Title: Animetoonz Presents Kikuko Inoue

Format: U.S. released music CD

Company: Jellybean Records

Length: 12 tracks, approx. 70+ min.

I picked up this CD the other day at Tower and I thought I had bought another Trance CD for my collection. Lo and behold when I popped it into my walkman, I hear a rave version of "Moonlight Densetsu!!" I flipped over the cover and noticed that all the track's names were popular anime opening theme songs. These included songs from Utena, Rayearth, Fushigi Yuugi, and more. It was really neat to hear these likable anime theme songs set to upbeat trance music. My favorite track had immediately become #7; a delightful sounding remix of Card Captor Sakura's "Catch you, Catch me."

The wonderful remixes in this CD were made possible by artists such as DJ Beta, Japan's KGK and Small Jet. All vocals are sung by Kikuo Inoue, a well acclaimed anime seiyuu, or voice actress, who is known by her fans as the familiar voice of Belldandy from Oh My Goddess, Rune Venus from El-Hazard, and various other characters. If you like trance/electronica music, you will definitely enjoy this CD.

Pros: Ms. Inoue's sweet soothing voice singing to recognizable, fast-paced anime songs that you can listen to again and again.

Cons: Be wary, some of the songs sound NOTHING like the originals because of the hardcore electronic background music and sound effects. I found that in some of the tracks that if it weren't for Inoue's voice singing, I would've had NO idea which song I was supposed to be hearing.