Fena: Pirate Princess: OST & OP & Taiyou no Kouro ENG ver in Junna's "Dear"

Still - nice for her to be listed even before release.
Nobody bothered to add Hanae on Tower's Waver-kun OST listing.
 
^ Yes thats probably the one for them. What i hate about the new titles system is that it spoils the plot for whoever didnt watch it yet. And this happens since FZ ? The "swordland" track is probably " fight to the finish", and "now we have found" is the chorus track that played when the island popped up. Do you think the Helena track is included ?

the entry is up https://canta-per-me.net/discography/fena-ost/
That’s what happened to me when I listened to SAO Ordinal Scale OST before watching the movie. Since then, I try my best to avoid listening to OST or taking a look at the song titles before watching the anime..lol.

I don’t love or hate those spoilable titles, but I feel that those titles are so boring…:(. Kinda too straightforward..probably. But on the other hand, they can clearly tell you which parts that these tracks were (intended to) created for if you want to listen to the OST while recalling the scenes they are used. It’s effective in that sense, but the titles themselves are not as intriguing as those from the old days..=w=.
 
So according to tower, Joelle is on more tracks than we heard in the show.

1.12 the sea is never without a wave,
1.17 fight to the finish (maybe PV track then?),
2.1 ruins,
2.6 vise versa,
2.12 now we have found (that's super short what could it be? 0_0),
2.13 battle on to the east (another action sounding track with Joelle? wat? then again it's a lyric from the OP...),
2.15 what she was here for,
2.18 a place called Eden

That would be all the lyrics tracks that were credited on vgmdb. Choir tracks not included in those it would seem.

According to tower at least.
 
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Wat song?
They only lalalad/Yukimarud vice versa in the show? Guess the lyrics were from the director rather than Kajiura.

Edit:
a monstrosity I edited between ep9 and 10 for shits and giggles:
Code:
https://mega.nz/file/s5xgGLqY#TjLG5HXN-ScGPtk9AEzII53QD20p4XjYJDVTREWQ9JM
 
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Hopefully less than one week til we find out. :D
I wouldn't mind if more Joelle tracks were true though.
 
Nothing new, but since you guys were talking about the names of the soundtracks, I thought it would be cool to share this. In the japanese broadcast of the episode 10, Vice Versa is credited during the ending as a insert song with the name in japanese(ヴァイスヴァーサ) instead of english.
 
It means absolutely nothing. (Probably.)

PS. If memory serves, I'm pretty sure whenever "cazador del amor" was used, it was just called "el cazador" in credits during the initial TV run.

Also, I probably won't get my CD before monday or tuesday. Bummer.
 
Just an interview on the OST. I can't with this "viSe versa"...

https://akiba-souken.com/article/53951/

In the interview they single out "vise versa" and "what she was here for" as Joelle songs so I guess the latter is Helena's track. Lame title but we already knew that...

Translation reads like the first few tracks are in episode order and "take action!" is that ep7 yukimaru action track (op strings, fbm, flute, accordion, etc). "the old knights" is for Otto and Salman, so I guess it's that adventurous track with brass from ep1 when they are rescuing Fena.

この曲も、JUNNAさんがひとりで歌っているんですけど、「ヘイヘイヨー」と水夫が合唱しているような感じから始めたくて。 <- so I guess it might semi-officially be "hey hey yo" like a pirate in Umi to Shinju

Oh, in the tracklist at the end, they also list Joelle for "fight to the finish" (pv?) and "ruins" (prolly ep5 even though there weren't any ruins there lol) in addition to the two above. So they don't seem to think tower was right with crediting Joelle on everything...
 
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I heard that Kazuto Nakazawa, the main creator of "The Pirate Princess" who also wrote the original story, directed, drafted the characters, and served as the sound director, is a fan of Kajiura's, and that's why they decided to work together on this project.

Kajiura: It's a great honor for me. I've seen Mr. Nakazawa's drawings everywhere, but this is the first time we've worked together. Moreover, you created the framework of "The Pirate Princess" almost entirely by yourself, didn't you? It was very refreshing to see how the story was told in a conversational way, with a lot of jokes.

─ It is customary for the sound director to write the menu for ordering music from composers, so the menu was also written by Mr. Nakazawa, wasn't it?

Kajiura That's right. Mr. Nakazawa's menu was not vague, and he was able to convey the image of the music in a clear and concise manner. Before we started composing the music, he gave us the script for the last episode, and we were able to understand that this scene in the middle of the episode was a foreshadowing of the later development. The best part was that Mr. Nakazawa was in charge of not only the direction and picture creation, but also the sound, so when I had a question, I could just ask him and he would answer it.

─ I think it's fair to say that "The Pirate Princess" is a maritime adventure set in a fictional 18th century Europe. However, the heroine is surrounded by a large number of characters who appear to be Japanese, and it is a work with an interesting worldview.

Kajiura I imagined that the time when many people were able to cross the sea and go to various places after the Age of Discovery was a time when many different cultures were mixed together at once like that. I imagined that this work was set in such an exciting time, when people didn't understand each other very well, but accepted that there were people like this in the world and went about their business. I wanted to bring out that sense of chaos in the music as well.



When I listened to the soundtrack, I felt that there was a mixture of classical music that the upper class in Europe would listen to, common music that was played in the back streets, and even Japanese melodies.

Kajiura: I talked about this with director Nakazawa in our meetings, and he said that it would not be appropriate for this film to have a strong sense of a specific European country or Japanese elements. Rather, we came to the conclusion that vaguely exotic music that evokes an image of somewhere other than here would be the best fit. As the story progressed, I added music that gave an image of the country to the people who were clearly in the British Navy, but that was the only time I made music that limited the nationality. There was an old song called "Gentile", wasn't there? The music is clearly from another country, but you don't know where it is.

I can imagine that the place where Fena and Yukimaru are touring is somewhere in Europe. I can imagine where Fena and Sesshomaru are going, but they don't have a map or anything like that. Also, there are obviously fictional towns and places.

Kajiura It seems that each of the towns is modeled after a real town, but it's still a fictional world. That's what's interesting about this work, it reminds me of the longing I used to have for travel. Each episode takes you to a new place, and the scenery changes.

─ First of all, Shangri-La, which was the setting for the first episode, was an interesting city.

Kajiura That's right. It's located on an isolated island, and it has the feel of a European town, but when you look at the bazaar scene, it also has an Asian atmosphere. In the scenes depicting brothels and bars, I wanted to create a vaguely suspicious atmosphere rather than a local character, so I used an accordion. I used an accordion for the scenes, but I was careful not to give the impression of a dull place, because it is not a bad entertainment district.

I'd like to start with DISC1 and give you a description of the songs. First of all, the third song, "the red-light district at night," is a song about an entertainment district, as you mentioned. It has a melancholy feel to it, but at the same time, you can feel the bustle of the city at night.

Kajiura The song is more like a bar than a brothel, because it is lively and you can feel the breath of people.

─ Including "the red-light district at night," I had the impression that many of the songs used in the first episode were used in the beginning of the soundtrack.

Kajiura: The order of the songs was decided by the director, but I think they were used in the main story. The order of the songs was decided by the director.

The fourth song, "happy feeling," and the next one, "noisy times," are cheerful songs, and they were used in the scene where Fena is telling Angie about her escape plan. The sixth song, "a small pearl," is a sad song, and was used in the scene where Fena is looking back on her past.

Kajiura: I also wrote the opening theme song "Umi to Shinju" this time, so I used that melody for the soundtrack as well. I used the melody for the soundtrack as well, especially for Fena's song, and since it was my own song, I arranged it freely.

Of all the characters, I probably wrote the most songs for Abel.


─ Later on, the battle songs are arranged according to the development of the first episode. The eighth song, "the old knights," which expresses the activities of the old knights, Otto and Saruman, is a brave and grandiose song, and conversely, I felt that it emphasized the comical characters of the two. Following the suspenseful "he's behind your back", the 10th song "you have to choose your way" is a cheerful battle song. This song is played in the scene where Yukimaru and the others are gallantly fighting, and it is often used in other episodes as well.

Kajiura This and the twelfth song, "the sea is never without a wave," are also battle songs, but there isn't a lot of this type of music in the soundtrack of "The Pirate Princess. Basically, it's a story of travel and adventure, so it's not like every time you have to fight someone to overcome a crisis.

The sea is never without a wave" contains the excitement of adventure, and I had the impression that there were more songs that depicted the appeal of a world that was completely different from our reality.

Kajiura The background art that I received as a reference for composing the music was very beautiful, and I was happy that I was able to create a colorful soundtrack with many songs that made me want to think of the scenes in the menu. I was happy that I was able to create a colorful soundtrack. It's kind of exciting when the menu says "The Adventures of Bonito No. 2" (laughs). (Laughs) The English soundtrack song titles are only given when the soundtrack is made into a CD, and the M numbers (*music numbers. During the actual production process, we call the songs by their M numbers (*music numbers, which are the BGM numbers used on the production side and also replace the song titles) or by the tentative titles on the menu, but the tentative titles given by Mr. Nakazawa are straightforward yet imaginative and stimulate my imagination. The tentative titles that Mr. Nakazawa gave me were straightforward, yet imaginative and stimulating to the imagination. There were words like "theme of an old knight" and "unknown island" that made me smile.



The eleventh song, "his name is Abel" is, as the title suggests, the theme of Abel. He is an important antagonist, and a charming character who is cool, kind, and sometimes cruel.

Kajiura: At first, Abel appears with an aristocratic appearance, doesn't he? He starts out as an elegant English aristocrat, but he gradually changes from white to black, so I made the music to be both elegant and easy to change. His name is Abel" is also elegant, but if you miss one note, the song sounds dangerous. There are many variations of Abel's songs based on "his name is Abel," and I think there are more than any other character. I think there are more Abel songs than any other character.

Abel is the character who changes the most out of all the characters, isn't he?

Kajiura That's right. The other characters don't have many sides to them, but Abel has a dark side.



Some of the songs with "his" in the title have almost no melody, like a foreign suspense movie.

Kajiura That's the scary thing about Abel. A melody is basically a rational thing, so the more beautiful it sounds, the less scary it becomes. The more beautiful the melody sounds, the less scary it becomes. The scarier it is to listen to a song where you can't hear the notes, the more scary it becomes.

There are also a few battle songs in the second half of DISC2. The 14th song, "take action!" is a cool song with a Japanese flavor.

The 14th song, "take action! Yukimaru and his friends look completely samurai, so I think that's enough to convey the message. If we played Japanese-style music in the scenes where the samurai are active, it would be too uncomfortable and uninteresting. If the whole story was about samurai, there would be no need to create a sense of discomfort, but since "The Pirate Princess" is about Japanese characters in a Western world, I wanted to create a sense of discomfort.

The scene in episode 7 where Yukimaru dashes in and saves Fena with the song "take action! It took the rhythm sounding part at the beginning and used a flute sound like a shakuhachi, so the Japanese taste stood out more, and the coolness of Yukimaru stepping into Abel's ship ahead of the others was highlighted by this song.

Kajiura: Sesshomaru and his army are really cool, aren't they? Not only are they strong as individuals, but the tempo of their conversations is good, and I feel that they are unified as a team. In everyday life, they are not too friendly and have a cool distance between each other, but they get along well. I'd like to join that team (laughs).



(laughs) And when it comes to fighting, they are really strong. The sword fighting in "The Pirate Princess" is very powerful, with a lot of bloodshed. You can feel that they are fighting with swords, can't you?

Kajiura The sword fighting is relentless. A lot of people die, and I think this is a strong depiction of battle in that world.

We had Joelle sing "vise versa" and 4 other songs!


─ There are four songs on this soundtrack that feature the vocals of Joelle, who also participates in Yuki Kajiura LIVE. The first one is "fight to the finish", the 17th song on DISC1. This is another battle song with a Japanese flavor. The first song on DISC2 is "Ruins," a mystical song from the visit to the ruins in episode 5. These two songs are also worth listening to, but the most important song on the soundtrack with vocals is the sixth song on DISC2, "vise versa".

Kajiura: We asked Joelle to sing "vise versa" in the first place. It was important for us to find out who was singing this song in the play. It's not Fenna herself, but her mother, Helena. I wanted a voice that was warm but also a little cold, a voice that was both maternal and not maternal.

─ "Vise versa" is a Latin word meaning "the opposite is also true," isn't it? The meaning of "vise versa" is a Latin word that means "the opposite is also true," and this is the biggest mystery of the story.

Kajiura: This title was specified by Director Nakazawa. But the lyrics are a word I coined. Actually, the director wrote the Japanese lyrics first, and I wrote the melody to go with it. I wrote the melody to the Japanese lyrics, but the Japanese lyrics were not sung in the film.

So that's how it happened. After I realized that "vise versa" was an important song for the story, I looked back at the first episode and was surprised to see that Fena was actually singing the melody at the beginning of the episode. The 15th song, "what she was here for" was also sung by Joelle, and was played in the movie as the song Helena was humming when she was young.


Kajiura This song has the divinity and tenderness of a holy mother, and Mr. Nakazawa's menu described it as "melting away Abel's madness. He didn't specify that he wanted this song to have vocals, and I just made it up on my own. I started with the melody at the beginning and thought, "It would be beautiful if a song came in the middle of it.

I thought, "It would be beautiful if a song came in the middle of it." But it was a good decision to include vocals, and it became a very important vocal song for the story.

Kajiura: I interpreted the song as being about motherhood and the image of Helena as seen by Abel. So it doesn't really overlap with the image of the real Helena.


After "what she was here for," the 16th song onwards becomes the climax of the story. The final destination of the journey comes into view, and you wonder what will be there, what drama will be waiting for you.

Kajiura That's right. The songs are climactic in many ways, such as accomplishing various things, telling and being told of one's feelings, or having one's feelings broken.

The last song, "the land of east," is the longest song in the soundtrack at 7 minutes and 24 seconds. From the length of the song, I think it was written to fit the scene (to scale).

Kajiura: Yes, I wrote the song for the final episode to fit the scale. There was originally a prototype of the song, but we decided to write it to scale at the end, so we wrote this song while watching the finished film. I waited until the pictures were done and wrote this song last. After this song, there is actually another song that will be played, but please look forward to the broadcast.

The chorus at the beginning of "Sea and Pearl" was inspired by a boat song sung by a sailor.


─ Lastly, please tell us about the opening theme song "Sea and Pearl," which will be included in the TV-EDIT version of the soundtrack. As you said at the beginning, the melody of this song was used in the soundtrack, which made it even more impressive.

Kajiura: It was a lot of fun, and I had a hard time composing the song because most of the songs Junna has sung so far have been cool songs. At first, I wanted to write a song with shades that focused on the darker side of the "Pirate Princess" while still having the intensity that I saw in Junna's image. However, I thought this song was too dark for the opening theme of "The Pirate Princess", so I decided to make it more cheerful.

So "Sea and Pearl" was the second song you wrote?

Kajiura That's right. Junna's voice is full of a sense of freedom, and Nakazawa and his team added beautiful images to it. Junna's voice is so liberating, and Nakazawa and his team added beautiful images to it.

Junna's vocals have a core to them, don't they?

Kajiura Yes, she is a strong woman, and her image overlaps with that of Fena. The chorus like a boat song at the beginning of the song was also wonderful. I love the sailor's chorus in Wagner's operas. In this song, Junna is singing by herself, but I wanted to start with a chorus of sailors saying, "Hey, hey, hey. I don't often use coined words when I write theme songs, but I thought it would be a good fit for this song, so I used it.

The chorus is also very lively, and I think it gives the feeling of a ship sailing on the sea.

Kajiura Recent songs tend to have a lot of notes, so it was refreshing for Junna to stretch out her singing like this.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) < suggested to me by Yuki.n and its alot better than google's
 
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Just an interview on the OST. I can't with this "viSe versa"...

https://akiba-souken.com/article/53951/

In the interview they single out "vise versa" and "what she was here for" as Joelle songs so I guess the latter is Helena's track. Lame title but we already knew that...

Translation reads like the first few tracks are in episode order and "take action!" is that ep7 yukimaru action track (op strings, fbm, flute, accordion, etc). "the old knights" is for Otto and Salman, so I guess it's that adventurous track with brass from ep1 when they are rescuing Fena.

この曲も、JUNNAさんがひとりで歌っているんですけど、「ヘイヘイヨー」と水夫が合唱しているような感じから始めたくて。 <- so I guess it might semi-officially be "hey hey yo" like a pirate in Umi to Shinju

Oh, in the tracklist at the end, they also list Joelle for "fight to the finish" (pv?) and "ruins" (prolly ep5 even though there weren't any ruins there lol) in addition to the two above. So they don't seem to think tower was right with crediting Joelle on everything...
Found this on twitter, somehow Joelle is being credited for everything on the CD as well.
FF-8WZpacAE9idv.jpg
 
Shhhhhhh. I'm not there yet. Spoilers. ;p jk

Edit: ok moment of truth. "he's behind your back" is the one - will I like the album version?
Edit2: I do. They never played it in this version so I am a little disappointed I didn't get anything really resembling the anime versions (ep1 in particular) but I got the goosebumps when the swooshing synth came in so it's all good.

lol they really are going in episode 1 order.
I bloody hate the titles. Re: swordland (and others...)

The second half of Abel got me good. I was really like "oh so they are just going to be repeating the first half..."

Edit:
CD1.
I like it but some tracks definitely feel on the shorter side even if they seem complete at the same time. I'm smiling constantly however; there's also the fact that I obviously listened to these tracks a lot sorting them during ripping, lol.
"fight to the finish" was alright, started a little too sudden for me (basically like in the PV, it's also extra sudden since this is the first time we hear Joelle) and my favorite part is actually between the vocals. "give me truth" wasn't used in the show either AFAIK.
"a lively town" also could've used some buildup at the start, even just the percussion like in the anime version. (I feel like there might be more tracks with very sudden intros coming...)

Onto CD2...
I wish "ruins" were looped without Joelle.
"mystical" is unused and great but short. same for "untrodden island". and "his tenderness" (I think this is the one they played a couple of times on the radio show).
lol "a gem-mining town" just came and went...
"his other face" v. zaregoto. I am confusion though. I'm pretty sure it's what they used when the squad was going through the caves in episode 5 but it sure doesn't sound like it with everything unmuted... and it's for Abel... wut? Great arrange of the theme tho.
"battle on to the east" ehhh when I noticed the length I was happy it was longer but it's like wut... and it didn't even repeat the parts I liked, lol.
"take action!" yep, one for the lives.
"what she was here for" god fcking damnit, I just knew it would suddenly start with the flute. Also the flute is way too loud. I prefer the long ass harp intro from the show. The director knew what he was doing muting the flute in most of it in the show. Sry, not sry.
"time to sail" was great and funny how they never found a place to use the main part in the show lol.
"a place called Eden" damn that bass very "classic" Kajiura if you will. V gud although maybe the first part shouldn't have the bass since the whole thing repeats again later.
 
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