Tea Society of a Witch (Majyo no Otya Kai) is a love adventure by Front Wing that was published for US audiences by Hirameki. The game is very much a guilty pleasure game for me. It’s extremely silly, very fanservicey (often strangely so), super cartoony, and can sometimes get teeth rottingly cute. Normally, a game like that would make me go “ugh!” but I had fun with it. This holds true for the soundtrack as well. There are aspects of it that have made me go “ugh!” elsewhere, but that I enjoyed here. In addition, the soundtrack does not do anything remarkable or revolutionary musically, but music does not need to be revolutionary or remarkable to be enjoyable.
The first six tracks are all vocal numbers, the first being the opening song “Only Your Witch.” The instrumental is great with its jangly surf guitars. The vocals are helium voiced, but I didn’t mind it here. It fits the vibe of the game. The lo-fi original recording of the song that caps off this CD was a nice surprise too. The rest are various ending themes you get depending on which girl you get an ending with. Some ending themes such as tracks 2 and 5 had that “giggling merry-go-round with cotton candy” vibe. Others such as tracks 4 and 6 were poppy but featured guitars instead of synthesizers. Track 3 “Too Late” and track 5 “Bite” were new to me because the US version of the game was edited and did not have these characters’ endings in it. “Too Late” was easily my favorite vocal song in the soundtrack. The vocalist had a great voice, the song was catchy, and it had depth. It was a great change of pace from the other ending themes. The sweetness in it felt more natural than saccharine, and really made me wish this character’s ending was present in the game.
The rest of the soundtrack is the in-game music. It is mostly layered synthesized pop style melodies that are par for the genre. There is nothing super complex about the music. It’s just ear catching melodies and sonic textures that convey the intended scene or mood. Of course, music does not have to be complicated like progressive rock to be good, and this soundtrack is an enjoyable one for me. However, it may probably be enjoyed more by those who have played the game since a sense of nostalgia definitely factored into my opinion.
Some storylines in the game have more gravity than others, hence a variety in types of themes. For example, tracks 14 and 22 convey nothing short of silly cartoonish danger. There are others such as 20 that have a slightly less cartoony and more serious sense of foreboding. Some songs such as tracks 7 convey the cartoonish whimsy of normal life whereas others such as track 12 convey the cartoonish whimsy of a crazy situation. Lest we forget this is a love adventure, there are some nice romantic scene tracks such as 23 and 26. Tracks 10 and 18 are standout tracks to me because of their judicious use of punchy guitars instead of synthesizers. It’s the kind of music one would expect from a comedic love adventure but with enough variety to keep things interesting.
This soundtrack has 27 tracks on 1 CD, so the tracks tend to be short. Oddly enough, the soundtrack did not feel rushed at all and stayed entertaining throughout its course. The tough part for me was selecting five samples (as per the RPGfan rule of only 5 samples per CD.) I selected track 3 because it’s my favorite vocal theme, track 5 because it represents most of the other vocal themes, track 10 to represent the more guitar driven tracks, track 14 for its cartoonish quality, and track 16 to represent the general norm of the soundtrack. Although neither the game nor the soundtrack do anything remarkable or revolutionary, both are fun and entertaining. And when it comes to video games, fun and entertaining are good things in my book.
