Shinsengumi Mokuhiroku Wasurenagusa Vol.6 Yamazaki Susumu

Finally finished the review for this. I have a feeling that these reviews are getting longer with every CD though....

 新撰組黙秘録 勿忘草 第六巻 山崎烝

Company: Rejet
Based on: Original
Released: 2012.12.26
Official site: http://rejetweb.jp/wasurenagusa/


Shinsengumi Mokuhiroku Wasurenagusa is a series based on several historically famous people within the shinsengumi. The concept of the CDs is "what if I could have been there (and fall in love with one of them)". So while they are based on historical people, the rest is all fiction. The series uses the dummy head mic for several scenes. The sixth and final CD features Yamazaki Susumu (CV: Morikawa Toshiyuki)

The series always started with an introduction by the character that talked about the Ikedaya Incident, but this time we actually start a little earlier: Yamazaki talks about how he joined the Shinsengumi and acts as a spy. He both investigates things within and outside of the shinsengumi, reporting any suspicious behaviour. Because it is his job to observe and investigate people he eventually locked away his real self to be able to fulfil this mission.

The first time you meet him is after you already started working at the shinsengumi headquarters (as always, you got caught up in the Ikedaya Incident and end up working at the shinsengumi headquarters that way). He starts talking to you when he encounters you in the hallways. You have no idea who he is, but he does know who you are and introduces himself. You were supposed to be preparing the bathwater so he wonders what you are doing, and you answer that your wound hurts (you got hurt during the Ikedaya Incident) and he offers to help you change the bandages.

This starts with him demanding that you take of your clothes. He's being polite about it, but very persistent. Looking at the wound on your shoulder (more on your back by the sound of it) he says that it isn't looking well and is one step away from getting infected. After which he starts licking it to 'disinfect' it, using the excuse that a real disinfectant would probably hurt. In the end nothing else happens though, and he applies new bandages. After you leave it turns out that he only did this because he suspected that you were carrying something under your kimono, but he didn't find anything even after he undressed you xD

You occasionally meet him at headquarters, and it turns out he has been observing you even though you never noticed. Instead of being freaked out like most people, you are actually in awe of his observing skills and ask him what kind of things he got to know about you. This surprises him, as most people try to avoid him. Which makes him happy but at the same time slightly confuses him.

One day while he is investigating some suspicious people in town you spot him and walk straight up to him, drawing their attention. To get away he suddenly kisses you, asking you to act like a lovers so that they will go away. Gracious kissing sounds all over the place and to be honest by the end of this scene I was complete goo. The combination of kissing sounds and constant whispering is kind of lethal.

Feeling guilty about what he did -even if it was just to get away- he feels he should apologise but doesn't have to courage to, so he visits you at night and apologises while you are asleep - while at the same time confessing that he loves you. This is probably the cutest scene in the entire series and it just makes Yamazaki so very precious.

Apparently he checks up on you in the night more often, as he finds you still awake in the middle of the night a little while later. You had a nightmare and can't sleep, so in order for you to fall asleep he sits beside your bed holding your hand. Once you've fallen asleep he starts talking to you again, even kissing you again, which is when he notices that you are actually awake. Because you don't resist he takes this as consent and continues.

To begin with he gives you a drug which he claims is an aphrodisiac (but which later turns out to be fake btw). Yamazaki is actually somewhat of a tease in the beginning, and there is so much lethal whispering involved it should be illegal (damn you Morikawa!!). At this point Yamazaki also turns out to be both a yandere -threatening to kill you if you ever start to like someone else and even putting a blade to your neck to prove this- and an M: he asks you to bite his hand while you are having sex so that you will leave your mark on him as well as mentioning that this makes him feel alive. If anyone remembers: I was hoping for a yandere-do-M character a little while back, so when this happened my fangirl levels went over 9000.

In the ending you are visiting the mountain which he told you about before together. Compared to some of the other endings this one had a fairly happy ending feeling despite Yamazaki making several death threats. He opens up to you about locking away himself, and thanks you for allowing him to regain a bit of himself. In his final monologue he also mentions that as long as he has you he will be OK. Of course the real pain in this case comes from the knowledge that he dies in battle just a few years later....

This is the first time that I noticed how well the theme music matched the opening track. The entire talk up to where Yamazaki starts fighting is exactly the length of the theme music, with the rise in tension matching the rise in the music.

Ignoring his sexual harassment treatment of your wound in the beginning for a moment, Yamazaki is very kind and polite from the beginning and easy to like. During the scene where he apologises to you while you sleep he becomes so incredibly precious that I couldn't dislike him anymore even if I tried. It is obvious that he starts to like you fairly early in the story but I was fine with that, the pace of the rest of the CD matched this and it didn't feel unnatural.

I've written that I prefer my yanderes insane many times before, but this is the first CD that made me think different. Yamazaki is arguably one of the most calm yanderes I know, and it just felt right. Part of this is probably thanks to the fact that his death threats feel real: you can somehow feel that he will be the sweetest boyfriend in the world as long as you look only at him, but that you would be very very dead if you were to ever leave him. They also managed to slip in de do-M part without making it feel over the top. Rejet, I applaud you.

In the free talk Morikawa-san actually makes a request to the makers of the dummy head mic, asking if they could make slight less sensitive, because apparently whispering or making sounds like blowing into someone's ear is really hard because the mic is so sensitive (he shows you how it sounds when it goes wrong).


Conclusion:
I am having a hard time deciding whether I like Yamazaki or Hijikata the most. Both are amazing in their own way and both seiyuu did an amazing job. While I at first started to dislike the ero in this series I feel it improved somewhat in the later CDs (and at any rate nothing could get weirder then Kondo and his sword play) and I'm sad that the series has ended now. I really hope that Rejet will release a soundtrack though, as the music is beautiful.

Or they could just continue and make CDs for the still missing shinsengumi members. Or turn it into an otome game - because it certainly is popular enough. Edit: it is now 2016 and this is exactly what they did.