> That's probably true, and I would say that more or less describes a lot of Hisaishi's non-Ghibli output (especially starting in the 2000s). I generally like the core material enough to be okay with that, but it does tend to keep a **** cap on most of his work for me, even if most of them have at least a couple excellent highlights (usually a main theme suite or concert cue).

2000s trend for sure - in fact, I'm gonna say a similar thing about another ***1/2 score next week!

> I second all of this. Its eclecticism and lack of an explicit narrative keeps this one at bay for a lot of folks around here

Its episodic nature was probably why it had sat at **** for me since I first heard it. Nice to see that some score opinions do indeed evolve over time.