Publisher: Square Enix
	Catalog No.: SQEX-10272
	Release Date: 19/Oct/2011
	Composed by: Kenji Ito
	Arranged by: Kenji Ito and quad
	Format: CD

This is an arrangement album by Kenji Ito of tracks from his contribution to the various games in the Mana series, released as part of the 20th anniversary of the series. It is intended to be the first of three arrangement albums for the Seiken Densetsu series to celebrate this anniversary, the other two being worked on by Kikuta and Shimomura.

Itoken offer some interesting takes on his previous work, though not all of them hit the mark with me. His rendition here of Rising Sun finally departs from doing the same song over and over and adds a few new twists here and there. In Search of the Holy Sword has been given a dance/dubstep treatment which I’m not entirely in agreement with, but then again that’s because I’ve always seen it as a rather rocking track. Mana’s Mission follows the same vein as the version on Let the Thoughts Ride on Knowledge, though I feel it was not executed as well.  Mana Palace in techno form is interesting, to say the least.

Then along come surprises such as Infant of Mana come along with some rather powerful guitar work thrown into the mix. Fool’s Dance tries to go for a Spanish flamenco feel, but is failed by the vocals used. Another curious choice is Final Battle being turned into a jazz piece, which fails to work for me on many levels.

My favourite track on the album though I think has to be Battle 2 though. The violin lead nails it, and it has some decent variation within the track.

The lead out of the album is carried by a vocal piece entitled The Endless Dream, and a piano solo rendition of Legend Forever. Both are nice tracks, but the latter makes for a disappointing ending.

Overall the album holds its own, and Itoken has made some interesting, sometimes bold, choices rather than just going for a pure arrange and in keeping exactly with the original piece, which is good.

Track Listing

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