Jinrou -Chaotic Time-

人狼 -chaotic time-

Company: Koepota
Based on: Werewolf (the game)
Released: 2012.09.26

Official site: http://www.koepota.jp/wearwolf/

Jinrou - chaotic time- is based on the Werewolf party game. In the game, everyone is dealt a card which specifies whether they are human or a wolf. The wolves know each other, but the humans only know the number of wolves. During the night phase the wolves 'kill' on of the humans, and during the day everyone debates who should be eliminated in an attempt to kill the wolves. There are several special roles, such as the hunter (who can protect someone), or the fortune teller (who can determine whether someone is a wolf or a human). The goal of game is for each team to try an 'kill' the other team.

This CD uses the rules of the game, but everything is played out like it is a real scenario. The CD is partly narrated by Yuuki (CV: Ono Yuuki), one of the villagers, who tells what happened during the night and gives some background information. The discussions during the day time are like a normal drama. At the end of each day a narrator voice announces the votes for that day.

Right before a large festival, when most of the villagers have left, the remaining villagers are attacked by 3 werewolves who have found their way into their midst. Due to a heavy rainstorm that lasts several days they can't get any help from outside, and so they eventually decide to choose one person to execute each day by majority vote, in the hope that they manage to kill the wolves that way.

This strategy seems like a good plan, until two characters claim that they are the fortune teller, which means that one of them is an imposter. This causes the villagers to distrust each other more and more, and each day the discussions on who to execute grow more fierce.

To summarize the entire situation:

• There are 14 people at the start of the story: Yuuki, Morison, Layle, Arona, Mei, Ani, Sofia, Sasha, Stacy, Fan, Makandel, Irene, Eris, and Kurt.
• The village is attacked by three werewolves, who kill one person each night.
• To eliminate the wolves the villagers decide to sacrifice the person they think is most suspicious during the day. This is done by voting, and the person chosen is killed with a poison.
• There are several special roles: two associates (two villagers who know one another and that they are innocent), one maniac (who is human but assists the wolves), one fortune teller (who can tell whether a person is a wolf or human, although only one person each day. If the person chosen is the Youko, he or she dies), one psychic (who can tell whether the person executed the previous day was human or a wolf), and one hunter (who can protect someone from being killed), and one Youko (fox spirit), who wins when still alive at the end of the game)

When I started listening I was surprised that the CD started with the second day; you'll have to read the events of the first day one the official site. This means that you are introduced to a lot of characters at once, and at times it was a bit hard to keep track of all of them. Mainly because 14 people is a lot, and also because some characters hardly speak in the beginning.

The bulk of this drama is mainly the discussions between the different characters. The discussions are understandably emotional at times, and I found myself thinking with everyone on who should be trusted or not.

The solution is finally revealed during the cast call, where all the seiyuu state their character name and role. This makes the cast call the most important track in the entire CD, and I'm pretty sure I've never listened to one this attentively. It also made me flail in despair when I discovered some characters where something different from what I thought.

The CD comes with a code that can be used to log in to the official site, so that you can listen to the 'night part' in which the three wolves discuss who they will attack that night. It is obviously best to listen to this after you have heard the main drama, otherwise most of the suspense will be gone. While the night part was certainly interesting because it shows that the wolves also value each other, the writing was nowhere near as good as that of the main drama.


Conclusion:
I've never played werewolf myself, but at least in drama CD for it was very interesting to listen to. You do need to pay a lot of attention while listening though, or you miss things and with that the understanding of why the characters act in a certain way. I know of at least one other drama CD which uses werewolf as a motif: Doubt (which is based on the manga of the same name). Although that series is a lot more bloody (and creepy thanks to some very disturbing rabbit masks) and I am curious how that CD is.


PS: because trying to fit their names in the review made it completely unreadable, here is the cast list:

Yuuki: Ono Yuuki
Morison: Eguchi Takuya
Layle: Okamoto Nobuhiko
Arona: Kayano Ai
Mei: Mimori Suzuko
Ani: Tamiyasu Tomoe
Sofia: Komatsu Mikako
Sasha: Toyama Nao
Fan: Kobayashi Naoto
Makandel / Kurt: Asashina Junpei
Irene: Sakura Yuki
Eris: Nakamura Asami