Maria-sama ga Miteru Premium CD, Volume 2 jumps right into the drama. By which I mean the drama of Yoshino and Rei coming to terms with the fact that their relationship will have to change forever.
In “Kibara Panic,” a date with Nana becomes a race to see who Rei’s omiai partner is. Yoshino learns that Nana is disturbingly like a former Yellow Rose that she knows well….and is at least her equal in every way.
Yoshino is forced to come face to face with her feelings about Nana in “Kibara Shinken Shoubu.” Yoshino begs Rei not to let go her as she tries to ride a bicylce, but when Rei and Nana cross swords in the dojo, it’s Yoshino ends up casting the past aside to embrace the future.
Both of these were brilliant, funny, emotional dramas. Yoshino and Rei, the bickering couple of the Yamayurikai, cannot go on as they have. For Yoshino to grow, Rei has to let go, something she doesn’t really want to do. Yoshino also has to stop being grasping, but she knows she’s cheating by having someone else to lavish attention on. In the second drama, Yoshino has time to recognize that her love for Rei is obsessive and has been in many ways, suffocating to her beloved cousin.
Nana is a wonder. She’s Yoshino’s equal on every level, and has more than just vocal similarities to the former Rosa Foetida. She likes interesting things, is up for an adventure and no matter what Yoshino throws at her, she’s right there to stand by Yoshino’s side. Using Nabatome Hitomi was a stroke of genius, because it does give Nana more than a little of that slightly “hrm…this sounds familiar” feeling.
The final track is a bonus talk by Ueda Kana selling us all the current Marimite goods and reminding us to follow the Oshaka-sama mo Miteru series (about Yuuki and his life at Hanadera and which I have been reading and may just review at some point, because the last book had a great ending.)
Ratings:
Overall – 9
A really lovely CD if you like the Yellow Rose family. Which I do.
Drama CD’s is one area where crowdsourced content could expand the broad tend of available legit content … a selection of approved for use images and a bit of volunteer work and out pops a streaming slideshow with subtitles for the audio.
And if the first effort is disappointing, it would spur another try by some other krewe to do better.
@BruceMcF – some scanlation circles have actually done that for radio dramas. I agree that the visually-inclined anime/manga/visual novel audience would have little difficulty adapting to that.