Tiny×Machinegun FILE:1 THE KNOCKDOWN

Tiny×Machinegun FILE:1 THE KNOCKDOWN

Company: Rejet x IM Bullet
Based on: Original
Released: 2012.02.29
Official site: http://rejetweb.jp/txm/


The city of New York is being protected by it's police force "Captain VANEAST". Tiny McDaniel is a new police officer in the force, full of energy she wants to dive into the work, but at the moment the only mission she gets is helping kids cross the road safely...

The CD starts as a TV show. The Seventh TV has gotten wind of the News that Tiny (CV: Tamura Yukari) is joining the police force and is holding a special on it. McDaniel is a famous name in the police force thanks to Tiny her grandfather being a famous 'hero' in the force, and Tiny her brother Reigand (CV: Sakurai Takahiro) is treated like a hero by the half the city.

Reigand and Wolf (CV: Toriumi Kousuke) are trying to capture two criminals; Tom and Jerry (CV: Morikubo Shoutarou and Yonaga Tsubasa). The two of them aren't really dangerous, more a bunch of idiots, until Jerry flips. Tiny is close by and saves the day, all on live television.

Unhappy with the uninteresting small jobs she gets, and wanting to help her brother more than anything (Tiny seems to have a bit of a brother complex. Luckily Reigand spoils her as well) she sneaks out to catch herself some criminals. She finds a promising looking wanted note for Midou Zen (CV: Fujiwara Keiji) who is wanted for attempted murder. Of course this isn't as easy as it seems, especially because Midou turns out to be an ex cop, and her brothers mentor.

Meanwhile the rest of the force is deployed to watch over the presentation of one of Lian Jenkings (CV: Miki Shinichirou) his new inventions. After an incident involving Midou, Lian was gravely injured and is now in a wheel chair, and has devoted his life do developing machines that help people who cannot walk freely. Unfortunately many of them seem to be abused by criminals, creating a bit of a tension between him and Reigand.

His newest invention is a gigantic machine that will help clean the city. Unfortunately, someone has tampered with it, and in the middle of the presentation the thing runs wild. Wolf and Reigand try to stop the thing, Tom and Jerry get involved to create even more chaos, and in the end the day is saved by Midou, who has by now kidnapped Tiny...

TxM starts with a light hearted and funny scene, but quickly shows glimpses of a much more serious story underneath. If you know some of IM label there other works this should sound familiar, as this is how Ninomiya Ai writes her stories. Although this story has neither the amount of crack of for example Are you Alice, nor the really dark edge of any her other stories (as of yet at least).

Tiny is really cute, how she wants to try her best and help her brother the city and personality wise the complete opposite of the rather silent Reigand (which is a shame, I would have loved to hear him talk more *is shot*). The end of the story leaves Tiny in the hands of Midou, and her character description says she turned a lot of people against her after she started to work with him, so that makes me curious how this continues.

Tom and Jerry were credited as quest characters, which is a shame because I would love to see more of them. They are complete failures as criminals, but way too funny to listen too, so I secretly hope that they will have some sort of cameo later in the series. The reporter from Seventh TV, Patricia (CV: Shouji Umeka) is another hilarious character, only out for her scoop and always hanging around Tiny to report on how cute she is.


Conclusion:
While being a good stand alone story, this CD really feels like it was just the introduction to the world of TxM, introducing us to all the characters and surroundings, opening a path to kick off the real story. Luckily there are at least two more CD's (and a game) in the works.

Tales of Symphonia: A Long Time Ago Vol.3

テイルズ オブ シンフォニア - A long time ago 第3巻

Company: Frontierworks
Based on: Game
Released: 2004.08.25


In total there are 3 volumes for A Long Time Ago, and each CD has two stories that deal with the past of a character.This final volumes is somewhat different however, in that it also brings together what everyone was doing in the present.

In fact, it mainly focuses on the story in the present, and Zelos and Kratos their past is stuffed somewhere in between.

The story begins with an announcer in Meltokio proclaiming that Zelos (CV: Onosaka Masaya) is dead. Lloyd (CV: Konishi Katsuyuki) and Collette (CV: Mizuki Nana) who happen to be there don't want to believe it. While drinking something in a pub later they meet a woman called Kyrie who was working together with Zelos. Apparently Zelos found evidence of some sort of conspiracy just before he was killed, however he already gave to evidence to "the person he trusts most". Wanting to avenge Zelos, the three of them set of to find the evidence.

Kratos is only present in the story through his conversations with Yuan. What they tell of his past is already explained in game; what happened when Anna her exsphere was removed. I don't think there were any more details than in already mentioned in the game.

This drama CD had a completely different set-up, and I'm not entirely sure I'm happy about that. Zelos and Kratos are my favorite characters, so I was looking forward to seeing (hearing?) them in the spotlight. Instead, I think Lloyd and Collete actually featured more. Zelos does get a bit of action and a really cool line near the end though.

The cast comment however, was a lot better this time! This time four of the seiyuu made a comment, and they also interacted with each other making it a lot more lively. Especially Onosaka Masaya is really fun to listen to.


Conclusion:
I'm a bit sad that it doesn't center on Zelos and Kratos, but hearing a little bit of the future, of the problems that arise after the end of the game was nice too. That all three CD's are tied together with this was a nice touch too. I'll just turn my hopes towards the Rodeo Ride Tour CDs for more Zelos~

ps: all three covers together form one large image:

Tales of Symphonia: A Long Time Ago Vol.2

テイルズ オブ シンフォニア - A long time ago 第2巻

Company: Frontierworks
Based on: Game
Released: 2004.08.25


In total there are 3 volumes for A Long Time Ago, and each CD has two stories that deal with the past of a character. The second CD has stories for Raine + Genis and Presea Combatir. The stories are told as flashbacks, so while the drama CD's are chronologically after the game, the stories themselves are from before the game starts. Am I still making sense?

This time I'll start with the one sentence summary:

This CD tells the story from Raine and Genis their travels before Iselia, and how Presea got her exsphere.

Like the first CD the prologue has nothing to do with the rest, but is a short scene with Lloyd (CV: Konishi Katsuyuki) and Collette (CV: Mizuki Nana) instead. Both of them wonder how everyone in Iselia is doing, and talk about going to visit sometime.

For Raine and Genis that first summary isn't entirely true though. Their story is both about their travels before Iselia and their living there. The story starts when Raine (CV: Touma Yumi) and Genis (CV: Orikasa Ai) take shelter from the rain underneath a large tree. Both of them remember that it was always raining whenever they traveled, and start a little reminiscence.

Presea (CV: Kuwashima Houko) is working as a representative of Lezareno Company (Regal his company). While working on destroying the exsphere mines she remembers how she got her own exsphere. We get to hear quite a bit of a Presea that we've never seen before in the games.

This time there is a lot more new background information. (The fact that Lloyd and Dike are living outside of the village because both Lloyd and Dike both hit the mayor during an argument was new to me at least). Both stories are kind of sad, but both stories end with a really positive mindset of the respective characters.

Especially Presea her story was really emotional for me. In the game her backstory is explained, and even then it was already a sad story. But if you actually hear it is even worse. Combined with the beautiful piano music it was enough to make me cry rivers.

The bonustrack still isn't very special though. The three main seiyuu give a short message and that's it. It is cute though.


Conclusion
I liked this one a lot better than the first, mostly because there is quite some new info. Presea has never been one of my favorite characters, but her story is simply beautiful. I.... I don't know anything else to say, I'm sorry (^-^;;)

Captain HOOK love's lock.

An older series again. It took me a while to track this one down, but I finally found it. Written by Ninomiya Ai (IM Label) this is once again a very twisted story. However except for the title and a few names it has little to do with the story of peter pan.


The series has two entries: Get off track and Genetic Aberration, as well as a third image song album called Stay a Fake. It tells the story of several characters that reside inside the city "GIALOCK". Mostly the story tells about Shibako and Ichi, who are both searching for a girl called Wendy.

Captain HOOK love's lock is by no means an easy story. To begin with it is advised to read the story introduction to get an idea of the setting on the official website, otherwise chances are you'll be majorly confused throughout the story. But rest assured, even with said knowledge you're guaranteed to get confused.

The story takes place inside GIALOCK, which is basically a prison for a certain kind of prisoners that have been sentenced to death. The concept is that they can live freely, but execute each other. At some point though, someone discovered that a person can be (re)born from the strong memories and will of another...

Get of track begins with a recording of an interview with Wendy, who has just killed her parents. Or her younger brothers (she changes what she says every few sentences). She says that she did it to protect her younger brothers from the abuse of her parents, or that said abuse was the only gesture of love that they had. At the end of the fragment however, it turns out that while Wendy constantly talks about her 'brothers' she only had one younger brother.

As is often the case with Ninomiya Ai her works the story is told fragmented, in this case through recordings of interviews with the prisoners on the one hand and the current actions of Shibako and Ichi on the other hand. In between there is a story about Ichi raising a dog with puppies which is partly metaphorical for the rest of the story. Because not everything is told you have to put together the various fragments to understand what is going on, which is puzzling at best.
  
Genetic Aberration continues in the same fragmented style. And in my opinion adds more questions that that it solves. While it does explain Ichi his backstory, it also adds more questions on other points, especially on whether Wendy is still alive or not. On the whole I liked the story, even though it is very vague and left me with a whole bunch of questions. I suppose it was simply the atmosphere that was so great.


The voice acting was good, although Wendy (CV: Mitsuishi Kotono) her performance in particular got stuck in my head. Wendy sounds incredibly innocent, and either doesn't feel that she did something wrong, or is so insane by now that she no longer understands the implications of killing someone. Either way, how she talks about things is chilling.

The only real flaw for me is that the story is so fragmented that it is really hard to understand. What is going on in specific scenes isn't to hard to understand, but how everything is connected or the bigger picture is bloody different to figure out. This is definitely a story that you might want to listen and re-listen, just in order to make a little more sense out of it.