Wow, what a surprise this was!
My personal discovery of Tokyo Majin Gakuen came as a result of back-tracking. I had heard of Tenshou Gakuen Gekkouroku at the time of its release, since the composer was the prolific Motoi Sakuraba. But I took interest in the series when Idea Factory published Kamiyo Gakuen Makorouku. From there, I worked my way backwards and found the origins of the series. “Tokyo Majin Gakuen” was released for the Sony PlayStation in 1998, and features a surprisingly high-quality and memorable soundtrack from a sole composer: Takashi Nitta. This particular print is a two disc set that includes the music from the 1998 Toshiba EMI print and adds even more to it.
Nitta arrives on the scene as someone with an apparent knack for composition, but also as someone who had done precious little for VGM in the past. With this game and a follow-up cousin–”Kowloon Youma Gakuen Ki” (also from Shout! Designworks)–I have to wonder, where was Nitta all this time, and where can I get more?
The soundtrack, like most other games in Shout!’s “Gakuen” (School/Academy) series, features Taishou-era musical styles. Early 1900s Japan musical style, complete with the right instruments and the proper harmonic and rhythmic structures, play themselves out here moreso than in most any game soundtrack claiming “traditional” sounds. That said, it’s still a far cry from what real Taishou-era music sounds like. Nitta’s score, actually, reminds me of the “greats” from that same era: Miki Higashino, Michiko Naruke, and even Nobuo Uematsu himself. But with those names, take on an intentionally Asian flavor, but keep the “game music” feel and melodic content, and you’re getting somewhere.
So if Nitta’s composing style is being compared to that of the big names of the 32-bit era, don’t be surprised when I take the next logical step: this soundtrack deserves a lot more attention than it’s gotten. Why doesn’t it get attention? For starters, the game never came to America. This comes as no surprise, since its whole genre (the Sakura Taisen Adventure/RPG style) never even got a chance to shine in North America. Second, the soundtrack was never an easy purchase (coming from MOVIC, a publisher whose goods were difficult for importers to obtain even while it was in print). Today, it would be even harder to find the album.
Along with Nitta’s great music, there is a great collection of vocal tracks found on disc two. Aside one rough-and-tumble Engrish ballad, “Moonlight,” these vocal tracks are some of the best of that era. Not better than Sakura Taisen, per se, but certainly trumping Tokimeki Memorial and its ilk. There’s a lot of musical creativity here.
Take a listen to the audio samples, and I’ll be surprised if you don’t come to the same conclusion as myself: this is a strangely overlooked album among English-speaking VGM collectors. I don’t know, but I wonder if perhaps even the Japanese market overlooked this fine album. Whatever the case, I give it high recommendations.
