Tsutako is in the house! Yes, in the second Maria-sama ga Miteru Special CD, Satou Rina is the guest of honor and conversations about soeur and sweets abound. Satou Rina has the most amusing habit of calling Ueda Kana “Yumi-san,” which she just canNOT shake.
They discuss the usual things – the kind of junk food they are eating, who Satou Rina would have as a friend, souer, wife, etc. (Is there any surprise to find that she wants to be Yumi’s friend and have Shouko as souer? No, no there isn’t.)
But the great big super important reason you will get the CD is not the guest of honor, as cool as she is.
The reason you will get this CD is the drama.
The nearly one-hour long drama.
The nearly one-hour long drama voiced by Nazuka Kaori (Yun in Simoun, Subaru in .Hack/Sign) “Kareruki ni Mebuki,” (“From Withered Tree to Bud”) that tells the end, if you will, of the Tsutako x Shouko story from the perspective of her older sister, Kasumi.
The story that not only puts all the pieces in place for the Shouko x Tsutako story, but also makes plain what was up to that point obvious, yet implicit – Kasumi’s obsession, what in Japanese is called kataomoi, with the former Rosa Foetida, Torii Eriko.
Oh my *God* is this a good drama. Tears, laughter, it has everything. It has *everything*. It was so good I needed a smoke afterward.
The fact that so many of these side stories are being told in the CD dramas indicates to me that they are not intending on animating them, but I hope to be proven wrong. Tsutako, Shouko and Kasumi definitely deserve an OVA of their own!
Ratings:
Overall – 9.5
These Special CDs have been so amazing, I’m a little scared to get the next one, in case it fails to be as magnificent as the previous ones. But that won’t stop me for a second, really. ^_^
That’s right, those were the underrated good stories. In fact, we’d really love to see the rest of the sidestories made as OVAs to fill out whatever spaces that Season 4 had left. :)
Or OVAs are out, snaps from the recording session and/or line drawings a la the books for a slideshow “video” so the Drama CD’s can get subtitled.
If its too small a market for a DVD pressing, that’s something I’d happily pay Shinji to download from Crunchyroll. Heck, if they were rolled out to subscribing members then ad-supported a week or fortnight later, I’d be in for the subscription.
Indeed, if the Drama CD’s otherwise have a limited market outside of Japan, it could be something that Shinji could host without the constant complaints from the people in blocked regions … R3 especially seems to get blocked a lot.