Shakugan no Shana Original Soundtrack (灼眼のシャナ オリジナルサウンドトラック Shakugan no Shana Orijinaru Saundotorakku) is a soundtrack album containing the background music as well as the theme songs from the first season of the anime adaptation of Shakugan no Shana. The soundtrack is 49 minutes and 40 seconds long and achieved #158 in the Oricon Weekly Singles charts.
Background[]
The album's booklet contains an interview with Kow Otani, the composer. The Shakugan no Shana anime series director, Takashi Watanabe, had requested Otani compose music inspired by European dark fantasy. Otani enjoyed composing for the series because he liked dark music and fantasy works.[1]
Otani started by composing a track expressing the feel of the entire series, track 1, which would be used in PVs shown at events. At this point, nothing had been animated or illustrated for the series, so Otani had to imagine what Shakugan no Shana was like. Watanabe liked the track and said it influenced his direction of the series' animation. Otani composed the soundtrack over the next several months. There was a lot of freedom in this process because music for anime series are typically made before the animation.[1]
Otani felt that one of the main characteristics of Shakugan no Shana was that it was a work with both dark fantasy and comical everyday life elements which could suddenly swap with each other. He created this gap in his music by having orchestras during battles and pop sounds using computers for everyday scenes. Watanabe had said that the battle scenes should reflect the sword play of the animation, such as the feeling of tension when the characters are keeping a distance between each other and then instantly engaging in battle. Otani told the orchestra to play as if they were playing rhythm instruments, creating not a flowing melody but a rough and forceful sound. Saxophones were added to the orchestra to give a supporting low melody for added tension, a technique frequently used by English film composer Michael Nyman. Nyman often composed for dark films and Otani felt it would work for Shana while he had also always wanted to try using the technique.[1]
Otani also liked the tracks reflecting the suspense before battles, especially track 21, which was tied to Friagne. He placed importance on European-style depth, so he didn't use simple and exciting Hollywood-style melodies for battle and suspense scenes. This reflected the battles in the series, where there were important times of tension where you didn't know whether the characters would fight and they were trying to read each other. Otani enjoyed working on these tracks and felt he captured that depth.[1]
Otani placed importance on poppy, easy-to-remember melodies for everyday scenes. He used many sounds for these tracks, such as hip-hop rhythms, the simple sounds of Celtic music, and the mixing together of traditional European choruses and orchestras. Tracks 6 and 8 resemble Celtic music, cute but somehow sad. He evoked a feeling of peace through sampling sounds from recorders and bouzouki. Otani composed the everyday tracks with Shana and Yūji's characteristics as high school students in mind, particularly Shana's cuteness. Therefore, for sad tracks, Otani tried to convey a girlish sentimental feeling as opposed to an adult's sadness.[1]
For this CD, Otani chose tracks used frequently in the series, tracks he was confident expressed the world of Shana, and tracks which were different from ones in his other works. He considered the flow of the album in his ordering of the tracks.[1]
Track list[]
| # | Track Name | Length | Audio |
| 01 | Shana | 3:10 | |
| 02 | Confusion | 2:07 | |
| 03 | La pensée ce qui est faible Feeble thoughts | 2:07 | |
| 04 | Amusement de personne idiote A foolish person's amusement | 2:03 | |
| 05 | Il se réunit au démon He meets with the demon | 2:16 | |
| 06 | Paysage d'é l'accumulation de jour Landscape of days past | 2:21 | |
| 07 | Faisceau sautant Dancing ray | 2:00 | |
| 08 | Danse des fée Dance of the fairies | 2:28 | |
| 09 | Matin calme Calm morning | 2:22 | |
| 10 | Début d'un jour Start of the day | 2:11 | |
| 11 | Vérité Truth | 2:05 | |
| 12 | Crochet d'oeil Eye hook | 0:09 | |
| 13 | Déformation | 0:08 | |
| 14 | Innocent | 2:06 | |
| 15 | L'absolu décèdent Absolute dying | 2:12 | |
| 16 | Bataille Battle | 2:06 | |
| 17 | Compréhension | 2:26 | |
| 18 | Vanité Vanity | 2:16 | |
| 19 | Destruction | 1:39 | |
| 20 | Poursuite Pursuit | 1:40 | |
| 21 | Mystérieux Mysterious | 2:39 | |
| 22 | Sérieux Serious | 1:44 | |
| 23 | Réveil Awakening | 2:02 | |
| 24 | Hishoku no Sora ~TV SIZE~ 「緋色の空」 〜TVサイズ〜 | 1:33 | |
| 25 | Yoake Umarekuru Shōjo ~TV SIZE~ 「夜明け生まれ来る少女」 〜TVサイズ〜 | 1:50 |
Notes[]
- Tracks 1-23: composed and arranged by Kow Otani
- Track 24: performed by Mami Kawada
- Track 25: performed by Yōko Takahashi