Ouritsu Ouji Gakuen vol.5: The Little Mermaid

I started with vol.4 first, but somehow grew tired of it (pun not intended) and switched to this one instead, which was a very good decision.

王立王子学園 vol.5 人魚姫の王子様

Company: R45°project / Sousakubou
Based on: Original
Released: 2012.05.15
Official site: http://rpgakuen.com/

Ouritsu Ouji Gakuen (Royal Prince Gakuen, RPG for short) is a school where princes go in preparation of their future career as royalty. That means normal lessons, but also stuff like dancing lessons and other things you might need as royalty. Other than the fact that the entire student body are royal princes, it is a very normal school. It is not like you'll notice any of this in the CD's. Although you are the only girl at the entire school.

In this series you both spend time together with your main prince, as well as with multiple characters. Each CD features three princes, and you get to spend some quality time together with the 'main prince' as well as some -often funny- lively moments with all three. All characters are based of fairytales, and series 2 features the 3rd year students Ibaraki Sei (Sleeping Beauty), Namikawa Takumi (the Little Mermaid), and Yagyuu Ryuunosuke (Beauty and the Beast).

In vol.5 Namikawa Takumi (CV: Taniyama Kisho) is the main prince. Takumi looks like a flirt, but is actually quite sweet. Lately he has been seeing nightmares in which his beloved sinks to the bottom of the ocean. However ever since he bumped into you at school one day the nightmares have stopped. He asked you for your number the moment you met, and you’ve been texting ever since.

Takumi his classmates Sei (CV: Terashima Takuma) and Yagyuu (CV: Morikawa Toshiyuki) are of course also in the CD, although I felt like the times that the 3 characters interact has decreased since the first series. The moments they have together in this CD are brilliant though. Sei has to clean the pool as a punishment for sleeping in class, and he bribes Yagyuu (by giving him food) and Takumi (by giving him a picture of you) to help him.

Because Takumi texted you that he had to clean the pool you come to visit, and Sei bribes you with two movie tickets. While you are all cleaning Yagyuu and Sei start messing around, and Takumi gets splashed with water, causing him to faint because he is afraid of water in any way shape or form. The discussion on how to wake him up is priceless.

Of course those movie tickets are used for a date with the two of you, and Takumi is surprisingly nervous for it. About halfway through that condition has completely healed though, and I would take several of things he says love confessions, but they are not apparently, because you’ll get a proper confession later.

Of all the CD’s, I think this one had the most ‘normal’ relationship. Fine, Takumi might be a bit overconfident that you’ll eventually start dating, but you start out as friends, it takes a few weeks before you reach the point of daily texting, and the movie date you have is normal as well. Not that the other CD’s were that unrealistic, but somehow this one felt like the first one where you go through several steps, instead of from friends to rabu rabu date mode. (although technically, all of them have a date where you are still just friends and one where you are couple).

The characters from the first series are mentioned as a shout out as well. Because they are 2nd years and your classmates, Takumi feels jealous of them and keeps wishing he was born just one year later.

The cast comment wasn’t too special, but it did have some info that I find very interesting: apparently the script was 43 pages, and Taniyama-san finished the recording in 2hrs (which was fast). If the script of a CD like this is already around 40-45 pages, imagine how long the script for a fully voiced game has to be!


Conclusion:
So far I think I like this CD the best, but Yagyuu also sounds like an interesting character so we’ll have to see how the ranking ends. Despite his looks Takumi is a  really honest and sweet character, if a bit melodramatic at times. The interaction with the other guys was fun as well, and personally the balance between your time with Takumi and with the others was good too.