The  Love Gene Double X (恋愛遺伝子XX ) Drama CD was included as an extra in the special edition of the first volume of the Love Gene Double X manga (which I reviewed in August 2011) Like the Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu Drama CD, this CD was essentially the manga volume performed by voice actresses. For people who like to hear characters given life, this Drama CD will suit nicely.

All the men of the world have died and women have rebuilt society along a new version of gendered lines. There are ADAMs, and there are EVEs. ADAMs are given the privilege associated with male roles and EVEs are the women of the world.  The story follows the arrival of Koshiro Aoi at the extremely elite school of Kingdom, her subsequent run-ins with the elite of the school and how she infiltrates the school leadership in order to take it down from within.

As I’ve repeatedly said, I have a LOT of problems with the premise, but also have great hope for the  resolution, as long as the creators are allowed the time they need to do what they *obviously* plan on doing with the story.

But, more importantly, and in the context of what I said about the GIRL FRIENDS Drama CD about CDs adapting a visual medium to a verbal medium) how is this as a dramatization of the story? Pretty good, actually. All the actresses do a decent job of their roles.  Taketatsu Ayana (K-ON!‘s Azusa, Yuru Yuri‘s Mikarun) sounds, I dunno, a bit girly as Aoi, but very thankfully, there is no attempt to masculinize the ADAM’s voices. So, after my initial surprise, she sounded perfectly normal in her role. Hikasa Youko (K-ON!‘s Mio, and a number of roles in other Yuri-ish series) actually sounded perfect as Kokonoe Sakura.  The only voice that didn’t work for me was Gotou Youko (Hiro in Hidamari Sketch) as Erika-sama. The character is over-the-top and she played her way over the top. It was meant to be too much…and it was.

The one downside to this Drama CD was that if you were not already familiar with the series, the brief set up might not be enough to fully convey the backstory. On the other hand, you can only get this Drama CD with the manga, so go read the manga first. There, problem solved. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 8

This was enjoyable as a performance of the manga, with a good dollop of service, and didn’t increase my frustration with the overall setup meaningfully. In fact, if anything, it served to convince me that the downfall of this system is the only possible resolution to the story.