Kaoru Wada is an acquired taste. As with my review of the first movie's soundtrack, InuYasha the Movie: Affections Touching Across Time (AVCA-14258), I will admit to not being well versed in the show that the films are based on. My experience is directly with the movies Toho produced. In that frame of reference, I have not been won over by Wada's work, although he does have a few diamonds in the rough, the second movie being no exception with a mostly lackluster collection of themes.
Just like the first movie, the tragic thing about this soundtrack is that themes have good segments that ultimately get weighed down by the bad parts.
"Naraku: The Giant Spider" is a great example of this, starting strong and creepy before ultimately blaring horns overtake it and feels like the composer ran out of ideas on how to keep the theme going. A few themes seem overly simplistic as well, such as "Hojo's Entrance" which feels more at home in a half hearted television soundtrack than a theatrical one. Chorus work, which I tend to be a fan of, is also way overdone on the few tracks that include it, such as "Lifting the Seal" and "InuYasha vs. Kaguya" which just sound so corny with its inclusions. In fact, it's kind of disheartening to note that all of the complaints that could be leveled at the first movie score apply here as well, giving one a sense that Wada has not improved his craft.
The real pitfall of this score, though, is that it's really lacking highlights. One of the only themes to really stand out positively is the very catchy "Main Title", although this motif has already appeared in the first movie and is an encore here modified at the end, sadly for the worse. The other theme is the more majestic "A Prayer and a Wish", which also uses the main title motif. It's a great theme, and Wada's reoccurring diamond in the rough that it feels like he can use over and over again to good affect.
Overall, as much as I enjoy Wada's main title for the series, I'm still at a loss to find much else to recommend about the theatrical scores. There are a couple more movie scores to go through, so one will see if a few more years in the theatrical arena let's him improve his style or not.
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