Why Sakuya Killed His Fiance, And Why I Think ''Boku ga Kimi wo Koroshita Riyuu'' Is a Mediocre CD - an essay by Eri.

Please note that this is not a review, but more of an analysis of the CD and why I think it was mediocre. I originally wanted to post it as a reply on tumblr, but it turned into a full essay and I didn't want to post a wall of text like this on tumblr.  So again, this is not an actual review. What I am doing is closer to dissecting the story (and it's flaws)

The Story

The CD starts when you 'wake up' and see Sakuya, who explains that you are dead, and that he is the one that killed you. You are currently in the afterlife. He tells you he will explain how you ended up like this, and that this explanation starts 7 day ago. After this the CD counts down to the day of your death, from Sakuya his perspective.

The first scene between the two of you is that you are shopping. You just picked up your wedding ring for your wedding, which is in 7 days. Quick calculation tells us that means you die on your wedding day, nice. While you are out Sakuya notices you coughing.

Next scene is Sakuya arriving at work and noticing that there are a lot of people absent. When he sits down a newspaper falls (out of his bag? from the desk?) and he remembers an article about an unknown disease spreading. (it is literally called ''kibyou'' meaning ''strange disease''). Sakuya re-reads the article, which states that the disease starts with a headache and that it has caused several deaths...

Next scene is when Sakuya gets home. While waiting for you to get home Sakuya watches the news and sees a report about a traffic incident. This triggers a flashback from his childhood; the traffic accident where he lost his father. Apparently they were driving to the airport to go on an overseas trip for his birthday. For some reason his mother is not there in his memories. (More on this scene later). This accident also caused amnesia - he has no memories from before the accident.

He is pulled back to reality by your entering the room. You visited the hospital on the way home (more alarm bells), it will take a few days before you get the results of your tests however. Sakuya makes you some hot milk, but you drop the mug and cut yourself. He cleans the wound by sucking it, noting that your blood 'tastes strangely sweet'. At this point I was afraid we would end up with a vampire story, but thankfully we a spared from that. It is still important later on though.

A few days later Sakuya receives a call from the hospital you went to, telling him to come alone. He is instantly worried so he leaves for the hospital right away. The doctor who called him greets him with ''long time no see''. Apparently he was an apprentice of Sakuya his father, but Sakuya doesn't remember him. The doctor tells him that having no memories is no surprise after that incident in the past.

More worried about your condition however, Sakuya asks about the test results. This is where the CD goes overboard. Apparently the strange disease always results in death, and it is not only spreading in Japan but in the entire world. However, they discovered an anti-virus in your blood. Thus, they want you to return to the hospital for tests so that they can develop an antidote. The catch is that you would become a human vegetable in the process. Sakuya immediately yells he won't allow that because you are more important than all of humankind to him. To which the doctor replies that he deliberately infected you with the disease, so that you will HAVE to come to the hospital.

Sakuya is obviously shaken by all of this, and skips work the next day. While doing this he has another flashback, but this time not of the accident but of what seems like a fire, and a woman trying to save him. Because he never saw any of these scenes in his flashbacks before he is understandably confused. This is when he realizes that the doctor said incident and not accident when talking about his memory loss.

Thus Sakuya decides to research whether there where any news articles about a fire which could be related to this. And of course he finds one that fits, it pictures a lodge (probably something like this) which is also pictured on the single family photo he has left. The news article mentions there was a fire, causing the death of one person and heavily injuring another. Because his mother is dead, Sakuya logically assumes his mother died in the fire.

(meanwhile, Sakuya has more flashbacks of a girl with a doll in a red dress, and your condition gets worse, although it could be just fatigue from overwork)

The day before the wedding however, Sakuya accidentally finds a box with all of your old dolls and plushies. Which (surprise surprise) contains the doll with the red dress from his flashbacks. This triggers him to remember everything, and to resolve to kill you. Which he does the next day on your wedding, he stabs you in the back when you give each other the ceremonial kiss.

From here on we return to the afterlife, where Sakuya explains the rest. I will do the same, but a bit more pragmatically because this essay is getting long enough as it is.

Explanation and Motives

You were friends with Sakuya when you were little, and the two of you really liked each other. Sakuya his family was on vacation near where you lived, and when the time came for him to go you didn't want him to leave. Thus you resorted to childish tricks like hiding his things so he couldn't leave (accurate child logic btw). You sneaked into the lodge at night to do so. Unfortunately you were carrying an oil lamp (or something similar) and at some point the whole place went up in flames.

Sakuya got caught in the flames and died, his mother sustained heavy injuries in her desperate attempts to save him, and would later succumb to these injuries. However his father was researching cloning, and succeeded in cloning Sakuya - the current Sakuya is a clone of the original, and this is why he has no memories from before the car accident, that was the day he was ''born''

This takes us back to the scene of said accident. Sakuya remembers this as his was father taking him on overseas trip for his birthday. It is more likely that he was fleeing overseas with the cloned child.

Although the article does not mention a second death, Sakuya deduces that there was - you died in the fire as well. This means you are a clone as well, the proof of this is the sweet taste of your blood (this is retro actively confirmed by the last scene). 

And THAT is the reason why Sakuya kills you, because the two of you are clones. Not because he doesn't want to sacrifice you to save the world, not because you caused the death of his mother and himself, destroying his life, but because you are clones. More specifically, because he is a clone and suddenly feels like he is just a shadow of the 'real' Sakuya and has no right to live. Note that he apparently decided this seconds after realizing the truth about himself. And his conclusion is to kill you, despite the fact that he still loves you and wished for you to be happy. This makes no sense to me.

The ending and its implications

After Sakuya his explanation has ended and he says goodbye, saying you will go to heaven and he will go to hell, there is a small bonus scene. At first this seems like a ''dream end'' where the entire story turns out to be a dream;

Sakuya wakes up after drifting off, mentioning he has a strange dream but can't really remember what is what about (It sounds like you are on a train or something). His finger hurts, and he mentions he cut himself this morning while making breakfast. The band-aid has slipped off, and you suck his finger to clean the wound, and mention that his blood tastes sweet. Sakuya declares this nonsense and changes the subject, saying that he is looking forward to how the wedding ring will turn out.

Now this scene was awesome for two reasons. First, it subverts the ''dream end''. This scene actually takes place one week before you pick up your wedding ring. Meaning that everything else still very much happened.

Second, you mention Sakuya his blood tastes sweet. Remember that Sakuya said the same about your blood earlier in the CD. With Sakuya definitely being a clone, this proves that you are, indeed, a clone as well.

Commentary on several of the scenes

The opening scene was pretty good to be honest. You are dead, but don't know why. The man who was your fiancé tells you he killed you. What happened? Why would he do that? The start is pretty intriguing actually. 

The first real problem is the scene where Sakuya reads the newspaper. It is so incredibly artificial it hurts. I understand that it can be difficult to introduce a topic in a CD with only one seiyuu (and thus no one to bring up the topic) but it is basically forced down your throat. Combining this with your cough from the scene before sets off an amount of red signs and alarm bells that can't be ignored. And while they don't play it completely straight, you do end up infected with the mystery disease.

Next comes the scene at the hospital. First of all, your blood having the (only) anti-virus for a disease which threatens the world sounds too fantastical to me. But there are more things wrong with this scene. I might not have much medical knowledge, but I do not see why you have to become a human vegetable from their tests. If they discovered the anti-virus in your blood, wouldn't that be all they need? Sure, giving a lot of blood (for a possibly prolonged time) would weaken you, but the worst that would happen is that you have to stay in a hospital bed for a while, not die as is heavily implied here.

(Keeping you alive is in their best interest as well, so it is reasonable to assume they would not take so much blood that they would kill you).

Another thing that bothers me is the doctor saying that he infected you with the disease when you came for a check-up. That would mean that they ran tests on your blood immediately after taking it (highly unlikely, it will probably get send to a test centre) AND immediately discovered that there was an anti-virus in it (even more unlikely, that would take extensive testing).

Also, as your blood had the only known anti-virus, Sakuya basically doomed humankind by killing you. Unless they salvage the blood from your cold, dead body or discover a new anti-virus we will all die slow and painful deaths caused by the mystery disease.

Plotholes and other rants.

• The doctor infecting you with the mystery disease as mentioned above, as this would mean he basically infected you before he even knew you had the anti-virus.
• For that matter, why extracting the anti-virus from your blood would result in your death.
• Sakuya seeing flashbacks from before the car accident. Cloning duplicates the body, not the mind. 
• You being a clone. The newspaper article does mention Sakuya his death but makes no mention of a second body.
• Even if they only discovered your body later, how did you return to a normal life after being born as clone? There is no indication of you having a strange past anywhere in the story.
• Why are there two clones out in the wild, both without any supervision? It is hard to imagine they would just let you go.
• Your (and Sakuya's) blood being sweet. If you are just a clone there is no reason for this, unless they used medicine/genetic manipulation to stabilize the clones. it did make for an awesome moment in the ending though.
• It sounds like there is no one present at the wedding, why not?
• Sakuya is the afterlife as well, but this is not explained anywhere. I guess we'll just have to assume he committed suicide after killing you.

Ono Daisuke his Performance

While I have a lot to say about the rest of the CD, I have little to say about OnoD his voice acting. It was neither bad nor really good. I'd be surprised if such a high profile seiyuu gave a bad performance to be honest, but it didn't really move me either. 

A lot of that can be attributed to the writing I suppose; I was getting increasingly annoyed with the story and it would have taken a truly astounding performance to save it. Unfortunately there was no real room for that. 

So I'll go with ''good''. There weren't any bad moments so that makes it good, it just doesn't manage to impress beyond that (in my opinion).

Conclusion

The concept and start of the CD were promising. Unfortunately the plot ends up as too cliché, with a couple of gaping plot holes to make the situation worse.

I wanted to like this CD, I like mystery stories like this and it had the potential to be heartbreaking. Bitter-sweet would have been a good alternative, but in my opinion the CD barely reaches even that level. 

Yet, for all it's flaws, the ending is amazing. When it seemed like they were going to pull a dream end I nearly stopped listening right there. The last thing I needed after a story I hardly enjoyed was a ''just kidding!!'' moment. I'm glad I kept listening though, because it was a well executed double plot twist. If anything, I will be remembering this ending for a long time.

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Wow. I just wrote almost 2500 words on the flaws of a drama CD, haha. Even my incredibly long Wasurenagusa reviews are still only about 1500 words!

If you've listened to the CD as well and have anything to add (or counter my arguments!) feel free to post in the comments. I'm really interested in how others feel about the CD, because to me it was disappointing. 

While I had fun writing this, this post does not mean I will return to a regular posting schedule any time soon. It was more like something I needed to get out of my system. Basically this entire post is a rant that is pretending to be coherent.

Special: Navikare + Yurikamome

While planning my last trip to Japan there was one thing that I absolutely wanted to do while I was in Tokyo: ride the Yurikamome line while listening to Navikare.

A senpai who works in Japan was kind enough to let me stay over for a few days, and as luck would have it he actually lives near odaiba - you could see the yurikamome line from his living room. So one morning I first walked to odaiba by crossing Rainbow Bridge. This sounds all nice and romantic, but you are walking right next to the trafic so there is a lot of noise and fumes, but the view is great:

After walking along the beach and doing some window shopping at the various malls I walked over to Kokusai-tenjijō-seimon station (the station in front of Tokyo Big Sight, and also where you get on the train in the CD) to get on the train. I chose to listen to the first boyfriend, mostly because I was unsure whether I would be able to keep a straight face while listening to the second xD

Before getting on the train I checked to see how I could get the timing of departing right. This wasn't to difficult: the second track begins when the doors of the train close, so it was easy to get the timing right.

Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures while on the train, sorry.

Like I mentioned in the review of the CD: The tracks are divided by station, but the story continues seamlessly. A lot of famous landmarks are mentioned, and for the most part those came into view when mentioned or just a little later. I suppose the timing differs depending on where you sit in the train (I was sitting somewhere near the middle) and it was only a few seconds off.

There were just two moments that were off in my opinion. When Oedo Onsen was mentioned I couldn't see it anywhere. Then again maybe I just missed it because we were just going around a corner, and I couldn't exactly run from one side of the train to the other to see whether I might be able to see it from there (well, I could have, but I didn't want to bother anyone). The other moment is when your boyfriend mentions that the Ferris Wheel looks very different from different angles, but by that time you are on the Rainbow Bridge and you can't see the actual Ferris Wheel at all. You did see it from every possible angle during the ride though.

The next moment more then makes up for it though. During track 6 there is a part where the background sounds fade out and you hear a bgm instead. This is actually while you are in the 'loop' part of Rainbow Bridge, and it really makes a great atmosphere~ I must have been grinning like an idiot at that point, but I couldn't really care.

The sound effects on the train (such as the sound before the opening and closing of the doors)  are different from the actual yurikamome line. I suppose this is logical, I doubt they would be allowed to use the official ones, and re-creating them would probably be a hell of a job. Also, this CD was released in 2009 so it is entirely possible that the sounds have changed.

There is one thing that truly amazed me while listening: the timing. Most of the time it was accurate on the second, especially the timing of the closing of the doors and departure. In the beginning it was entirely in sync with the actual train, at some point it started to have a slight delay, but only by a second or so and considering the fact that a one way trip is about 25min, that is quite an achievement. (It is also sort of amazing that the timing is still the same after 4 years).


Conclusion:
For most of the CD the content of the CD and what you are actually seeing match, and the timing of the CD was way more accurate than I expected. It was a lot of fun to listen to this while actually riding the train. I managed to keep a straight face during most of the ride, but failed near the end. Not that I really cared, I was enjoying it way too much.

So if you feel like doing this: I can recommend it.
Odaiba is a nice for sightseeing anyways (the beach is nice too!) and the Yurikamome line is one of the easiest ways to get there (and leave) so you don't really need to go out of your way for it either.

I had a lot of fun doing this, and if I get the chance I definitely want to try and do something like this again.



Bonus remark: The cover of the CD is a simplistic rendition of the area around the Tokyo Big Sight station. The real thing is prettier, but this gets the image across (^-^)

Special: Favourite Seiyuu

As requested by someone in the comments  a long time ago, here is a small write up on my favourite seiyuu. My preferences are probably quite personal, and often the only argument is "I just love his voice". Really, I don't think I have any sane arguments to defend any of my choices. But that doesn't stop me from loving them.

I'm just writing this list based on who's voice I love. Despite listening to a lot of drama CDs and being a seiyuu fan in that sense, I seldom actually look for info on seiyuu or watch events. In fact I actively try to avoid seeing pictures of them because if I know how they look that starts to clash with the character image in my mind. So I can't really say much about their personality and things like that. I know some people are also fan of certain seiyuu (or actors for that matter) because of who they are, I just love them for their voice or acting skills.

(I'm really sorry if this is all very boring and stuff, but I promised I would write this so I wanted to make a proper post out of it)


1. Sakurai Takahiro
Sakurai has been at the top of my list for years now, with the one and only argument that I simply love his voice. The cause for my incredible Sakurai bias is one series and one series only: Are you Alice?. Sakurai = Alice (and vice versa) in my head. My love of his voice has reached the point where I still want to see Twilight in Japanese just because he voiced Edward. (I'm... not much of a Twilight fan in case you didn't know).

If we are not talking about drama CD my favourite Sakurai roles are probably Asbel Lhant (Tales of Graces), Clause Faustus (Kuroshitsuji), and the Medicine Seller (Mononoke), though I tend to go into fangirl mode as soon as I hear his voice.

Favourite drama CDs: everything Are you Alice (but especially the tokuten or anything where Alice acts out of character), Anata ga Ofuro de Noboseru CD Vol.1 Kusatsu, Fujoshi no Totsugikata / Fujoshi no Mikata, Fushihi Koubou Vol.3.



2. Hirakawa Daisuke
Second one without a valid argument. Hirakawa-san has a pretty interesting voice range, and I love both ends of it. When he plays hetare or clumsy characters, they are just so adorable that I cannot bring myself to dislike them no matter how clumsy they are. I prefer him using the lower ends of his range though, but sadly I don't know many examples. At either rate, I love it when he voices (slightly) dangerous characters.

I think I first really noticed him as Ace from Heart no Kuni no Alice, but what really sparked my fandom was Yandere Heavon vol.2. His yandere performance is -if you ask me- one of the best in the series, and the reason why I secretly keep hoping that almost every character he now voices has a hidden side... Going through his list of anime roles, I think I have literally seen none of the anime in which he voices a major role. So my love is solely based on what I mentioned above, haha.

Speaking of wanting to see Japanese dubs of movies; Hirakawa-san is the voice over for Orlando Bloom, and watching the Lord of the Rings or Pirates of the Caribbean in Japanese is also still on my to do list.

While I said that I only like seiyuu's for their voice and know little about their personality, I do love how polite and gentle Hirakawa-san always sounds in cast talks and interviews.

Favourite drama CDs:  Shuukan Soine Vol.1, Yandere Heaven Vol.2, Hougen Renai Vol.3, Anata ga Ofuro de Noboseru Vol.3 Misasa, Double Score ~Narcissus~, and his story in Kannou Mukashi Banashi Vol.6.



3. Okiayu Ryoutarou
I think that Okiayu-san was the first time I actually became fan of a seiyuu (before that I would like certain characters, but not specifically their seiyuu). This bias developed out of a character crush: Tezuka Kunimitsu from Tennis no Oujisama. Okiayu-san is one of the few seiyuu who's singing voice I also like, and I have several of his singles and albums (most of them are from Tennis no Oujisama xD). After I stopped watching the show the crush slowly died out though, but at some point I re-discovered him. By this time my Sakurai bias was already formed, so he is no longer at the top of my list anymore, but still a long time favourite.

When we're not talking about drama CD's, my favourite Okiayu characters are Tezuka Kunimitsu (obviously),  Dark (D.N.Angel), Gaius (Tales of Xillia. So I am really really really excited that he becomes a playable character in Xillia 2).

Favourite drama CDs: Shimekiri CD, O.To.Na Gentei Otogame CD Vol.2, Oujisama (warai) series. While not technically a drama CD, the drama part from Sasayaka na Kono Negai is absolutely brilliant.


4. Koyasu Takehito
Probably the only seiyuu who's voice I can recognise with 100% accuracy even if he speaks only one line. (although there has been one incident where I  failed to recognise him). Despite not being my favourite seiyuu ever, I have a habit of calling him "Koyasu-sama".

Despite the fact that he is often cast for characters with a cold and distant personality I love him more when he does sarcastic or comical roles. Especially if you can combine those two.

 The first time I fell in love with his voice is probably when I was paying Tokimemo, where he voices your teacher, Himoru Reichi. Despite originally going after another character his voice won me over and I started going after Himuro halway through the game. When on another character his route it always hurt like hell when I had to reject his invitations (T-T).

I originally played Tales of the Abyss in English, so I first discovered that he voiced Jade when I watched the anime, but that role is basically my ideal role for Koyasu-sama. In Hakushaku no Yousei his role is far more comical, and I spent most of Persona -Trinity Soul- fangirling over Ryou because he was voiced by Koyasu-sama.

Favourite non-drama CD roles: Himoru Reiichi (Tokimemo Girls side), Jade (Tales of the Abyss), Julius (Heart no Kuni no Alice), Kelpie (Hakushaku to Yousei), Kanzato Ryou (Persona -Trinity Soul). His voice completely mismatches Aokiji (One Piece) his image in my mind, so I actually dislike the character because of that.

Favourite drama CDs: Are you Alice - Alice no Tea Party Vol.3 (I cannot express my love for this CD in words), Heartful Kareshi series (he voices a dove). Unfortunately he doesn't appear in that many drama CDs, but I am definitely going to track down more of them.



Honourable Mentions:
Fukuyama Jun and Takemoto Eiji. While I don't particularly like (or dislike) their voices, I've heard these two voice so many different types of characters that I just can't help but admire their skills.

For Fukuyama Jun it was the difference between Shimizu Keiichi and Lelouch Laperouge that first made me aware of this. Shimizu was the first character that I associated with Fukuyama, which is why that image is stuck in my head. After doing some research I discovered that I heard him in countless roles, without even recognising him. This video shows a some of those, although it is a lot easier to recognise when they are all put together. Lately I've been getting better at recognising his voice, although I often only recognise it but fail to pinpoint who it is.

As for Takemoto Eiji, just listening to the Oujisama (warai) series gives you an impression of all the different characters he can voice (he voices almost every side character in the series, this has also become somewhat of a running gag in the series).




After listing my favourite, I suppose it is only fair that I list my least favourite ones as well, although there are only two of them, and I think that they are quite obvious from various reviews that I have done (^-^;;)

Ishida Akira in situation CDs / otome games. I don't know why, but I cannot bring myself to like Ishida-san when he voices a boyfriend role. That being said, he can voice very convincing shota's, and I have less problems whenever he voices a normal role in any anime or game. It is just that I don't like boyfriend!Ishida...

Yoshino Hiroyuki whenever he uses that gyaruo/bratty voice, which is most of the time. He actually has a rather nice voice if he talks in a more serious tone, but unfortunately he is usually type cast for the former. My disappointment when I discovered that he voiced Debito in Arcana Famiglia was unending (although it is actually one of the more reasonable examples).

Special: Anata ga Ofuro de Noboseru Bath explanations

While reviewing the Anata ga Ofuro de Noboseru series and Diabolik Lovers Vol.2 and 4 (which also -partly- take place in the bathroom) I realized that there might be some extra explanations needed to how a Japanese bathroom actually looks and works, because otherwise some scenes might seem a bit illogical.

No need to read this if you already know how it works, but in case you don't, I hope this helps to explain certain scenes.



Taking a bath
Unlike many western countries where it is normal to wash yourself in the bathtub, the actual bath in Japan is only used for soaking, while you wash yourself before you enter the tub. This way multiple people can use the same bathwater.

The bathroom itself is usually split up into two parts; a place to undress/ change your clothes/ fiddle with beauty products, and an inner bathroom where the shower and bath are located. This is the same for public baths, although on a whole different scale of course.

Special: sliding down the slippery slope of 'weird'

Happy new year!!!


Looking back on almost 2 years of listening to drama CDs, I have to conclude that I've listened to some pretty weird stuff. But what is 'weird'? How do you define 'weird'?? And was my starting point on what is 'weird' or not average to begin with???

And thus this journey into my own mind started.


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Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. This is a trip into the mind of the author of this blog. Please fasten your seat belt and do not walk while the seat belt sign is turned on. During the flight the crew will not supply you with drinks or snacks, so we suggest that you grab them yourself before we lift off. We wish you a pleasant flight.
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In the beginning
While thinking about what I define as weird or not I realized that my personal view on weird or not wasn't exactly normal any more when I began listening to drama CD's. It probably started sliding down the slippery slope the moment I started watching anime to begin with.

Not the first few shows, of course. Like most people I first watched anime dubbed in my own language (Dutch) and only the stuff that was on tv. Pokemon, Sailormoon, Digimon, Yu-gi-oh, the standard list. I probably already made a little side step into weird because I also watched a lot of stuff in German, but what can I say. RTL II simply had more interesting shows (mainly Detective Conan). In the eyes of many, just watching anime is already weird, so I disqualified for being normal right there.

I don't really remember what the first show that I watched in Japanese was, but it happened when a whole new world opened up to me: the internet. But the thing is, when you start downloading stuff on internet you start to look around on internet and you find a whole lot of other stuff. Stuff you sometimes wished you didn't see. And thus I discovered that something called hentai existed.

At the time I was far too young to be interested in it, and it mainly was weird. Animated porn, why would you even make that? let alone watch it. And people even turn 'normal' shows into hentai! Why would they do that to my favorite characters?! But, as with most things, at some point you just accept that it exists. I wasn't interested in it but I knew it existed, and at some point you are no longer shocked by it. The fact that it exists sort of became natural to me; and we slide further down the slippery slope.

And then the next discovery: Yaoi. Eeeeeewwww. Again: Why would people make/watch/read it? Why would they turn characters in 'normal' shows gay?? Why would anyone be interested in that sort of thing?! When I first discovered Yaoi existed I was completely weirded out. So much in fact, that if I happened to stumble upon it by chance Immediately closed the browser window. Even if there was no-one else at home. Around the same time I discovered that Yuri exists, but that was something aimed at men so I didn't need to understand it. Yeah.

But, like with hentai, at some point you simply accept that it exists (although I didn't know exactly how large the BL fanbase actually is!). And this time, curiosity took over and I actually tried to read some of it. (I managed to get through my first BL manga with a lot of giggling and blushing). A whole lot later I even tried to watch some. Eventually I concluded that it is just another genre to me. One that I'm not really interested in, but it exists, and there is nothing shocking about it anymore.

Yup. There is nothing weird about animated male pornography aimed at women anymore. I even read/watched some. I am definitely sliding down the slope now.

Random fact, the first time I saw any hentai was actually years after I first saw yaoi. But all the same I concluded that I'm not really interested in it



And then there was Otome
Somewhere in the back of my head I knew dating sims existed. And of course I thought they were weird. Especially if they were also H-games. Why would anyone play a game in which you could date an imaginary character, let alone have sex with her? It was weird. The artwork was often nice, but it was definitely something to stay away from.

And then I discovered that otome games (dating sims aimed at women, red.) existed. It would still take years before I would actually play one though. The first otome game I played was Kiniro no Corda (La Corda D'oro, as the anime is known) which was fun because it wasn't just a visual novel but had actual gameplay. After that came Tokimemo 1 and 2 (and later after it was released, 3), and after that I started playing more otome games.

So I discovered that something I thought was weird was actually quite fun! I even tried a few Hgames, but like with everything H, I decided that it wasn't that interesting. I still regularly play otome games and love that they are now released on psp more and more often because that is easy to import.

But that takes us to heaving read and watched hentai and yaoi, and regularly playing otome games (but no more H games). This is normal to me now, but how normal is it really? hmmmmm....


And then, drama CD's.
Audio drama's were nothing weird. I'm sure many of you also had tapes or CD's or whatever in which your favourite fairy tales were told or enacted. (that makes me realize, I had those on tape! actual cassette tapes! I almost feel old).*cough* anyway. The first drama CD I listened to was Are you Alice? and after that I started to look for other things.

And between listening to these 'normal' drama CD's, Starry Sky was the first time that I listened to a drama CD in which a character talks directly to the listener. In this case they were on a date with you. I have to admit, the first time I didn't manage to finish listening to it because I kept giggling like an idiot. A CD in which someone talks directly to you, goes on a date with you! that was weird!

But as you can guess. After a while I tried again and became used to it. Things like Starry Sky or Kareshi Recipe became normal. And then I started to stray further. Oshigoto Danshi, Brother Android, Karekoe, Enren Danshi, all kinds of different settings in which a character or boyfriend talks directly to you, and none of it was weird.

On the other hand, Kannou Mukashi Banashi was released: my first experience with the Dummy Head Mic. Kannou Mukashi Banashi stood fairly at the beginning of the Dummy Head boom, and more and more works that use it were released: Kannou Jikan, Shuukan Soine, Mousou Este and the list goes on. While I still see Kannou Jikan as bordering on weird (ever since they went over the top with the ero) the others seem perfectly normal to me.

When this becomes to new standard you start to listen to other things. DAISUKE!, Yandere Heaven, Kareshi Igai, Ot.To.Na Gentei, and there is a whole list of yet to be released things that I plan to listen to. Despite these things becoming my new standard even I was surprised at Ai aru Batou, and I still haven't had the courage to listen to it, but I just know that I will. Someday.

But just think about it, in Yandere Heaven you are the victim of two obsessively possessive suitors. In vol 3 both characters are actually blood related. You can't really call that a normal setting. Kareshi Igai has cheating on your boyfriend as main theme, that isn't exactly what you call normal either. And in Diabolik Lovers, one of the latest additions to the drama CD world, sadistic vampires try to drink your blood. But these things have become my new standard. I'm not shocked, not even surprised that these things exist any more. (Ok, Diabolik Lovers did scare me).

But even when it comes to other types of drama CD's: Momogrape their Men's Only series? Normal. Yaoi drama CD's? I don't listen to them, but perfectly normal. A drama CD featuring anthropomorphic ramen/pasta/food/pets/dialects? Why not? 


Conclusion?
Listing all of this really makes me realize... I've come a long way in what I consider 'normal'. I thought I became more lenient with what normal was after I started listening to drama CD's, but this shows I was already sliding down the slippery slope of weird on high speed even before that.

Yaoi, Otome games, all kinds of weird drama CD's.... I think.... we'll have to conclude, that I am definitely not normal any more. So what I consider normal, or at least not shocking, is actually  far from it?!



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Thank you for joining us on this flight. If you have any questions the crew will be happy to answer them. If you wish to share your flight experience with us (commentssss!) you are more than welcome. We wish you a pleasant day, a wonderful new year, and hope to see you again soon.
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