Archive for the Drama CDs & Audiobooks Category


Yuri Drama CD: Kannazuki no Miko: Kimi no Mau Butai

April 5th, 2007

Are you sitting down? I hope so, because I’m going to say something that might shock you. Kannazuki no Miko Drama CD: Kimi no Mau Butai is…good, maybe even excellent. Seriously, it is. In fact, I can’t actually think of anything about this Drama CD that was bad, and parts of it are laugh out loud funny.

Since this DCD is actually made up of several interconnecting plots. I’ll do my best to summarize here:

It all begins with a bizarre gag with Souma and his brother Tsubasa, where they appear to be fighting but are actually playing baseball. Or maybe it’s the other way around. In any case – this gag with varying alternates on the gag part is repeated endlessly throughout the CD. Keep this in the back of your mind. It’ll be back.

It is school festival time. Both Souma and Chikane are starring in an original play as Prince and Princess. They are, of course, princely and princessly and everyone is squealing with delight as they swear their love, etc, etc. Himeko is also moved, even from her place as the person who cleans up backstage.

One night, after a meal (full of shitake mushrooms, thanks to Otoha’s loving care) Chikane asks Himeko to help her practice her lines. At first Himeko plays the prince, but Chikane asks her to play the princess, her role, so she can get a feel for Ohgami’s role. Himeko assents, and Chikane gets to swear eternal love to Himeko via her lines. There are several very amusing interruptions (complete with romantic violins screeching to a halt) by Otoha as Chikane attempts to get into the part. Himeko is freaked out by her reaction to Chikane’s embrace and muses out loud that it’s as if she’s in love with Chikane. Which freaks Chikane out.

Later, as the festival approaches, Souma asks Himeko if she’d help him practice his lines. Same scene, minus Otoha’s interruptions, but this time the tension is broken when Chikane appears and interrupts them at the crucial scene.

The play is a great success, but Chikane blows off her hordes of admirers to accompany Himeko around the festival grounds – to their great annoyance.

At this point, we get scattered scenes to let us know that the Orochi are all here at the festival and wreaking havoc wherever they go, some of which are rather amusing. In fact, throughout this CD, we get little vignettes which give us a pretty good idea of how and why these particular people became Orochi and what their major malfunctions are. Like the opening gag, put this concept on a back burner, but don’t lose it.

Chikane presents Himeko with a volume of manga by her favorite mangaka, and my third favorite Orochi, Reiko-sensei. Chikane has things to do, so she leaves Himeko on line for an autograph. During the signing, Reiko is really rude in response to Himeko’s fangirlishness, which puts Himeko in a sad mood. This is followed up by a cruel scene in which her former roommate, Mako-chan’s, sempai on the track team lays into her. Mako-chan pulls sempai away, but doesn’t have a word to say to Himeko. It is this moment that the Orochi choose to attack.

The Orochi who is a pop idol wannabe, Korona, calls this her ultimate performance. Korona throws herself at Souma, trying to seduce him to the dark side of the force and a little Orochi-doushi. Himeko’s screams breaks the spell and he rejects her forcibly, which pisses her off. Reiko-sensei who had her buttons pushed earlier joins in and of course, the rest of the Orochi jump on the chance.

Chikane runs away with Himeko, leaving Souma to fend for himself. Which he does, but pfft, who cares, Chikane got the girl – again.

After the carnage is over and the destruction is being cleared away, we get a framework of Reiko-sensei working on her next manga chapter. Chikane, in a separate but related scene, asks Himeko what she likes so much about Reiko-sensei’s manga. Himeko tries to explain but fails, until she tells Chikane all about the scene in which Asuka, the heroine, confesses her love for the princess. Chikane is all of a sudden much more interested in the manga, who’d have thunk it? Himeko acts out the part of Asuka’s confession of love to her dear friend. After she’s done, she asks why Chikane has that expression on her face and Chikane, in a moment of incredible genius says that she was thinking about something else and didn’t hear Himeko – could she go over that all again. Guileless Himeko complies happily, so excited that Chikane is interested in her manga now. ^_^ The framework ends with a bizarre scene of Reiko being extra super-duper rude to her editor. I really have to listen to this bit again, because I know there was important stuff I missed.

The final track is pure genius. Sister Miyako is holding confession for your sins. Each one of the “confessions” is funnier than the last and with each one, Sister Miyako loses patience sooner with the confessor and punches them out. The best one, by far, is when Himeko comes in to “confess”. Her hemming and hawing makes Miyako more and more impatient. When Himeko digresses into a long discussion of what Chikane is wearing, Miyako finally punches her out with a curt “Shut up already.” It’s hysterical, trust me. This track is where we really get a detailed glimpse of the Orochi and their issues. The whole track is really unique and interesting for that alone…but Sister Miyako whacking everyone just cracks me up.

After the end of this final track, we get a two minute long silence, and one last repeat of that weird gag with Tsubasa and Souma. Souma’s confused screams end the Drama CD.

Okay, so can anyone guess why I don’t dislike this CD? It’s not that it doesn’t have angst. It’s that it doesn’t have inexplicable behaviors. Everyone’s behavior and choices are entirely consistent with the personalities given to us in the anime. (And it is based on the anime, not the manga, for what it’s worth.) Internal consistency=win. The fact that my three favorite Orochi (Sister Miyako, Korona and Reiko, in that order) and Chikane and Himeko Yuri-service all get big spotlights helps, too.

The fact that it’s damn funny is icing on the cake. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – not entirely applicable, but I like what’s on the cover and in the booklet – 7
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 8
Service – 3

Overall – 8

If only the anime or manga had been more like this.





Yuri Drama CD: Strawberry Panic Lu Lim Hen

March 14th, 2007

While I did not find the Strawberry Panic Drama CD Lu Lim Hen: Oneesama to Maid Soudou to be the same kind of aural assault that occurred when I listened to the Mai Otome Drama CD, I did feel that another little piece of my soul has been sucked away by it…especially as the second time I listened to it, it bothered me less than the first. ^_^

As a quick flashback, let me remind you that the first Strawberry Panic Drama CD covered the great underwear mystery at St. Miator and the second CD in the series, the physical examinations at St. Spica.

This, the third Drama CD based on the Strawberry Panic franchise, focuses on the doings in Lu Lim Academy, the youngest, and strangest, of the three schools that make up Astoria.

The one defining characteristic of Lu Lim (other than bad French) is that the students are encouraged to not only take part in club activities, but go ahead and make as many new clubs as they want. This fact I gleaned from the Strawberry Panic light novel, which I’m reading in Japanese.

So, the CD begins as Kizuna starts a brand new club, one that doesn’t include Lu Lim Student Council President Minamoto Chikaru. The “Renai” (romantic love) Club is going to talk about all *sorts* of things related to love. Only, neither Kizuna, nor fellow club members Lemon or Kagome, or even Kagome’s stuffed teddy bear Percival, has anything to say on the subject. The three wonder what kind of person Chikaru-oneesama would fall in love with.

Chikaru comes in and starts the meeting of the usual “Henshin Club”, which if you’ve seen the series, you know is Chikaru playing dress up with her three dolls, erm girls. The Henshin Club is running a “Charity Maid” event, where people will bid on the services of a maid to help clean up around the school. They decide to design a maid costume for the event, but no one has any good ideas so…and I’m sure you saw this coming a mile away…Chikaru flips a switch in the wall, which turns the classroom into an elevator that drops into a huge sub-basement full of maid outfits.

O_o

Kagome is outfitted in classic Victorian style, Lemon gets the standard maid cafe treatment and Kizuna gets an ultra-sexy miniskirted, thigh-high-stockinged outfit which sends Chikaru into absolute paroxysms of ecstasy.

It was this scene that led me to my conclusion that “good” Yuri can be differentiated from “bad” by simply substituting a guy for the girl in question. Should we have been subjected to a male character in the throes of sexual excitement while looking at Kizuna at that moment, we would have been disgusted. As, indeed, I was.

And things only get *better* as Chikaru then decides they need to prowl the school’s secret spots to determine what outfit would suit the event best. So, for the next few tracks, we are subjected to a series of incredibly service-y Yuri-ish scenes to wank to.

In the Library, Nagisa and Chiyo are doing *something* and it sounds horribly intimate, but in fact they are just trying to reshelve a book that’s high up. (Honestly, this scene made me bang my head against my steering wheel, it was so cringe-makingly awful.)

In the Greenhouse, Shizuma toys with Miyuki’s affections, which ends with her sucking Miyuki’s finger a lot more than a simple cut could account for.

In the Church, Yaya is about to confess her feelings to Hikari (and seriously, how stupid does Hikari have to be to not have figured it out…?) when a noise interrupts them. Lemon and Kagome run away, trying to not get caught.

Having used all other places in the entire school where service could have taken place, we retire to peep a little in the bath. In the end, just about every single member of the cast except for Amane ends up in that bath. Shizuma, Chiyo and Tamao squabble over who gets Nagisa, ostensibly to scrub her back. (Oh and by the way, in case you missed in in the anime, because that was a little subtle, Kagome *also* has a crush on Nagisa.)

When one of the nuns discover the Henshin Club members all hanging around the bath in maid costumes, she demands to know what’s up. They say that they’re there for a bath, duh, and jump in. But she thinks they are up to something, and since they are in maid outfits, she assigns them all to clean the church as punishment. Chikaru thinks it’s a great way to play maid and they are all happy about it, which utterly confuses the Sister.

At the next meeting of the Renai Club, a new member enters – it’s Chikaru! Surprise! They ask her to tell them a story of love and she responds with this unhappy tale of a girl, just like themselves, a second year middle school student:

Girl C, we’ll call her, although Chikaru gives no names at all, is lost in the woods somewhere between schools when she runs into what looks like a boy and a horse! She got the horse part right, but in fact, it’s another girl – a girl that is, like herself, a second-year, and who wants desperately to be a horseback rider. Girl A. as we’ll refer to her, is apprenticing with the horse riding club. It’s her job to exercise the horses.

Girl C and Girl A end up meeting every day at the creek where they first met and, as time goes on, they start to wonder why they want to see each other SO much. It’s obvious that love is flourishing between them. They share hopes and dreams as they meet in the woods every day, despite their duties – Girl A with the horseback riding club and Girl C with the many, *many* clubs she’s in. Girl C dubs Girl A a “prince” for wanting to ride on a white charger.

One day, Girl C comes running to their meeting place, only to be met by the President of the Riding Club. The President tells Girl C to stop seeing Girl A. She has great plans for Girl A, and plans on making her a champion rider. But to do that, she needs to be able to focus on her riding, and not be distracted. Girl C makes the President swear to make Girl A a rider if she goes away, which the President does. So, in order to fulfill Girl A’s dream, Girl C leaves and finds a place to cry her broken heart out. When Girl A arrives at their place, she’s met not by Girl C, but by the President, who tells her that Girl C said she can’t come anymore. The President tells Girl A that she’s being promoted to rider. Girl A is thrilled, but begins to cry anyway, as she realizes that she really won’t have time to see Girl C anymore.

Chikaru ends the story, as all the club members sob happily at this tale of unfulfilled love. As Kizuna, Lemon and Kagome go back to their room, Kizuna wonders why Chikaru looked so sad as she told the story. (Erica looked sad, too, but not for the same reason. I was just concerned that all three of the girls – even Lemon, for whom I had some hope in the beginning of the CD – were so dense.)

Once back in their room, they wonder who they might fall in love with. Lemon admits that she wants to fall in love with Kizuna, but Kizuna is already asleep and misses the big confession. Kagome falls asleep wondering what kind of person Percival would fall in love with.

The messages from the cast track had one or two good moments, my favorite being when Amane’s seiyuu, Kaida Yuko, apologizes to Hikari’s seiyuu. ^_^ (If you missed why, read Chikaru’s story again. Get it this time.)

The bonus track is a little story of life at St. Miator, as Nagisa slams into one of the nuns and knocks her down. After being scolded for running in the halls, Nagisa offers to deliver the mail the sister was carrying. As she visits all the principals at St. Miator (Tamao, Chiyo, Shizuma and Miyuki) she barges into their rooms to deliver the mail, only to find them each writing a letter. What she doesn’t know is that, in each case, the letter is being written to *Nagisa’s* parents, each from the uniquely insane perspective of that character. When Nagisa returns to the nun, she is scolded for never writing her own parents. The Sister muses that her parents are probably worried that they never hear about Nagisa at school. Ha ha.

The final bit is an advertisement for the first of the three SP Drama CDs, with Shizuma commenting cooly that she’s interested not in Nagisa’s underwear, but on what’s inside.

Ratings:

Art – N/A
Story – 4
Characters – 6
Yuri – 8 but largely service and double entendre
Service – 10

Overall – 5

I took a moment to read the reviews over at Amazon JP for this Drama CD and I have to admit, the level of moe was high. *Very* high. I really was surprised at how many people thought this Drama CD was the best of the three, and how many people just thought it so incredibly wonderful in general. One comment even said that it was worth buying just for Chikaru’s story. Really? Okay, whatever.





Yuri Drama CD: Simoun Uruwashii no Haken OL

March 7th, 2007

I’m trying something new today…the picture on the left is linked to the Amazon.JP entry for this Drama CD, the title below is linked to the Amazon.com entry. (Yes, you can get Drama CDs from Japan through Amazon.com. Shipping from Japan is included in the price, which is why they seem so expensive. No, they have not been translated.)

If the Simoun manga that ran in Megami magazine felt like a fourth-rate cross-over rip-off fanfic, then the Simoun Drama CD: Ah, Lovely Temp Office Ladies (why are we doing this?) Simoun, Inc. feels like a not-too-bad post-series fanfic, with some funny moments.

Let’s talk about the title for second. It really is that long, with the first part being spoken (loudly) by everyone, the part in parentheses said (despairingly) by Parietta, and the last (matter-of-factly) by Neviriru.

The war is over, Aeru says at the beginning. What will we all do now? And in the flurry of discussion, Limone comments that she wants to go to Tokyo. So, go to Tokyo they do. Neviriru decides that they should form a company, which they also do. They decide to be a temp agency for “office ladies” (OLs).) The girls (everyone but Alti and Floe, that is – those actresses appear to be missing) all argue about where to live because, of course, they have no money. Neviriru wants to stay in Roppongi Hills and when everyone disagrees, she locks herself in a room and sulks. Rodreamon and Mamina (with a really scary cheerful voice) try to coax her out. Parietta does the same, but fails utterly to her chagrin.

(Somewhere in the middle of this, Rodo calls Neviriru “Nevi-chan”, and by the end just about all of them are using the nickname.)

When Aeru calls out to Neviriru, she comes right out, and when Aeru gets her to put her face out a bit more, so she can kiss Neviriru, Parietta starts on a series of depressed glosses of “I’m useless” which gains Kaimu’s sympathy, but not much more. To everyone’s discomfort Aeru and Neviriru continue to be exceedingly lovey-dovey, until Limone comments that they should take a company trip.

Company trip? Company trip! Neviriru agrees, and commands that they will leave…in the morning!

As second-in-command Parietta had taken upon herself to assign roles for everyone in the company. Aeru and Limone are the bottom rungs, so they are sent off to gather supplies. The second track consists of them bicycling to town to get stuff.

At the onsen, in the third track, the bulk of our time is spent in making Parietta look foolish. Aeru slams a door onto her accidentally pushing her into the water – that kind of thing. Parietta begins to yell, when the music changes and bizarrely from behind her, Onashia appears coming out of the onsen. It’s a walk-off cameo which I thought was simply brilliant. There’s some fanservice-y discussion of how beautiful various members’ skin is and the almost inevitable breast size conversation. They jump into the water to do “remersion practice” and follow it up with incredibly silly remersion names. When Aeur attempts to do a Suigyoku remersion, however, everyone screams “stop!” and yells at her.

This is followed by food, which they all think is disgusting, except Mamina, who thinks its wonderful. Her enjoyment helps the rest get over themselves, except Rodo, who passes.

They talk about getting entertainment, but as they have no money, they opt for a talent contest. This ends up with some marathon drinking by Parietta, who asks Neviriru to dance, only to find that Nevi-chan has fallen asleep against her. (Note the spiffy piece of fanart I found for this scene last night.)

The fourth track follows Mamina and Rodoreamon as they hit Harajuku. It’s a typical rich girl/poor girl scenario. Rodo is freaked by all the people, the idea of shopping in a 100-yen store and tries to buy a crepe with a credit card. Mamina, in turn, is utterly put off by Rodo’s choice of lunch – a ramen shop. She had hoped to eat somewhere elegant and expensive. They make up over little gifts and live happily ever after.

Track 5 includes the most inappropriate use *ever* of the Emerald remersion, as Aeru uses it to pop 30 minutes into the future so she can eat some flan.

The final track has Neviriru coming out and announcing, with many words – something that does not pass without comment – that she’s dissolving the company. Everyone is shocked, but as they come around to the idea, and discuss possible futures for themselves, Rodo mentions that she’s always wanted to be in Takarazuka. lol

After Neviriru complains that she’s running out of patience waiting for Aeru to make the first move already, the two of them finish the CD with another discomfiting bout of kissing, hugging and personal talk, this time of the slightly TMI variety.

Once again, I found the bonus track hysterical, as the actresses all discuss their enjoyment as they made the CD. The best line is right at the beginning when they are talking about Onashia’s bizarro cameo when, from the back comes Onashia’s voice saying, “don’t touch me” totally deadpan, which flattens everyone. Including me.

I have to mention the music. I’m not the only one who has mentioned how exceptional the music for this series is. Look around online, you’ll find others. It *is* exceptional. And all of the best bits are used, quite incongruously, for the Drama CD. So music that was used for battles and flying Simoun are here used for…eating flan and shopping. It adds a measure of complete wtf-ness to what is already a silly story.

Okay, so, this is NOT a serious look at the characters from Simoun. It’s also not entirely out of character, although Parietta gets beat on pretty badly throughout. But in return you get actual kissing noises done very poorly by the actresses for Aeru and Neviriru, which indicate that they are now actually a couple. (So badly its almost worth a soundbite…but I’m not gonna bother – just kiss the back of your hand once or twice loudly. Make it sound stupid. That should do it.)

Ratings:

Art – N/A
Story – 5
Characters – 6
Yuri – 7
Service – 7 (anyone pokes my breast in an onsen, they’re going to get their fingers broken…)

Overall – 6

If what you liked about Simoun was the depth, the complexity – avoid this DCD at all costs. If you can get the stick out of your butt long enough to see this as the goofball fanfic it is, you might enjoy it.





Maria-sama ga Miteru DJCD 1 and 2

February 16th, 2007

While we waited breathlessly for the anime 3rd season OAVs to be released, the cast and staff of Maria-sama ga Miteru were working hard to keep fandom stimulated.

There were, of course, the Marimite Drama CDs that I love so much, and live events were held in which fanboys were able to write haiku as if they were one of the characters, among other things. Also filling in the gaps were web radio programs, which were released on a semi-regular basis at the Animate TV site. The web radio program host is Ueda Kana, the voice of protagonist Fukuzawa Yumi.

In each “episode” Ueda Kana chats with one of the other voice actresses, they eat cake and tea, and giggle a lot. ^_^ Fan mail is read and responded to, and for many of the episodes an original radio drama completes the set. The web radio shows were originally distributed as streaming audio.

The “DJCD”s are collections of the web radio shows, which is especially nice as I know I missed three or four in the middle there.

The segments of the DJCDs are split into the chat with one of the other seiyuu, a segment called “Tell me, onee-sama” in which each VA is asked which character she would pick as the best sister, bride, teacher, high-class woman, friend, etc. And, of course the radio dramas which are often insane and frequently laugh out loud hysterical. If you have seen fanart over the last several months of “Magical Girl Shimako” – the radio dramas are where that comes from.

Along with “Mahou Shoujo Shimako” segments (always sponsored by Satou Sei-sama), there are many and varied Yumi x Sachiko stories that considerably up the Yuri factor between them, and also provide a chance for Yumi to be heard giggling in a terrifying way, and Sachiko to sound scared for her life. ^_^ But the winner has got to be the very wrong story in which Rei dresses in a bear costume in order to appeal to Yoshino. I KNOW I was chortling in a way that made my work neighbors worried as I listened to that one.

You can of course get these CDs through Amazon JP: DJCD 1 and DJCD 2, but in this case, they were part of my questionably large purchase of CDs from Animate in Ikebukuro.

The voice actresses talk very fast (and giggle alot, did I mention that?) but the radio dramas and the “tell me onee-sama” segments are easy enough to follow.

One thing I want to mention, just because I found it fascinating, was that several of the VAs do impressions of other VAs as their characters – and by and large they are very good at it. It’s kind of funny, and definitely fun.

Ratings:

Art – Original covers, to make them more appealing to hardcore fans – 6
Story – Casual, giggly chat, and crazy, yurified dramas – 9
Characters – Did I mention that the Yuri quotient was upped? – 8
Yuri – 8
Service – We have seen fandom and they are us – 7

Overall – 8

Oh, and “roll cake.” That’s all I’m saying about that. If you want to know what I mean, you’ll have to listen to the CDs. ^_^





Yuri Drama CD: Yokohama Shopping Log, Volume 2

January 31st, 2007

When I first mentioned Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, known here as Yokohama Shopping Log in the beginning of 2004, I briefly touched upon the existence of several Drama CDs that were based on the series. In the intervening three years I have managed to get all three CDs, but I find I have never reviewed them. All three are available from Amazon JP through the Yuricon Shop, along with many other fun yuri-flavored Drama CDs.

Drama CD 1 ends with the appearance of Kokone at Cafe Alpha. The second Drama CD picks up with the messenger android’s arrival and delivery of her message in the cutest faux kiss ever. ^_^

The rest of the Drama CD follows the progression of the manga, just as the first CD did, with light jazz musical interludes. It’s all wonderful, just as the manga is.

The real payoff is the chapter when Kokone asks Alpha about the Moon Lute. In my head, when they shared a musical moment, it was a slow, soft, lyrical piece. But the music for the chapter (called “Orders” here) was peppy, jazzy and absolutely gorgeous. When both Konone and Alpha vocalize along with the music it was simply stellar. A real “moment” in the truest YKK sense.

If you are a fan of Alpha and Kokone already, then even if you don’t understand a word of Japanese, I think you can understand and enjoy this CD, if only for the moment when they come together in music. ^_^ If you are not a YKK fan; first read the manga, instantly become a fan of our two favorite lesbian androids, and *then* buy the Drama CD! ^_^