010 at 11:32 pm • Magical Level: 2551

      Yes, I do agree with that…

      In comparison with the Kanon OST (and others made by Key), it”s a big difference to Angel Beats OST, although it shares the same qualities such as the emotional feel, especially with Jun Maeda”s tracks and the ones I mentioned.

      Reply

New Here? Review the Commenting Policy before adding a comment.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Previous Post: Kaichou wa Maid-sama – Episode 18 – Igarashi… He’s Baaaack!
Next Post: Kanon – Makoto’s Arc – Final Impressions

Primary Sidebar

Categories

Archives

Current Season

  • Show by Rock!!
  • Uma Musume
  • Urasekai Picnic
  • Yuru Camp

Episodic Blogging Schedule

Monday – Urasekai Picnic

Tuesday – Umamusume 2

Thursday – Yuru Camp 2

Friday -Show by Rock!! Stars!!

Non-Episodic Content

  • Editorials
  • Japanese Self-Study Progress
  • Let’s Plays
  • Podcast
  • Project iM@S
  • Reviews

Subscribe to Blog via Wordpress Reader

To follow this blog via WordPress Reader, click the button below.

Follow Chikorita157’s Anime Blog on WordPress.com

Follow us on Twitter for the latest blog updates and Anime/Manga/Video Games related tweets
Follow @chikorita157

We also have a podcast, which consists of audio text to speech versions of recent and past reviews and editorials. You can follow the podcast through Apple Podcasts or Spotify

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Recent Posts

  • Slime Taoshite 300-nen Shiranai Uchi ni Level Max ni Nattemashita – Episode 1 – Carefree Life Comes to an Early End Before It Started
  • Blue Reflection Ray – Episode 1 – The Strange Feeling
  • Super Cub – Episode 1 – The Bike that Changes Koguma’s Life Forever
  • Yakunara Mug Cup Mo – Episode 1 – Himeno Tries Pottery For The First Time
  • What Is on My Mind – April 2021 – Sony’s Purchase of Crunchyroll in Jeopardy, Uma Musume Mobile Game First Impressions, Importance of Backups, and More

Recent Comments

  • PhilippeO on Slime Taoshite 300-nen Shiranai Uchi ni Level Max ni Nattemashita – Episode 1 – Carefree Life Comes to an Early End Before It Started
  • chikorita157 on Yakunara Mug Cup Mo – Episode 1 – Himeno Tries Pottery For The First Time
  • chikorita157 on Super Cub – Episode 1 – The Bike that Changes Koguma’s Life Forever
  • OG-Man on Super Cub – Episode 1 – The Bike that Changes Koguma’s Life Forever
  • OG-Man on Yakunara Mug Cup Mo – Episode 1 – Himeno Tries Pottery For The First Time

Support Us

Advertisements

Footer

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets
Advertisements
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy

© 2009–2021 James M. All rights reserved.
All text on this page is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
This blog uses Genesis Framework and WPTouch Mobile Suite. Source Code
72 queries : 0.177s espeon

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Ko-fi
  • Youtube
  • Twitch
  • AniList
  • Kitsu
  • MyAnimeList
  • Privacy Policy