01/11/2010

王子様(笑)シリーズ 第3巻 ~王子様と眠れる森~


Oujisama (warai) vol.3 ~Oujisama to nemureru mori~


Oujiama (warai) series is a drama cd series that tells well known fairytales in an... entirely different way. The title means 'Prince (laughs) series' and as the title implies the stories are told from the viewpoint of the prince in a rather hilarious way. This volume has only one story; that of Sleeping Beauty.


The moment I saw this was announced it made me happy, and I'm glad I was able to listen to it this fast! Contrary to the first two volumes there is only one story this time, but some of the princes from earlier volumes reprise their roles.

We first meet the servant (CV: Takemoto Eiji) of Sleeping Beauty her prince who meets... the prince from Snow White (CV: Nakai Kazuya). It turns out we are in his country, and the servant asks him whether he wants to help out find Sleeping Beauty. We are taken to the Prince (of Sleeping Beauty, his name is Gunther btw CV: Onosaka Masaya) himself who is... fighting a dragon and gains exp o.O

And from there on the entire story turns into an RPG. Sleeping Beauty and his servant try to get Snow White to sign up at a guild, Genji (CV: Yoshino Hiroyuki) already signed up because the girl behind the counter was cute, they need a fourth member to go on a quest to fight a red dragon, so Genji forces the Emperor (from Taketori Monogatari, CV: Okiayu Ryoutarou) to join xD


Genji is as annoying as ever, the Emperor his classic speach clashes with everything, Sleeping Beauty is a complete RPG otaku, and Snow White is the only sane person. Eventually Sleeping Beauty loses his confidence and Genji decides he will go and steal save the princess.

The previous two CDs were good, but this volume was absolutely brilliant, there is no other word for it. Just throwing all these princes (with their strange personalities) in one story was already funny, but when everything turned into a RPG it turned even better. Every RPG cliche is used, from all the different classes to collecting the four legendary thingamajigs to continue the story. If you play a lot of RPGs or know something about them it gets funnier by the minute. But don't worry if you don't know anything about them, even then it will be plenty funny (Snow White is in the same position anyways)

Just like the previous volumes there is a zazankai after the main story in which the characters talk together. Sleeping Beauty never had friends to drink with so  they first need to explain what they are going to do, and the Emperor decides to get drunk right from the get go ("as if I could do this while sober" xD).

The freetalk was also interesting. The theme was 'a dream that you don't want to wake up from'. Yoshino talks about soccer and the world cup (which made me realize just how recent this release is somehow), Onosaka told that he wants to be popular, Okiayu that he wants to lose weight and Takemoto thinks that their dreams are to normal xD The last three did the recording together making their part of the freetalk hilarious. Especially Okiayu and  Takemoto ignoring Onosaka Masaya when he asks whether he wasn't popular enough to do a story on his own was just... wow xD Nakai talks about that it was his dream to become a seiyuu so that he doesn't want to wake up from his current life. His talk is about to get deep and meaningful when time is up and he abruptly (and I mean abruptly) ends it.

The fact that Yoshino and Nakai did their free talk alone made me realize that they did the recording alone, and how difficult that must be. Especially because there is a lot of tsukkomi, mainly fron Nakai. The zazankai in particular sounds as if they really are talking all together so they really have my respect for some awesome voiceacting!



If you haven't heard the first two CDs yet you should listen to those before listening to this one. Firstly because they are also hilarious and absolutely worth listening, but also because the characters constantly reference to it and you might miss some injokes. (Especially the deal about princess Snow White xD). That said, this vol. is absolutely brilliant so go and listen to it NOW :D

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