If you've read any of my other reviews for Karou Wada’s soundtracks, I’m probably sounding like broken record in stating that the composer’s style is not for everyone. Complaints aside, the composer is certainly consistent in approach, although that hasn’t won any points with me so far. The soundtrack for the third InuYasha film sounds all too similar to his previous two efforts, in fact it’s becoming hard to separate them.
By the third soundtrack in the movie series, one of Wada's faults is setting in: he reuses motifs too much. Granted, most series scores want some reoccurring themes to make things feel similar. To his credit, Wada’s main title theme for the series is also grand (appearing here in “Main Title”, “Memory of Mother”, “To Each His Own” and more). However, the composer also has other default themes that he relies on. For example, he has an ongoing “really bad stuff is happening” theme that has been used in all the films. In this case, the motif appears in the “Last Moments”, “Calamity of Sounga”, “InuYasha vs. Sesshomaru I” ... well a lot of themes. To make a reoccurring theme work, it should be tied to a character, object, location… something. The way Wada ties themes to situations, however, makes the soundtracks meld together and become hard to keep separate from one another.
Repeating motifs aside, the score continues Wada's trend of having really great segments in a track, like say 10 seconds of brilliance, mixed with a minute or so of less appealing tunes. That hasn't changed, and there are a lot of tracks here like “Violation” and “The Army's Coming Attack” that just miss the mark with clanging-like experimentation. To be fair, there are a couple of themes which work, although most of them are just modified versions of the main title. “To Izayoi's Side” is a nice exception to this, featuring violin work that makes the theme both tragic and also slightly menacing before taking a turn to be soothing.
Overall, if you were a fan of Wada's previous work, you should enjoy this score. If his style doesn’t gel with you, however, this will do little to change your mind as it sounds all too similar to his past InuYasha soundtracks.
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