Anime: Shangri-La

I hate Gonzo. I always have. They keep making anime that could be good if they grew some balls. But most of all I hate the CG they have always foisted on us. CG does not belong in anime. It cheapens it in a most awful way. So when this Gonzo anime came across an anime tube I was casually browsing one day, I thought "this looks interesting". Then I found it was by Gonzo I nearly clicked it off without a second thought. But I noticed something I've never noticed in a Gonzo anime before - no obvious CG.

My interest was piqued. The opening was pretty bad - boomerang that destroys everything in big explosions, loli heroine in school uniform etc, but once the show itself started it seemed grounded. So I watched an episode. Then I watched another. And another and so on. Until 8 episodes in I found myself quite liking it thank-you-very-much. This is important. A lot of animes I've watched have not really kept me wanting to know what happened next, and rightly or wrongly, I wanted to watch the next episode straight away. There is a lot to like here.
I liked the post apocalyptic world/economy world that was built. The economic plot that informs the background of the story may have been gibberish, but it worked precisely because it was vague (though for the life of me how some people were offended by this part of the show is beyond me, it's not like we haven't seen an eco driven back story before). I liked that it had a story that was building slowly and had bizarre goings on without any explanations, something that annoys me on some animes, but on this it felt like it was teasing (in a good way). I liked that it had a hacking side story that reminded me of GitS. The sound design was especially suited to this. I also liked the art design, I found later that it was the same guy who had designed the characters for Last Exile, a show completely ruined by rubbish CG and, well, being bit boring. The otaku characters I think deserve a mention, I thought they were good comic relief. I liked that this show went counter to anime tropes by having the best looking woman on the show actually be a man. Not content with having one transsexual, "her" best friend was also a transsexual. Both characters back stories were well done. Reading many comments on this and other forums, this clearly caused some issues with some viewers. While they were not always handled very well - the better looking of the two and best friend of the heroine constantly quipped some asinine remark about sex and her sexual preferences - they added a new dimension to a show that maybe it doesn't deserve.

Which leads to some bad points. The main character was alright, but a change of uniform might have been wise from time to time. I don't know if this was just to please fan boys or a cost cutting measure, both probably. The pink hair didn't bother me like it does for some, but as a character, she wasn't strong enough to carry the show and this can be a big failing. Most of the characters were fairly poor and only in the last 2-3 episodes do we understand their motivations, this could have been dealt with better by simply not having everything blasted at us in the last few episodes. The boomerang weapon was sometimes overpowered - as I mentioned, the OP shows it destroying tanks and whatnot. This I can take, it's anime for crying out loud. But other times the boomerang did exactly what you would expect it to do. "Inconsistent boomerang" should be new description added to the anidb description entry.

Inconsistent is the watchword for this show. It really suffers from identity crisis - as in who the target audience is. This leads to having some violence, but very little in the way of blood. Someone gets punched or slapped, and some blood is shown, someone gets shot and we see none. Torturous, blood curdling screams from a hell girl writhing in agony in a nightmare room is fine, having our heroine's very short school skirt (try saying that fast 3 times) flapping at her waist is apparently not. If you can't get flapping mini skirts right, then don't dress her in one in the first place. The sexual remarks from her transsexual bff are geared to a more mature audience, along with another supernatural girls' proclivity toward snapping peoples bodies out of shape, but again no blood. No mess, as if this was geared toward Saturday morning TV. But, the story is not easy to follow, due to, yes, inconsistent writing, but also because it does have a lot going on - which is what drew me to this anime in the first place.

But through the inconsistency and bloodlessness I enjoyed this show and it wrapped up all the loose ends in a slightly rushed and erratic but satisfying way. All the main characters do have motivations, and these are laid bare, something many animes seem to forget. It had ambition, but if only the show had the balls to go in one direction - more violent and grown up, and I would recommend it without reservation. It has that indefinable hook, however there is something definitely missing in this show, and it really feels like a missed opportunity and in many ways this makes it worse than average shows. But anime is so conservative and lacking in any ambition these days that this actually stands out. Shangri-La maybe Gonzo's best work, certainly the best I've seen, though this is faint praise.
Recommended if you like post apocalyptic eco settings and a bit of hacking, it's definitely a guilty pleasure and one I found myself really enjoying.

Shangri-La came out at a time when people were finally beginning to realize what a crapfest studio GONZO was all along. It took them 10 years but after the repeated failures even the fanboys started to have their doubts. So as soon as this show is announced, most tried to find some hints that may lead to the series being good for a change. The cover picture sure didn’t look promising, since all we see is a pink-haired loli with a boomerang. But alas, the character designer is Renge Murata, who drew the casts of Last Exile and Blue Submarine No.6. With such a great character designer, this show can’t possibly fail!... Or that is what they thought. Silly gonzotards, this was the best claim they could come up with; anything vaguely reminded of Last Exile is auto-win. Since when was Last Exile a great show to begin with? And since when is something as unimportant as character looks the most important thing in a show? Maybe in storyless moe this stands true but this is not the case. Anyways, the show turned out to be indeed nothing more than what the main picture was showing all along: A pink-haired loli with a boomerang. OBVIOUS OR WHAT?

So what is the story about anyway? Basically it is a retarded version of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. It is about the world being taxed on how much they pollute the environment, and how some cities are redesigned as places where the air is filtered. It is about jungles and cities mixing together and security organizations attacking civilian areas if the slightest change in carbon dioxide is spotted. This interesting concept is of coursed completely trashed at the hands of the idiots writing the script, so all attempts at trying to make the series to appear intelligent, pro-ecological and social-political are turned to a travesty… Oh, did I tell you there are actual transvestites in this series?

Although the setting is a mature sci-fi dystopia, the characters living in it are a bunch of shounen and moe archetypes, completely irrelevant to their surrounds. This alone destroys any credibility in getting to like the themes, since what you get is like a tropical forest full of pink polar bears.
- Here you are watching a world trying to recover from a devastating ecological catastrophe and then a loli appears that to the most part she is being vulgar to her peers and jumps all over the place while her mini skirt mysteriously doesn’t follow the laws of physics and stays down all the time. She fights by using a boomerang that somehow is more powerful than a hundred soldiers and a dozen tanks that are constantly firing at her. She is not all alone of course; she is aided by her transvestite friends who love to molest soldiers during battles. Yes, you just see the quality oozing from the scriptwriters’ armpits.
- Here you are watching a rather complicating economical system of taxing based on carbon dioxide emissions which is deciding the fate of entire nations. And then a blond hacker loli with a teddy bear hacks everything with a magical creature and the balance of funds changes as it feels like it. Woah, amazing tactics there you guys.
- Here you are watching a jungle that feels closer to a Wizard of Oz forest.
- Why the devil is the heroine dressed as a school girl in a setting that has no high schools? Why is her hair pink? Half-assed otaku bait bullcrap; that’s why.
- Everything is explained in forced monologues and in your face, in the most fake way possible. There is no way they would be so explanatory about things they know so well for decades.
- And despite the forced explanations, almost nothing seems to make sense in the logrun. It’s like the characters break the fourth wall to tell you how their unicorn turns invisible but otherwise never tell you where the devil did they found the unicorn in the first place.
- The directing is horrible as usual. Most events are hardly presented with the gravity they deserve, they are either too superficial, or too vague, or too slow, or too rushed. It makes you thing everything is, like GONZO, a farce.

The production values are also not good. Although the sceneries are quite captivating with their detailed jungles and industrial areas, the foreground is one big mess of generic and usually crudely drawn character figures, random action scenes, and messy BGM that is thrown almost randomly at each scene. So much for Murata’s designs saving the show you gonzotards! They look awful! Especially the trannies.

What is even worse is that you will not be able to remember any of the characters. Theirs looks and personalities are so simple and stupid, they get automatically deleted from your brain five minutes after the episode is over. Most of them don’t even have backdrop stories, and those who do are barely hinted but never clearly explained. Their motivations also make no sense at all and they seem to change their minds for no reason, all the time. You can’t even remember them based on their clothes because the main loli is dressed as generically as it gets, while the more flamboyant personalities such as the trannies and the crazy company mistress change clothes on every episode. So no wonder that the only things I remember from the over fifty characters in this show are a boomerang thrown by some generic moe girl, some power that kills you by telling a lie to another boring loli, and TRAAAANIEEES!

And now for some excused scorings.

Note: This review is based on O-L fansubs. Yeah, yeah, I know my reviews are too long. I believe the first paragraph and conclusion sum up my opinion of this particular show quite well. If you don't care about the details you might as well skip the stuff I've wrote after sectioning... It's not that long now is it?



Originally written as a novel by Ikegami Eiichi and directed by Bessho Makoto Shangri-La[/b] is a dystopia sci-fi show with some nice action as a side dish. It tells an ambitious story behind humanity's last hopes to cling to life after it failed its carbon management thus obliterating human-friendly environment. You are put in the shoes of a young girl, Hojo Kuniko, who appears to be a respected leader-like figure of a terrorist group Metal-Age, which strives to make government put all people, disregarding their political status, into a perfectly human-habitable sky fortress, Atlas (as it appears some poor guys got left out to live on the earth's surface, where rain is enough to kill you). As usual in such shows there is a considerable amount of occult stuff going on and you'll be seeing many twists and mysteries unveiled, it's just too bad that the bigger half of the fascinating setting has no credible justification.

Personally I found Shangri-La to come off much like a watered-down version of last year's Bounen no Xamdou. In other words, it's a half-assed realization of a story with great potential and is a waste of fascinating setting. At the same time, however, I believe it's not as bad as its average rating might lead you to believe. Sure, it has many unjustified details in its setting, pace of the plot hiccups every now and then and the cast is dull, but, you know, even if half-assed I'd take a dystopia full of occult mysteries and sci-fi stuff over an adolescent pervert chasing girl's panties what seems to be all the rage in the anime community these days. It's not like Shangri-La is particularly original, and it's likely you can predict many of its stuff before it unveils it, but, nonetheless, it definitely has a few good surprises to make your day. It's just too bad that an utter lack of explanations for many things will at times only let you hypothesize at best, at what the hell is really going on (or happened). The show also offers a number of action sequences which though not particularly outstanding aren't that bad either, at least I did get the kicks out of boomerangs destroying the planes, heh. All in all, Shangri-La is a show which could have been good but failed to live up to its potential (and it's certainly not the first time for GONZO). It's not really bad, it's average, that's it. Give it a shot if you have nothing better to do, but don't expect too much.

Animation: 6/10

Animation made by GONZO is... okay if looked from the present day standards. For starters, backgrounds are certainly the best part of Shangri-La's artwork, there is a moderate amount put into things like forests and city rubbles making them look relatively realistic and attractive for the eye. The scenery of Tokyo covered by carbon forests might as well be the best atmospheric device to suck you into the show. The insides of buildings, however, are the usual sci-fi blue walls and halls of nothingness, so you wont be exactly satisfied if you are one to look for interior detail.

There is some serious inconsistency between the quality of character designs when you look at different camera zooms. When up-close they look above average with enough lines to fully immerse you in the show, and when the camera is panned-out it looks as if the the labor gets forced on a team of trained monkeys which can hardly produce similar, much less attractive art. It's good, however, that camera doesn't pan-out that much so you wont be bothered by an inconsistent quality that often. Original designs aren't particularly marvelous, however, as the show strives to be realistic, kind off. We actually have pink, green, silver hair and the like, but none of the designs are worthy of fashion label. Well, the green haired sadistic CEO from Atlus company does change her outfits a lot, but like the state of her mind, her fashion sense is at best questionable. The only other design which comes off as memorable belongs to the transsexual friend of Kuniko, but frankly, I wasn't particularly comfortable about him demonstrating new sexy outfits every episode... I wonder what were they aiming at, heh. Anyway, you wont remember main heroine, Kuniko, for long as her design is a short pink cut and that's about it. Other characters come off as 'meh' as well, unfortunately. Though the doll like attire of that creepy Moon Palace priestess, or whatever, does look kind of cool when I think about it.

There is nothing significant in fluidity of animation department in Shangri-La. Action scenes are few and they are okay, there are no choppy moments, nor you will notice anything breathtaking. Inbetweens aren't forgotten and are used whenever the show needs it, though now that I think about it, it never needed them that much. There is nothing particularly special with direction either, you see what you are shown, that's all. Nothing surreal, nothing artsy, but I guess everybody can't be Shaft, can they... and I'm sure that GONZO of all the things certainly can't.

Sound: 6/10

The sound stage of Shangri-La doesn't particularly stand out, save maybe for its pretty nice energetic OP Kimi Shinitamou Koto Nakare by May'n. The lyrics about the end of the world and the imagery of carbon forests might as well been the first things that actually drawn my interest towards this show. ED, while not as catchy, is also a pretty nice song, good to listen if you want to relax after the episode (it's perfectly skip-able material though). Background music composed by Kuroishi Hitomi is a mixed bag. There are a few nice tracks, but you'll be lucky if you hear a nice one twice in the show. The overall stage is dominated by silence and bland melodies you'll hardly notice. It does get quite nice during important moments though, but nothing nice enough to make you get the OST.

There is absolutely nothing memorable in the voice stage, main characters, like Kuniko by Takahashi Mikako, sound okay and fit their roles well, so does the side cast. You might get the kicks out of listening to these transsexual voices, but I didn't. And frankly I can't believe they actually made Nakata Jouji act like that... It made me want to hear how Norio Wakamoto would do in such a role now, damn. Anyway, I couldn't find a single voice to be charmed with here and while I couldn't find any to loathe either, the end result isn't something I'd call particularly pleasing.

Story: 6/10

The setting of Shangri-La is fascinating, and, mind you, it's not the first time GONZO fails to deliver everything the setting begs from them. Humanity has basically fucked up in its carbon management and the earth is now covered in carbon forests and all the other things not particularly friendly to human life. Most of humanity (at least in Japan) lives in a special fortress above the ground, while only the outcasts and the poor are forced to live in special territories on the surface which still support, if barely, human life. Economy is now based completely on carbon and there are these Neo-Carbonists who manipulate it to completely control economy of the world. There is also this group of anti-government terrorists who seemingly enjoy being led by a young girl, heh.

The first impression of Shangri-La is that it's just another one of those dystopian fictions where environment is fucked up, humanity is on verge of extinction and there is a lot of weird occult inspired sci-fi going on. And you bet, the first impression sums the show up quite perfectly. Though Shangri-La gets an extra point for having carbon forests rather than desert wastelands. Anyway, though not a new idea overall Shangri-La does indeed spurt much original, albeit seldom explained stuff to fascinate your imagination. Unfortunately the pace of the show is quite uneven, offering you many yawn-inducing moments at the beginning and going down the roller-coaster near the end with enough twists and new information to blow your head up. But hell, what else could you expect from a team that GONZO hires...

When watching Shangri-La I seldom got the feeling that I'm not actually seeing everything what is going on in it. There are many moments where matters get resolved and characters overcome their troubles somewhere in-between the episodes and you are at best only hinted that such stuff actually happened. In a sense it does make the show fractured, but at least it makes this snail-like anime move a little bit faster. Nonetheless, the usual Gonzo'ish refusal to explain all the fascinating parts of the setting is unforgivable. While you can overcome the pesky itching if you can tune your suppression of disbelief at will, it still is annoying when in the middle of the show you find yourself completely lost of how and why some things work. I mean, seriously, what the hell is that Medusa after all? I think I've changed my perception of him four times through the show and I feel neither of times was I any right. If it's really alive and living somewhere in the sea, how the hell can it hack into things? Heck, how could a little girl create him and put him unto the other part of the globe?

It's really nice that an anime has a beginning and an end for a change. It's not really nice, however, that the conclusion of the show failed to deliver the big boom it was building up. That is, of course, attributable to the last few episodes being rushed to the level where you can actually notice stuff getting purposely omitted, like scenes suddenly jumping into the future or conclusions being made from something that was never shown happening. Frankly, I can only hypothesize about the meaning behind half of the things that happened in the show as there is simply not enough explanations in it to come up with a solid theory (thanks GONZO, you never let me down). I also feel I've gotten quite a different impression from the ending than the creators themselves did. Shangri-La my ass, I'd like to see what's going on in that hole after a few years has passed... *cough*. Anyway, Shangri-La, like many other GONZO's anime, is a piece with much potential, many nice ideas and putrid realization. The story it tells is not exactly bad, but it's hard to call it particularly good either, it's hanging there somewhere... around the middle.

Characters: 5/10

The team behind Shangri-La weren't particularly good at making their characters as you can notice many, and I mean many, awkward scenes where the cast say or do something to fit the plot with no regard to heir own personality traits. The cut off of many scenes where our guys develop also hurts the character department much... Not to mention that most of them have no backdrop and exist in situations that are simply impossible. For example, my favourite character in the show, a 10-or-so years old girl super hacker and Neo-Carbonist, Karin, who appears to have created the Medusa system herself is living shut somewhere underground without an option to leave. Ok. How about food? How the hell does she get her candies there without leaving the damn place? Moreover, where in the name of hell is she, and why a ten years old girl is in a place like this, doing stuff like that?... GONZO syndrome you say, well, sure it is. So if you can't stand your characters existing in unjustified hardly possible setups, you are better off not touching anything with GONZO's name on it.

Anyway, Shangri-La is quite an ambitious (fail) show that spurts a huge cast with various traits. It's almost funny how almost no one in such a huge cast is interesting. The show has, basically, four habitats of individual characters whose paths, naturally, intervene later in the show. Kuniko's band of terrorists come first, with main lead being a cheerful energetic girl who can blow up tanks and fighter aircrafts with a boomerang. Her character, however, isn't as interesting as her super power as she is... just your usual think-little be good and energetic and save the world lead the anime world is full of. She has a transvestite maternal figure with her who takes the role of her guide of life and also spurts some interesting whip involving super powers. There is also this man who leads terrorists when on the field and is always by Kuniko's side, but near the middle of the show some weird hardly justified things start to happen with his character so you can as well ignore him. Other guys in this particular habitat aren't interesting enough to mention, so that's it for Kuniko.

Next one is the Moon Palace (I wonder what the hell it really is) whose master is a creepy doll-like girl Mikuni. Apparently she can't get out in the sun so she is kind of stuck in the place. It's good for all the people who like to enjoy the sun however, as she also has a power to unconsciously kill everyone who are not honest with her (I wonder how that works, sure would come in handy if you could utilize it via the net). She has this slightly freaky moderately sadistic woman with her who also seems to have a humiliation fetish. She acts as a scientist and develops various weird things and appears to know more than she lets of. Nothing particularly interesting with her character, but the show actually bothers to give a hint behind her past so she deserves a mention. That's it for Moon Palace.

Then there is Atlas itself with its CEO being one of the most sadistic crazy bastards of a woman I have ever seen. Her lack of fashion sense is only outlived by her unprecedented violence towards the people who work for her, particularly the poor guy who is even forced to wipe her down after a bath, heh. Her attitude works, however, to set a pretty hate-able villain and she takes most of the light near the end. She also has a harem of male characters who have some roles near the end, but lack everything, including backdrop and even any sort of fleshing-out, thus failing to do anything significant. There is also this guy from army who is almost labeled third main character (after Kuniko and Mikuni), but he completely fails to live up to the role. His kind heart and indecisive personality makes him into a pretty useless character throughout with barely anything interesting to offer... Not to mention that near the end he gives the most hilarious five-minute five changes of heart performance... without any justification, again.

Finally, the last habitat would be the Neo-Carbonist group which is by far my favourite. While in character depth they are on the same level as the other guys I have already mentioned before, they are much more interesting... at least to me they were. The main one of them, a young girl named Karin, I have already mentioned before, has a tsundere'ish pompous attitude and plans to take over the economy of the whole world. And I must say, that was certainly a more exciting plan than anything else any other characters in the show were doing. Anyway, other Neo-Carbonists are quite hilarious, particularly the French girl who goes bankrupt every now and then, deciding to enter monastery every time and changing her mind soon after.

There are many other side characters, but the only ones that deserve a mention are the three otaku geezers each of who exhibit a different part of otaku obsession. The fat guy with neko-mimi and zettai ryouiki is damn freaky. Anyway, the trio is really funny and that's a good thing. It's too bad they don't have that much screen-time. Anyway, all in all, the cast of Shangri-La is huge, but the majority of characters aren't interesting, and even the one's that are lack backdrops and justified developments to catch your attention. Some characters, at best, sometimes achieve the positive status of being simply cool, or being just funny, but that's about it.

Myers-Briggs personality indicator:

Miiko - ISFJ (E)
Mikuni - INFP (E)
Sayoko - ESTJ (E)
Momoko - ENFJ (E)
Takehiko - ESTP (F)
Ishida Karin - INTJ (D)
Naruse Ryouko - ENTJ (E)
Houjou Kuniko - ENFP (E)
Kusanagi Kunihito - ISTP (F)

Show Spoiler

Value: 4/10

The slow pace and the mystery driven plot of the show certainly don't make it a re-watch friendly material. There are barely any memorable scenes or cool moments I'd like to relive, so, yeah, I'm not watching this one again. I've seen it, I know it, and I'm sure I don't want to see it again. Thus, watch and delete it is.

1. Conclusion[/b]:[/u] Shangri-La is an occult sci-fi filled dystopia show and chances are you have already seen something similar to it before. It has some nice twists and surprises up its sleeve, but the realization of its plot is weak and the cast is nowhere strong enough to keep your interest for long. Sure, it's a waste of potential, but it still is not a bad show, it's not good either so it's your time and you decision to watch it or not. Other shows similar to Shangri-La I didn't like that much are Last Exile and Bounen no Xamdou. Good dystopia shows I did like are Now and Then, Here and There, Trigun, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and my favourite - Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

[/ol]

Shangri-La

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Introduction

With this review I'm going to try to give you an idea of this anime. I will try to either separate my own opinion from the facts or at least make it visible for you, so that you always know whether I'm suggesting something or whether it's a matter of fact. I'm also trying to spoil as little as possible; however a review is almost always a bit of a spoiler and hence you should decide on your own whether to keep reading or not. If you are going to watch the anime anyway I'd suggest you don't read this review.
I started to watch this anime, because I had an opportunity to get my hands on a 1080p HDTV (by O-L) rip. At first I wasn't even sure whether I'd drop this anime or not, but as the story and the characters developed, I decided to continue. I didn't regret this, because it got better almost at the half of it (around episode 10).

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Story and characters

As the short description on aniDB says, the story is set in a - arguably distant - future where Tokyo became a forest that absorbs carbon dioxide. There is a tower city called Atlas, which is considered a last resort for the Japanese people. Unfortunately there is trouble and hence it doesn't seem that the politicans are interested in "rescuing" all the people from the poisoneus forest.
The story revolves around a group of people who call themselves "Metal-Age". This group helps the people, who are not in Atlas yet and thus suffer from diseases, hunger and other problems. You might compare that group to Robin Hood ("take from the rich ones and give it to the poor ones").
Kuniko Houjou is a skilled girl amongst that group. She's very energetic, tries to think positive and of course a bit naive. At her side there are Momoko and Mi-ko, who are both transsexual. They often make jokes about it - which is one of the comedy aspects of the anime. Another one is Takehiko, who's the tough guy in the group. He's responsible for quite a few funny actions as well - yet the anime manages to not drift into "trash-comedy". Comedy, action and a bit of romance and horror are all neatly mixed and the series itself tries to keep the balance for as long as possible. This however doesn't mean that there are no exceptions: there's quite a bit of violence (not necessarily involving blood) which can seem disturbing at times, and yet funny at others.
The story seems to be standing still for about 10 episodes, while the viewer is getting to know the Metal Age and their problems as well as Atlas. The viewer also has a lot of time to understand Kuniko's character. Near the middle of the series the anime starts out to uncover more and more secrets of Atlas while also revealing characters and their positions within the world (I can assure you that you might not expect the way things turn out). At the end - near the end - the viewer can almost feel Kunikos thoughts and feelings himself. Yet the end is another turn of events; I guess it's better you find it out for yourself though.

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Audio and visuals

While Range Muratas art is very impressive on paper, it's somehow not that impressive in the anime itself. Especially the eyes of many characters seem to be very uncommon and sometimes even "out of place". This put aside the characters look pretty usual - except that there are no real schools where Kuniko comes from, yet she's wearing a school uniform. The backgrounds - while staying often the same - are of high quality and level of detail. Overall it's a mix of the streets you might already find nowadays with some futuristic thoughts (especially in Atlas). This is not a bad thing - just something you have to get used to (which you got plenty of time for).
All characters are easy to distinguish, because of their unique appearance and the way they behave.

Takahashi Mikako did a wonderful job on lending Kuniko her voice. I think the voice is very convincing at all situations. Same goes to all the other characters. At some of the characters you can't really conclude what they think at some moments (Lady Mikuni for example) - it's hard to tell whether she does things on purpose or not.
The music is also very good. It always matches the scenes and the current mood and atmosphere. The two soundtracks (you can find them both on cdjapan.co.jp) contain all the music from the anime as well as the opening and the ending. However there's an opening single, which has the full version of the opening and the karaoke as well some other song and karaoke version.
You can't really compare the soundtrack to other soundtracks, because some pieces are very unique (especially those with soft backing voices); there are happy and sad / melancholic tracks on it.

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Opinion

In contrast to many people I know, who think this anime "sucks", I think the anime is quite good. Even though the setting as well as the overall story is a bit predictable, it's still a joy to sit and feel with the characters. As to the characters: the most important thing about them is that they really don't look like one another. They are different and you can see it with every word they speak and every movement they make.
While it took me 3 tries to finish the first 10 episodes, I "rushed" the rest of them within one day. This isn't a lot, but considering the fact that I had to work and prepare stuff at home it's quite a way.

If you're looking for action and an interesting story with lots of different and small jokes, a show where you have really atmospheric moments you almost feel the wind on your face, and you don't mind the slow development at the beginning - this is definitely an anime you should take a look at. It has a nice story, interesting and really different characters (even though they are made off some stereotypes), nice visuals and good animation as well as nice and matching music and convincing voices.

Hope this review helped. I am always open to any suggestions which could help to improve my reviews (this is my first one). Please excuse my English as it's not my first language and therefore might lack some words or even some sense. I'd be happy to know if this helped you decide or not.

Take care and have fun ^_^;
divStar.