Romeo and Juliet

 ロミオとジュリエット

Company: Momo&Grapes
Based on: Romeo and Julliet
Released: 2010.03.25


Like the title implies, this is Romeo and Juliet. The catch here is that it is part of Momo&Grapes their Men's Only series, meaning that all characters are voiced by male seiyuu.

In all honesty, the fact that it is done by Momo&Grapes and that it is part of the Men's Only series is the only reason I listened to this. I have no love for the story of Romeo and Juliet.

*cough* back to reviewing. The story is completely faithful to the original. Romeo (CV: Ishida Akira) sneaks into the Capulet masked ball together with Benvolio (CV: Naruse Makoto) and Mercutio (CV: Suganuma Hisayoshi) where he meets Juliet (CV: Kamiya Horoshi) who kisses Romeo in order to chase away her suitor count Paris (CV: Masuda Takayuki) and Romeo and Juliet fall in love. With the help of Juliet her wetnurse (CV: Kusonoki Taiten) and the friar Laurence (CV: Takemoto Eiji) they get married. However Tybalt (CV: Ishikawa Hideo) got hold of the news that Romeo sneaked into the Capulet ball and wants to duel Romeo, who doesn't want to, Mecutio gets killed in the end, Romeo is exiled, meanwhile Juliet is engaged to Paris against her will, and in order to escape the marriage feigns her death, and so we reach the well known tragic end of this story.

I am sorry for my sloppy summary of this classic piece of literature.

This is a bit hard to review, because I don't like the Romeo and Juliet story in general so I'll try to focus on other things instead. Like or don't like though, Kamiya his Juliet was very cute. It makes you want to hug him. I had more problems with Ishida his Romeo, but I finally settled on the fact that a voice actor that I don't particular like voiced a role that I dislike, so that it all matches. (I am sorry, Ishida-san is brilliant at times, but I'm not very fond of his voice). Interestingly enough, Kamiya-san apparently thought of Ishida-san as the ideal Romeo (He says so in the tokuten CD).

Actually, I personally found the cast talk and tokuten talk the most interesting tracks on this CD xD Almost everyone has an interesting comment (Ishikawa Hideo his final remark was the best xD). The rest of the cast going "kawaii! kawaii!" while Kamiya-san was talking, or "Romeo-samaaaa!" when Ishida-san starts talking was just too cute. In the tokuten talk CD Kamiya-san mostly says how worried and nervous he was about his role as Juliet, while Ishida-san just goes "I wasn't worried at all [about my own part]" xD

Something interesting that I already though of and that was also mentioned in the cast talk, was that in the time on Shakespeare plays were performed with only male actors. So to some extend this drama CD is actually really close to the original play.


Conclusion:
This is, I think, actually a good drama CD. I just don't like the story and I can't get over that no matter what. I'm sorry. But if you like the Men's Only series it is worth a listen, and if you like the Romeo and Juliet story it is probably a must.

God Child - 切り刻まれた食べられたミスプディングの悲劇

God Child - The tragedy of miss Pudding.

The drama is based on the manga by Kaori Yuki. In this volume the stories 'The Tragedy of miss Pudding' and 'A Crooked Fairytale' have been made into a drama. The drama follows the story of the manga closely, almost to the word.

In the first story, the tragedy of miss pudding , Cain investigates two murders in which the victims their belly were cut open, and a plum pudding was found on the scene of the crime. Furthermore, eyewitnesses saw a blond haired girl that was singing the Plum Pudding Rhyme from Mother Goose (speaking of which, the rhyme has been altered for this story). He meets a young woman who despite just being married asks to spend the night at his place. It turns out that she is convinced that she committed the murders in her sleep...

I quite liked this story. Partway through you can guess how it will end, but it is interesting none the less. The drama is clearer on some parts, while the manga explains other details better (for example the plum pudding). It made me want to make plum pudding... (considering what happened to those in the story that isn't really a logical choice, but I still want to make it xD). Also, I forgot that Cain is such a flirt xD

A Crooked Fairytale is a story from when Cain was younger. One of Cain his maids has been smuggling antiques out of the  mansion to sell together with her lover. One night while the two meet they are overheard and kill whoever it was, only to discover that it was the young Count Cain that they killed. They quickly bury the corpse underneath the Juniper tree, however the next day Cain shows up somewhat shaken but alive.

You don't get what is going on in this story until the end (unless you've read the manga, of course). It was a pretty good short story... I really don't know what else to say about it. It is good but not fantastic. Once again the drama is clearer on some points while the manga is clearer on others. In this case it might be somewhat difficult to understand what happened to the maid if you didn't read the manga.



The drama was recorded with a 3D recording technique, making it sound as if the characters move around you. I didn't know that that technique was already used so many years ago, so that was a bit of a pleasant surprise. Of course the effect isn't as clear as with recent drama's, but it is definitely there. Especially Cain suddenly 'appearing' on one side was a rather nice effect <3

One thing that I noticed is that while the music is great, it plays for  too long. This is only the case at the end of each story (when the story it's theme is played again), but the music simply goes on for about 30 seconds too long. Other than that I have don't have any major minor points.



Count Cain/ God Child is a wonderfully dark manga by Kaori Yuki, and if dark fairytale like stories aren't your thing then this drama is not for you. I mostly recommend this to people who already know the manga, otherwise you probably miss a lot background. It is not like it is impossible to understand without prior knowledge, but knowing all kinds of story background and/or character relations probably does make it easier. That and it is simply nice to hear these stories with sound, as the drama is completely loyal to the manga it really feels like the manga with sound.

God Child - Visual CD Book

 

God Child

This CD was a limited edition that people could order through the Hana to Yume (the magazine in which God Child was published). It has two stories; 'The Crooked Little House', and 'The sound of a boy hatching'. The first story is about a young girl that collects dolls, the second one tells how Cain and Riff met each other.


God Child is a manga by Kaori Yuki, and this is one of the three Drama CDs that were made. God Child shows the -often rather macabre- adventures of the young Count Cain (CV: Ishikawa Hideo) and his butler, Riff (CV: Sugita Tomokazu). A little later in the series Cain his younger (half) sister Merrywheather (CV: Mizuhashi Kaori) also starts living with them.

The first story is about a young girl that collects dolls. Dolls that were once living people. When Merryweather her private teacher ms. Fenning (CV: Hikita Yumi) goes missing she sets of in search for her and meets the young Rebecca (CV: Chiba Chiemi), who sees Merryweather as a nice new addition to her collection.

I vaguely remember this story from the manga, but not well enough to say how closely it follows the original. But because the second story follows the original almost to the word, I assume that this one is accurate as well. The music in this one was very good, the main theme is so spooky it already gives you shivers in the first scene, where it turns out that Merryweather was only doing her reading exercises.

The second story tells how Cain and Riff met each other when Cain was still a child (CV: Tsumura Makoto). This one follows the original manga almost word for word, to the point were at some points it might not be clear what was going on exactly in some scenes if you don't know the manga. One of these scenes is the death of Agusta (CV: Kojima Sachiko) - in the manga this was a beautiful and very dramatic scene, but I can't help but feel that the same scene in the drama lacks of that dramatic feeling.

If you know the series I absolutely recommend this drama CD, it does a great job in recreating the atmosphere of the manga. The cast is good, but don't know whether I like Koyasu Takehito or Sugita Tomokazu better as Riff. I love Koyasu so I'm partial towards him, but on the other hand Sugita sounds a lot more gentle - the way I imagined Riff his voice.