As opposed to the Animation Original Soundtrack album, the Image album is a hybrid between a traditional soundtrack and a drama CD. While including a number of background tracks from the television show, there are also a handful of tracks that are simply sections of dialogue from select episodes of the show. For the non-Japanese speaker, this most likely reduces the value you will get from the album, but there are still some tracks here that may warrant a purchase for Twelve Kingdoms fans.

The main problem that I have with the drama tracks is that they break the flow of the album. The album even starts with a drama track, so that you don't get confused about what you are dealing with. This isn't as much of a problem as it could be, as the drama tracks include their own background music, but it still breaks the flow of the album, as some of the drama tracks are fairly long (two of them are around four minutes). On top of that issue, as the second soundtrack album for the show, this album is saddled with the tracks that weren't deemed appropriate for the first album. It isn't that the included tracks are bad, but this album includes more tracks that don't stand as well on their own, or that use a more esoteric musical style. A good example of the latter is track 14, Touhoureisan, which makes heavy use of traditional Chinese instruments, which can be quite obtuse to a Western ear. Once again, it isn't bad, but it doesn't fit the traditional musical themes of the show, so it got relegated to the second album.

Youko is a young girl brought to the land of the twelve kingdoms to be queen of the Kingdom of Kei, but hers is not the only story to be told.

Another aspect of the fact that we are dealing heavily with "B side" material is the seemingly random placement of the tracks in reference to their own emotional character. A moody song will be back-to-back with a happy song, with little care taken to produce a proper flow between the two. Some of the tracks even switch mood within the track itself, further adding to the confusion. There really isn't anything to be done about it, but it can get annoying. The upshot of this lack of cohesion and order is that when choosing an album to simply sit down and listen to, this album does not fare well in comparison to other anime soundtrack albums.

This is unfortunate, because there really are some excellent tracks on the album. Individual tastes vary, naturally, but tracks of notable musical excellence include track 3, a duo of piano and kokyu (Chinese fiddle) that I find wonderfully compelling; track 15, an orchestral work of melancholy and conflict; and track 22, a wonderful, extended version of the "doll" song that the deposed princess sings in the back half of the show. Other tracks have their own merits as well, and a couple of the tracks here contain significant Irish elements, which is always interesting in an anime soundtrack. In the end, however, I must admit that this album is simply inferior to the Animation Original Soundtrack album as a listening experience, and is only recommended for collectors and major fans of the series.