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

So fight to finish turned out to be the Joelle pv track after all.

Little sad that it’s so short but there is absolutely no fat so it’s a tight and sweet 2 mins
 
Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaa. so while the last track is playing, frankly:

- many tracks definitely feel short
- some tracks definitely start too sudden
(and a lot could've been fixed by looping either the percussion or whatever instrument is playing in the back - like the guitar or harp; It's like @Sora says - there's no fat, but also no breathing space in many of the tracks. I think the director of the anime was doing the right thing extending them in the show)
- many bits unused in the show are actually great

I am very disappointed with "what she was here for". I was worried it would be looped ad nauseam but instead it's just overstuffed with the flute (plus the flute's way too loud).

Otherwise, I like the OST. :p
 
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(My) REVIEW

Disc 1


i was just a child:
typical sad Kajiura bgm but i like the wind-blow-like sfx :)
Umi to Shinjo: Gives a happy and bright start not only to the series but to the soundtrack too.
the red-light district at night: Relaxing accordion. Was expecting something faster
happy feeling: what the title says lol also kinda goofy/playful ^_^ Great song to relax a baby if its not sleepy :)
noisy times: Love this its so joyful ^_^ perfect for dance too. really gives an exotic / piratee feel.
a small pearl: Just a nice piano track.
something strange is going on: I like how the melody is carried by the cello, and the beat remind me of may-hime soundtrack. The melody is sad and slightly scary too.
the old knights: Track like the one you would see in a movie where a hero comes back to his town from victorious conquest lol There was something similar in style in mai-otome too. Really nice :)
he’s behind your back: SFX with a little bit of techno.
you have to choose your way: the swordland arrange ! The beat, the percussion and the bass really add to it i think, and love the brass at the end and how the strings finish
his name is Abel: Pretty sure this one never played in the series. I really like the herpsichord and how the strings melody which is used later on too.
the sea is never without a wave: Trailer bgm with tokyo Konsei . I dont think it was used in the episodes. I think the 2nd the chorus on the 2nd half. so good <3
dawn is breaking, ship is on the way: Ah, the kind of tracks with acoustic guitar and flute ^_^ Umi to Shinju melody. So relaxing and peaceful.
something ugly in the air: SFX
the waves rippling: Cello track. Nice melody but kinda forgetable track.
calling of my heart: Flute / strings / harp relaxing track
fight to the finish: Joelle bgm from the trailer, really like that fast flute :)
everyday is a gift: Peaceful piano / violin bgm, the kinda reminds of sekai satoyama ost, love it <3
tender memories: harp bgm
a lively town : A bit too lively maybe lol (maybe cause last track was so quiet) Really nice track with guitar eguitar percussion and accordion.
to find your truth: lovely bgm with flute and ac.guitar, violin later :)
give me truth: Same melody as above but with accordion, slower. Reminds me of some leisure time bgm you could find in noir.

Disc 2

ruin:
BGM from the scene with the crystal where the pirate girls trapped them. Really like the multiple vocal layers and how they combine with flute
mystical: I dont remember this bgm. was it when they were walking inside the island forest ?
untrodden island: funny sounds in the middle of the track so dont skip it. Sounds like Kajiura took out her kitchen wear and started playing em.
his tenderness, his love: Sweet piano / cello bgm
his memories, his pain: This is the bgm from after Abel met Helena. Love it both sweet and sad :(
Vice versa: I remember I looped the anime dancing scene 10-15 time just to listen to this <3
Probably the best track in the soundtrack <3 Weird how its so early in the soundtrack though.
a gem-mining town: This is partly bgm from trailer and from the german city. LOVE the BAGPIPES! WANT MORE <3 but there is no more T_T. Are those sfxes supposed to be hammers and steam machines ?
I will guard you: Nice harp, but the strings are better ^_^ Happy and sweet track, lovely melody.
his other face, his cruelty : Abel theme, but darker.
his memories, his pain : Most sfx, and the melody is carried by a haunted music box lol
your future is up to you : Another music box bgm
now we have found : Island pop-up bgm. From the duration i can tell it was tailor-made.
battle on to the east: Another chorus bgm. Dont remember if it played in the series.
take action!: I dont remember this either. Its besically Umi to Shinjo battle ver. The drumming sure is unusual for Kajiura. and using accordion on battle bgm too.
what she was here for: Helena BGM! ^_^ (how come its not titled "her name is Helena" lol) I love it <3
you have to make up your mind: Trademark journey Kajiura bgm
time to sail!: Oh first time Kajiura has Tokyo Konsei in this kind of bgm, I dont remember if a place called Eden: it was used in the series. Must be the closest to what @wat considers as symphony :)
a place called Eden: I remember it. Also has Tokyo Konsei.
the land of east: Unnecessarily long and boring 🥱 x 10

It was a really nice soundtrack overall with some tracks that stand out like vice versa, the mining town, the time to sail. But the vocal tracks and some of the bgms were not much more than what appeared in the series and that's a bummer. Guess i was way too excited ^^; I d give this a 7/10.
 
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Disc 1
his name is Abel: Pretty sure this one never played in the series. <- it did, in episode 1 when Abel shows up.
the sea is never without a wave: Trailer bgm with tokyo Konsei . I dont think it was used in the episodes. <- the first minute was, the 2nd wasn't.

Disc 2
battle on to the east: Another chorus bgm. Dont remember if it played in the series. <- it did, when they exploded the lady pirates.
take action!: I dont remember this either. <- it played when Yukimaru jumped on Abel's ship. They never got beyond the OP arrange strings.
I dont remember if a place called Eden: it was used in the series. <- it was the treasury reveal in episode 10, without the bass

And I'm still really disappointed with "what she was here for" on the OST. I'm angry at it, actually.
I'll definitely at least try to work something out whenever lossless Bluray audio appears for the episodes... but I don't know how much is doable. :|

Also funny how they didn't credit lyrics/Joelle on #2-17 time to sail.
 
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Correct if wrong:

Tokyo Konsei: Disc 1: 12 Disc 2: 12, 13, 17, 18
the sea is never without a wave
now we have found
battle on to the east
time to sail!
a place called Eden

Joelle: Disc 1: 17, Disc 2: 1, 6, 15,
fight to the finish
ruins
vice versa
what she was here for

All lyrics are available in the lyrics subforum
 
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Finished. Very refreshing, good world building, and no egregious stringsfes.

The arrangements were fun and lively, nothing ever went on for too long, and Kajiura never seems to be phoning it in. Some tracks were def too short, and the mixing in the Helena track was atrocious; you can barely hear Joelle’s beautiful singing over the instruments.

Other than that I loved this ost and it’s a great palate cleanser after progressive’s mediocre ost.
 
Looked at crunchy audio and "what she was here for"
2:00-end is replacable from episode 9 but, unless there's some miraculously useful extra version included on Blurays, you can't remove the flute from 1:10-1:30, which is the worst sounding flute for me. :( There's no clean version of that part anywhere in the 3 times they played it. Not even just for Joelle's vocals. (They only played those once, at the end of episode 10 with all the water bubbling.)
Perhaps we could frankenstein a version without this part maybe but !#@$!$%!#$%!#$.

Fck this album version. Honestly. I'm genuinely angry with this one.
 
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I really dont get how they can be having the correct mixing in the series, but a bad one in the soundtrack....

But then again there was also that incident with wrong pitch in the SAO Fairyland ost, and that dublicate track too.
 
It's not a mixing difference.
The sound director edited the fuck out of this track every time it appeared.
Most importantly (and smart) he was VERY selective with un/muting the flute from what I presume was the original version that we got on OST.
 
Honestly, I wasn’t expecting the soundtrack to be that good. I was bored during 7 min (I was just a child / something ugly in the air / his cruelty / his real wish) but that’s it! The rest is music.

3/5 (1/10 of my library)
  • a small pearl: love this piano! She should do more pieces like that.
  • dawn is breaking, ship is on the way: chill.
  • everyday is a gift: 0:57 love these piano notes drop and all the sub-melodies.
  • a lively town: accordion and guitar, like “Bear”, but totally different. Good old time.
  • to find your truth: I feel like this track is written with such dedication. Maybe the most important scene of the show, yet it was no more than a dialogue. Kajiura delivered with accuracy here, this track expresses a lot despite being “simply” acoustic.
  • his memories, his pain: Those harp notes at 1:00 are so delicious. G-Spot of the harp.
  • battle on to the east: way more generic, but those are so few in this soundtrack! 0:30-0:50 pictures the ship battles well. Somehow I wish there was more action on the sea. Not like Battleship, more like POTC ofc.
  • take action!: ugh hard key changes and the kind of flute I don’t enjoy really much, but wow accordion! Need this for the next Soundtrack Special. It could also be super-extended with other instruments such as trumpet and e.g.
  • the land of east: strings, but also harp and single violin. Quite enjoyable, actually.
4/5 (1/40)
  • you have to choose your way: Both modern (beat) and tribal (percussions). The arrangement makes it differ a lot from “swordland”. Doesn’t make me think of SAO. Just sad for this title that is among the most generics Kajiura has ever done.
  • the sea is never without a wave: the only badass track here. I like that she doesn’t simply end the track at 1:34 but rather we get this reprise of “something strange is going on”.
  • fight to the finish: More climatic Kajiurago. why wasn’t it used?
  • what she was here for: I think that the melody is led by the flute, and strings, harp and kajiurago decorate it as elegantly as the waves would do in a calm sea… as elegant as Helena dancing. Meh the title. But could have been worse if it was “something ugly in the air”. Lol.
  • time to sail!: So adventurous! Exprimental Tokyo Konsei. A conductor in a concert wouldn’t be able to retain a smile, I think.
  • a place called Eden: more experimental choirs. We used to compare it to Madoka, but imo, conceptually close to a “Humanity” level.
5/5 (1/100)
  • vise versa: Perfection. On a “preparation” level. Still don’t know where, but could land in my Top 10 Kajiura tracks (not songs).
Without taking attention to the track titles, I can only say “good job” to Yuki Kajiura. I didn’t need any of the tracks to be longer (unlike all of you??? I'm usually a crybaby when it comes to length under 4min lol). I would have enjoyed more pirate music, but the show didn’t really pretend to be about piracy. Still, from my standpoint, this work already has its own identity. The music is enjoyable in its own, but for having seen the show, it will bring me some good adventurous memories, just like one would still have the sound of waves in ears back from holidays at the beach. Well… seems like Kajiura still has talent in store. Round of applause. Will try to grab a copy in Japan one day…

+-
no string-festmaybe too much flute like you guys said
own identitynot so pirate
good musicdumbass titles and vise-versa
track length / start and ending = oktotal soundtrack length could have been longer.
no SFXno Minori Suzuki x Yuki Kajiura
 
It's not a mixing difference.
The sound director edited the fuck out of this track every time it appeared.
Most importantly (and smart) he was VERY selective with un/muting the flute from what I presume was the original version that we got on OST.
You could message Kajiura about it since you bought the soundtrack anyway 🙂

@Justisamuel there were 2 sfx tracks but fortunately were only 2. - just look at my review.

Actually not being piraty for the show is a bad thing considering it was in the show title and there were a bunch of pirate villains who died too fast. Poor girls didnt even get a theme music for themselves 😅
 
Shitty visual aide for how "what she was here for" was looped/chopped/edited in the show.
The sync is not perfect cause I did this almost 2 months ago when I was trying make head and tails of what the OST version could be. Turns out I was mostly right... I just wasn't expecting they'd have the flute and Joelle's vocals at the same time so I gave up synching further... >:|
(if there's no comment then it's the same as CD.)
(the red line is the 2 minute mark when Joelle comes back, I didn't bother showing the rest - ep9&10 and the last loop of 11 go to the end)

whatshewashere4.jpg
 
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Honestly, I wasn’t expecting the soundtrack to be that good. I was bored during 7 min (I was just a child / something ugly in the air / his cruelty / his real wish) but that’s it!
You were bored on "his cruelty"? I thought that's such a nice zaregotoish arrange of Abel's theme. :( (Though I do wish we additionally got the background layer separately like it was used in the show. m031 in the rips.)
or was that supposed to say "his insanity"? (fuck those titles)

[*]battle on to the east: way more generic, but those are so few in this soundtrack! 0:30-0:50 pictures the ship battles well.
That's my favorite part that I wish was expanded rather than whatever happened in the 2nd half of this OST version.
 
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@george1234 I do enjoy those particular sfx in « a gem-mining town »! Should be a new Minecraft theme lol
Other few sfx here didn’t bother me, unlike those she used to do in other shows esp SAO (anxious tunnel sounding and so on).

@grunty I admit I don’t like it a lot, since there is no melodic progression and moreover because it sounds cute for something that should be « cruel ». IMO it wasn’t fitting Abel’s dark flashbacks well, and I thought it was an easy way out to say: « hey, it’s the past and dude is lost ». Although being darker, the following track « his insanity » is even worse. Just my humble and broken opinion ofc ^^
 
I see. :(
I mean, it wasn't used in this complete form (or for Abel at all) in the show so clearly the director also had troubles with it, lol.
Instead only used the bg layer for Fena&crew wandering through caves(5)/Eden forest(10).

Well, me likey. Great arrange of Abel's theme and even further transformed in the 2nd half.
 
it’s probably not so bad, I just can’t take it out of the context. It’s still an okay segment on its own, but why not just using it as the first part of one track (the second part would be « his name is Abel »). Would justify those extra seconds of arrangement and make the violin dropping and more impactful. Take « for the person I love » as an example. I know, probably different opinion of yours since iirc you like bgms to be properly distributed in the soundtrack. Just an idea.

As for the part of « battle on the east » we’re sharing, yep, I like this sense of urgency it creates.
 
Nice.

Edit:
Kinda cuts off at 22kHz which is sus but who knows.
 
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I was just a child, something ugly in the air, the waves are rippling, tender memories, give me truth, mystical, untrodden island, his tenderness his love, his insanity his real wish, your future is up to you, now we have found, - boring.
the red-light district night - ok soothing accordion.
happy feeling - that proverbial silly track.
noisy times - this I like very much. so fun and bright. the drums and beats are super.
small pearl - that proverbial piano track. but yes works.
something strange is going on - I actually like this, thought I wouldn't. The beats + cello work.
the old knights - Kajiuran brass always welcome. very nice.
he is behind your back - like the second half.
you have to choose your way - compared to "swordland" this title is so bland lol. have to say. I love it. the beats, drums, strings, brass work work work!! THIS HAS TO BE DONE BY AN ORCHESTRA.
his name is Abel - ah. another track I was waiting for. lovely chamber music. (@george1234 it did play but like the first 20sec or so iirc)
the sea is never without a wave - 1:10 "sand dream" anyone ? ?? ? ? ! ! I like the ending with the leitmotif. tokyo konsei not so much. doesn't resonate wimme.
dawn is breaking, ship is on the way - so calm. love it.
calling of my heart - see above.
fight to the finish - so Kajiuran. I am so glad Joelle is the one singing and not Hanae, would have felt too familiar. wow FLUTE IS LOOOOUD at 0:57. eh ok. strings are so good here. still loud flute, they messed up the levels I bet. I forgive.
everyday is a gift - ahhh the other one I was waiting. so lovely so lovely. the violin entry is perfect. piano takeover is perfect. then violin takeover is perfect. then cello enters. yes!
a lively town - Iwadare-tier beats, love it.
to find your truth - another on my waitlist. each instrument had a purpose. their appearances are perfect. so so so good. ending with chimes super!
ruins - I like it. it's super atmospheric.
his memories, his pain - love the melody, the harp and cello.
vice versa - ooooffff. one of the best vocal tracks in a long while I'd say. such a lovely folk song. except the "folk" language is Kajiuran lol. love it.
a gem mining town - as if it's from Nier's automaton song.
I will guard you - another dearly waited. the middle part of strings always brings me to tears, so stirring.
his other face, his cruelty - this track some weird sfx, like a paper burning or pebbles rolling (e.g. 0:36-38)...
battle on the east - I like the strings. Tokyo Konsei is redundant imo.
take action! - love this one too. wow that accordion.
what she was here for - another on my watchlist. soo soul stirring. flute is overpowering Joelle. I can forgive I think... at the end the double bass (?) addition is great.
you have to make up your mind - classic. I like it.
time to sail! - I LOVE THIS KIND OF MUSIC ! ! YES YES. superb. Tokyo Konsei SUPER WELCOME HERE. (usually i bitch about its use if you haven't noticed it) the different melodies come together so so well. every second is so adventurous it carries you.
a place called Eden - so Madokaesque. I have mixed feelings. I didn't like it in the show but with the beats I feel more positive toward it.
the land of east - I don't hate it, I think but it's too much strings. and too long.


woowow that's so many songs I liked. this ost. I may get. could be the second Kajiuran ost I actually own.
 
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