Pasta Mafia

パスタマフィア

Label: Frontier Works
Based on: Original
Released: 2011.10.26
Official site: http://www.fwinc.co.jp/pasta/pasta.php


Pasta Mafia is a mix of between pasta gijinka (personification) and a mafia story. Although, they didn’t get to be very mafia-ish in this CD. All of the characters are personifications of pasta dishes. Our main hero is Pomodore, who runs his own mafia and uses Amatrice as his base.

One day a young boy named Corzetti (CV: Yonaga Tsubasa) asks him to help him find the lost treasure of his family. Corzetti says his family is very eager when it comes to money, so he wants to find the treasure and get rid of it to prevent them fighting over it. Pomodore (CV: Hosoya Yoshimasa) doesn’t immediately agree but takes Corzetti back to his hideout to consult with the rest of his mafia gang.

Back at the hideout we are introduced to the rest: Pomodore his younger brother Cream (CV: Hino Satoshi), the okama and very feminine Capellini (CV: Terashima Takuma), who is always arguing with Macaroni (CV: Sugita Tomokazu), Paperdelle (CV: Kaji Yuuki) who is the youngest and always eating something, and the calm and silent Penne (CV: Sakurai Takahiro). Also there is Nero - another younger brother of Pomodore- who came to visit, much to the dismay of Pomodore.

All of them agree to help out with finding the treasure, but before they can actually begin Nero secretly replaces the treasure map that they got with a different map because he is jealous of Pomodore giving attention to someone other than himself (he as a bit of a brother complex).

To make things even more complex Bolognese (CV: Okiayu Ryoutarou) steals the -already switched out- map from them before they can start to search for the treasure, so they end up chasing after him first in order to even be able to go and search for the treasure.

The colourful cast makes the CD fun to listen to, although it does feel like there is something lacking. When it comes to hilarious conversations between characters there are other series that are much better. Not everyone gets enough screen time to fully show their personality either, although this might be understandable considering that this was planned as a series. Unfortunately it seems to have sort of died out.

Pomodore and Bolognese get to show off most of their quirks, but the rest of the characters don’t. Which is too bad, because I would have loved to see Macaroni snap and go on an endless rage for example. The same goes for everyone’s weapons; the official character descriptions list a weapon for each character but we never get to hear them use it (Penne fights with a pen for example, I would have loved to hear how that works out).

Still, I like most of the characters. Yonoga his Corzetti sounds incredibly cute, and Okiayu Ryoutarou doing a crack quirky personality is always fun, I really love it when he does roles like that. There is a little bit of dialect in the way Hosoya his Pomodore speaks, which also made me happy. I find Nero annoying, but he is supposed to be so I guess Ishida Akira did a good job with that as well. Terashima Takuma voicing an okama was a first for me, and I loved it.

Thanks to everyone being named after a food I got so incredibly hungry while listening to this. All of the Spaghetti brothers (Bolognese, Pomodore, Cream, Nero) are named after different spaghetti dishes, and the rest of the characters (Penne, Macaroni, Paperdelle, Capellini, Corzetti) are all different types of pastas. I had never heard of the last two by the way. Capellini is a very thin type of pasta, which is no doubt why he is so femine. The name also means ‘fine hair’ – and Capellini is a hairdresser and very proud of his own long hair. Corzetti is a flat, circular type of pasta often embossed with a decoration by stamping them.

In the cast talk everyone talks about what kind of food they would want a girl to make for them. Some of the best answers: Sugita Tomokazu would prefer making something together, Sakurai is fine with anything as long as it is warm, Ishizuka Unshou (who voiced a restaurant owner in the drama) is fine with anything as long as it can be made fast because he hates waiting, and Hosoya thinks the atmosphere is more important.


Conclusion:
While this was fun to listen to there are much better series out there. Still, I’m somewhat sad that the series seems to have died off. The characters showed promise and there is still a lot we never got to hear. And I want more Hosoya as Pomodore.

Pokemon - Shiroi Ashita da! Rocket-dan!

Surprised? I never knew that there were Pokemon drama CD's, so when I discovered that there are two of them I just had to find them. This is by far the oldest drama CD  that I have reviewed so far (1998!!) so please forgive the blurry cover image ;)

I use the English names, because that is what I grew up with.

サウンドピクチャーボックス 白い明日だ!ロケット団

Company: Nintendo / Shogakukan Production

Based on: anime

Released: 1998.11.11

Every one knows Pokemon, so I don't need to explain what it is :p But I'm part of the Pokemon Generation, I grew up with it. I played the games (still do!) watched the anime, like everyone did. So when I discovered that there are two drama CD's my nostalgia overtook me~

白い明日だ!ロケット団 (shiroi ashita da! roketto dan, A White Tomorrow! Team Rocket!) is a story about team rocket. It was originally broadcasted as a radio drama, and later released on CD. The CD has 7tracks in total, of which 3 are the drama and the other 4 are songs.

The story of the drama takes place somewhere at the beginning of the series. Team Rocket has once again been blasted away after a failed attempt to catch Pikachu. While Jesse (CV: Hashibara Megumi) and Meowth (CV: Inuyama Inuko) are arguing about Meowth his uselessness, James (CV: Miki Shinichirou) complains that he is hungry and calls for food.

Which is brought to them by a "Rocket Gang Special Delivery Member Trainee"named Mondo. After a quick friendly match between Jessie her Arbok and Mondo his Ditto(CV: Kawata Taeko), Jessie and James offer to 'train ditto for a while' and trade him for Meowth (who doesn't agree with this at all). Their actual plan is to have Ditto transform into Pikachu so that they can swap it with the real one, but Ditto keeps transforming into the wrong pokemon and only causes trouble.

The story quite entertaining. The interactions between the Rocket trio are always entertaining, and Mondo is such a lovably naive character as well. Apparently he regularly delivers food and equipment for Team Rocket to use. This is also the only time he ever appears in the series, he is never seen or mentioned in the anime.

This sounds and feels like the actual anime in every way. From the narration to the background music, everything is exactly the same. From the way Team Rocket blasts off, to their hilarious conversations, it all has so much nostalgia it just makes me happy.

This drama CD held one great surprise for me: Mondo. Or rather, his seiyuu. I've checked and double checked and checked again, but it turns out Mondo his voiced by none other than... Koyasu Takehito. No matter how much I listen, I can't hear it. Except for the cast call. The one seiyuu I was certain I could recognize everywhere and I couldn't hear it even though I knew. I am sorry Koyasu-sama, I have failed you  T-T

One thing that I did discover is that it is not an easy drama  to listen to. Jessie and James tend to speak very fast and with their mouth full or other things that make them hard to understand. Meowth his way of speaking is not easy to listen to if you're not used to it to begin with.

Track 1 and 5 are songs also found on an earlier single with Team Rocket songs, but track 6 and 7 are pretty interesting. Both are lyrical versions from songs from the game boy games. (the opening theme and the surf theme respectively). Especially the surfing song is really cute.

Conclusion:

There is so much nostalgia here, but somehow it is still fresh. Don't expect any character development whatsoever, but it is fun to hear a Team Rocket story that I didn't know. This is a fun, lighthearted drama (just like the anime) but I'm looking forward to the other drama CD, which tells the story of how Mewtwo was born.

ps: I loved how everyone got to say their name in the cast call, even Misty who said only one sentence, and the seiyuu who did the pokemon. Brock his Onix is the only one not announced (apparently though, Onix is voiced by Ishizuka Unshou as well).