Chocobo’s Mysterious Dungeon -Labyrinth of Forgotten Time-: Door Crawl – Ai Kawashima

	Album Title: Chocobo’s Mysterious Dungeon Labyrinth of Forgotten Time: Door Crawl – Ai Kawashima
	Record Label: Toshiba EMI
	Catalog No.: TOCT-22284
	Release Date: July 25, 2007
	Purchase: Buy at CDJapan

Overview

This is Ai Kawashima’s 15th single and it was released on December 12, 2007. This single reached #20 on the Oricon Weekly Charts and it sold 6,520 copies in its first week. The title track was used as the theme song for the Square Enix game Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Dungeon (aka Chocobo’s Mysterious Dungeon: Labyrinth of Forgotten Time). Here are my thoughts about the release.

Body

“Door Crawl” is a pleasant and laid back listen, but I liked the fact that there are additional band instruments. Without them, it would just be another plain Ai Kawashima ballad. The electric guitar chords and drums give the music life and make everything sound less bland. Kawashima’s vocals sounded a little rushed at times, mainly during the chorus, but she keeps them controlled at least.

The first B-side is a little upbeat like the previous track, but it uses minimal instruments. “Iro no Nai Mono” makes use of drums and acoustic guitar for the calm verses, but adds oddly placed synth and strings for the chorus. Overall, this track is nothing special and the melody sounds rather ordinary.

The next B-side also uses synth, but I thought it was a bad choice for it to open the song, which is a ballad. “Tomoshibi” starts off quietly but eventually accumulates to a sweeping chorus with pretty vocals and strings. There is also synth during the bridge, which completely ruins it because it sounds so out of place next to the more ‘natural’ instruments.

Summary

To summarise, this is a pretty average single. The A-side isn’t anything special, while the B-sides could have been better. Only hardcore fans of Ai Kawashima should pick this one up.

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