Oujisama (warai) Variety Drama 2nd Season.

After all the Yandere, it is time for something light hearted. And what better than my favourite princes?

王子様(笑)シリーズ バラエティドラマCD 2nd Season

Company: Frontierworks
Based on: Original
Released: 2012.01.25
Official Site: http://www.fwinc.co.jp/princewww

Oujisama (warai) re-tells the story from several well known fairy tales from the perspective of the prince. This time however the princes go on a vacation, or at least that was the plan. The princes in this CD are Aladdin (CV: Miyano Mamoru), Genji (CV: Yoshino Hiroyuki), The Emperor (from Taketori Monogatari, CV: Okiayu Ryoutarou), and the Frog Prince (henceforth know as Kaeru, CV: Sugita Tomokazu). Of course Takemoto Eiji is also present, as every other role.

The plan was for all of the princes to go on a winter holiday, but all of them find it much to cold to do anything, so eventually all of them (except for the emperor) end up doing nothing while sitting under a kotatsu. While three of the princes are spending their time relaxing, the Emperor is talking with the Narrator (CV: Takemoto Eiji, of course) about what they could do.

The narrator suggests doing something with Christmas, however none of the princes know anything about Christmas, resulting in everyone giving their own hilarious misunderstood version of Christmas, but in the end nothing much happens.

Eventually, they do find something to do: Yaminabe.
Yaminabe is a sort of nabe where everyone puts something in the dish, but you don't show the others what it is. The joke is that everyone usually brings unusual foodstuffs, and that you have to eat whatever you get. This can get pretty disgusting (trust me).

The princes have two rounds in which each of them have to eat something. Some of these are pretty hilarious, such as Genji putting frog legs, or the Emperor putting konyaku (which really does taste like nothing, which is exactly why it tastes so weird) in the mix.

Afterwards all of them end up looking through all kinds of fairytale books in order too find a type of magic that can bring Kaguya-hime back from the moon (cue the Emperor saying that Kaguya-hime is not an alien countless times). Of course all of the fairytales they talk about are in some way misunderstood or simplified far too much. Eventually they talk about going to the Wizard of Oz.

During all of this, Genji manages to annoy the rest so much that they want to teach him a lesson. And thus they take him to a spring where a fairy appears (the say that is a goddes to Genji, but it turns out to be a guy). If you drop something into the spring, the fairy asks you what you dropped and offers you something better. If you refuse that and say what you actually dropped you receive one of the better items.

And so, they throw Genji into the spring, and receive a Genji with better manners in return (the way Genji his personality is described is briliant, I don't think I've ever heard so many negative character traits together). However it soon turns out that this new Genji isn't exactly what they hoped for either...

Between the main story are short tracks depicting how each prince spends their everyday life. Of course all of them spends their days in rather strange ways.

Especially the first part is a 100% winter story. Relaxing under a kotatsu which is so comfortable you don't ever want to get out of it, and eating nabe sounds like 100% winter in Japan to me. The atmosphere is also one of being lazy and doing absolutely nothing. The kind of thing that makes me want to huddle in a blanket as well. Although the Yaminabe part is pretty hilarious, their reactions to the food are just too much fun.

Personally, the part where they discuss all of the fairytales was ok, but not that special to me. But the entire thing with Genji getting a different personality was pure gold. I don't remember where I know the whole fairy in a spring thing from though (except for maybe the Legend of Zelda). Genji his new personality is in a way just as annoying as his old one.

I'm still not very used to Kaeru being there, but his conviction that his princess is just a tsundere whenever she refuses his romantic advances is hilarious. He actually calls it "play", causing Genji to remark that things like that are dangerous when they become habit, and Aladdin to wonder what kind of experiences Genji has.

In the cast talk everyone talks about how they spend their winter. Which is mostly talk about wintersport. Miyano-san gets very excited in his explanations, and apparently makes some incredibly funny faces while doing so.


Conclusion:
While I didn't laugh as much as with other CD's in the series, I still had a lot of fun listening to this. Somehow I just like the other princes (especially Cinderella and Snow White) a lot more, although I do love Aladdin.