Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Anime Juke Box - Absolute Destiny Apocalypse - Revolutionary Girl Utena

The 1990s were great for fans of the 1970s, because there was a huge nostalgic boom for that disco decade. It explains why we ended up with The Brady Bunch Movie as well as Boogie Nights. But we also had a bit of a 70s throw back for film music and even J-pop featured in anime. One of the most 70s-tastic scores of the 1990s was for the anime series Revolutionary Girl Utena. During the series the leading lady would engage in a sword duel with various rivals, and the whole thing was scored with a full blown 70s rock opera style of pop.

The musical style is kind of hard to describe, so I'll just let you listen to it. This piece is played quite a few times during the series as Utena climbs a glass staircase to face her next dueling opponent. The title can be translated a few ways, but I've always seen it as Absolute Destiny Apocalypse performed by the mysterious J.A. Seazer. And if you think this sounds strange, some of the other dueling songs are even odder.


2 comments:

  1. Reminds me a bit of heavy metal like Iron Maiden. They have those operatic type vocalizations as do a lot of other bands in that genre.

    Somewhere along the way that style became passe and they introduced the cookie monster growling vocals. The beat goes on.

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    1. Yeah and this style contrasts wildly with some of the symphonic score used in the series. And while the contrast is strange on the album, it works just fine in the series... yeah that series is really odd.

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