方言恋愛 Vol.3

Hougen Renai Vol.3

Hougen Renai translates into something as 'Dialect Love', which is exactly what it is. Hougen Renai tells two stories, each one takes place in a different part of Japan. The whole charm of the series is that the dialect of the location where the story supposedly takes placed is used. This volume has two new prefectures; Fukuoka and Niigata. I was looking forward to this release not only because I love the series, but also because Hirakawa Daisuke does the character for Niigata :3

But first Fukuoka. The Heroine is a high school student who visits a temple in Fukuoka to pray for succes on her entrance exams. There she meets the priest Kunitake Yoshito and his childhood friend Kaori. As she seems far too tense about her exams Yoshito decides to drag her around the city to relax for a bit.

The first few lines made me want to pull my hair out in frustration, Fukuoka ben is NOT an easy dialect to listen to. In fact, it is probably one of the worst and most difficult dialects to understand. It is probably best to listen to the entire story more than once, because the dialect takes a while to get used to so you might miss some things in the beginning. Although Yoshito does cut back a bit on the dialect when talking with the heroine. Who sounds just too cute btw!! Not squeeky-high-voice-cute, but actually cute.

The second story takes place partly in Niigata and partly in Tokyo, but it is the Niigata dialect that takes a central place in the plot. This time the heroine works for a museum and visits Niigata to obtain a specific painting for an exhibition. In the Shinkansen she meets Oshimi Keigo who is an actor. She lends him her phone because the batteries of his own one are drained, and as thanks he shows her around later on. They exchange their mail address before they both return to Tokyo, where the rest of the story takes place.

On the website they described this story to be "as pure as white snow" and I agree, it is very cute. The Niigata dialect is easy to understand. This is also the first time that the dialect itself plays a central part in the plot; Keigo, who was struggling with how to portray his characters in a sincere way, discovers that it is much easier for him to be sincere when he talks in his own dialect.

As always, I really like that the heroine has a voice, it allows for more complicated stories than when you can only listen. In both stories I got the feeling that there was more interaction with other characters, and that through that the focus was more on the dialect this time. This also made the stories seem much more natural, and gave them a fresh feeling.

Conclusion:
So far this is my favorite CD in the series. As much a Fukuoka-ben frustrates me, the story was fun so it was enjoyable. I might even say it was fun to try and understand everything he says. The second story was just too cute, and I liked that the dialect actually played a central role.
That, and it was Hirakawa Daisuke so what more do I want? :3