by David Hsing on 17th of December, 1999
Soyokaze no Sonachina
Very well done. It's quite a nice sounding remix with a good, moderate beat. It's what the song sounds like if it's turned into an anime pop song, even though it may seem sometimes that the remix is playing to Fuu's voice instead of Fuu singing to the music because the original song is, well, a sonatina. The song still manages to fit though.
Zutto
I don't know how they managed it but they changed the song while still managing to remain true to the original feel. It has the feel of the original, except this version sounds more perky. The reverb made it sound as if you're in some kind of a trance or a dream while Fuu is singing to you - a toe-tapping dream, if that's possible!
Awai Kaze
This is the remix I've been waiting to hear. I was pleasantly surprised. Since the original was so good I was kind of expecting it to be ruined by a remix but it wasn't. In a nutshell, the remix replaced the romantic streets of Paris with the grand vistas of a desert sunset.
Extra Bits
As with the Umi CD it has an animated talking calculator and an animated talking clock showing what cute little SD Fuu is doing at the time (eating, sleeping, at school etc). One of the picture files is the full graphic from which the CD cover is produced (the CD cover is only the middle portion of it) while the others are files of unknown format (probably of the same thing). The sound folder contains .wav files of Fuu voices that you can use for Windows events.
Verdict
All in all, it was worth the ridiculous amount of money I spent acquiring it (the only payment option the eBay auctioner in Japan offered was international money order sent via global priority mail and the only mailing option was EMS. Those things add up to more than the item itself... OUCH), mainly because I just HAVE to have it because I'm a Fuu fan. However, as far as music is concerned the Fuu Extra CD is better than the Umi one since the Umi CD has one spectacular song followed by two _strange_ ones while all the Fuu remixes are pretty decent.
Now that I have 2 of these remix CDs to compare, I start to notice a trend. The remixes on the CDs cater to the personality of their characters- The Umi ones are hard-driving, frantic, and in 2 remixes over-the-top. The Fuu ones are calm, airy and reassuring. Which makes me wonder what the Hikaru cd is like (I know it's most likely to be "genki")... maybe I'll get one if those companies lower their prices. Ohno, I'm not even gonna _think_ about getting the Mokona one; let's not go to the bad place.
