Kuroko no Basuke Sound Theater 2nd Games

黒子のバスケ DRAMA THEATER 2nd GAMES それがボクたちのバスケです

Company: Lantis
Based on: Manga -> Novel
Released: 2012.11.14


Kuroko no Basuke is a basketball manga serialized in the Weekly Shounen Jump, and follows Kuroko Tetsuya and his team mates at Seirin High. During middle school Kuroko was part of the "generation of miracles", 6 extremely talented regulars on the Teito Gakuen basketball team. All of these players went to different high schools, and of course Seirin will have to face them one by one. This CD has little to do with all of that though. Instead, it features a story about the Teito Gakuen school festival, when everyone was still in attending there.
 

The story starts with Kise (CV: Kimura Ruouhei) helping Momoi (CV: Orikasa Fumiko ) carrying some bags full of provisions for the Toou baseball club. To thank him she offers to buy him a drink somewhere, and they run into Kuroko (CV: Ono Kenshou) inside the shop. Momose accidentally drops a picture of all of them that was taken at the school festival, and so they start to reminisce about that time.

I could give an endless summary but in short: Momoi hears a rumour that if a couple wins the stamp rally that is held by the quiz club that they will stay together forever, so she wants to join together with Kuroko, who wants the figure that is the first prize so he agrees to join. Aomine (CV: Suwabe Junichi) wants the figure as well, and he ends up pairing up with Kise (who was looking for a partner, because there were so many girls that wanted to be his partner that they stated fighting amongst each other).

The stamp rally itself features some rather strange things as well, they have to cross the sports ground which has been rigged with pitfalls, and the things they need to collect as one of tasks are rather vague. Aomine and Kise have "hero sanjou!", so Kise starts to impersonate all kinds of hero's, Kuroko and Momoi have "kai wo kaigaeshiku kaesu" (to give back a seashell to someone who wants it, but the point here is obviously the pun), so they steal Midorima (CV: Ono Daisuke) his lucky item of the day and he chases them through the entire school.

Before all of this we also get to hear Kuroko being a butler (because his class is doing a butler cafe) and Murasakibara (CV: Suzumura Kenichi ) impersonating Marie-Antoinette, to hilarious results. And while everything is going on, Akashi (CV: Kamiya Hiroshi) is winning every single board game there is and collecting an enormous amount of prizes.

I really love this story. It shows how everyone was while they were at Teikou and they just seem to be having so much fun. It makes me wish for more material about that time, while also making my heart ache seeing them as they are now.

For some reason I found Akashi his parts especially hilarious. While everyone else is running around in chaos he is calmly winning board games, and every time he does it the sketch follows the exact same pattern and the prizes get more and more luxurious (one year long free food tickets etc etc).

While most of the story is complete crack, it does have some more serious moments near the end. The whole reason Kuroko wanted the figure was to give it to Aomine, to thank him for encouraging him to keep playing when Kuroko was thinking of stopping. 

The surround sound effect from last CD is still there, but I didn't notice it as much this time.

In the freetalk Ono Kensho says he was very nervous being surrounded by senpai seiyuu. Kimura Ryouhei once again does his freetalk as "Kise Ryouta". During the entire freetalk everyone calls each other by a nickname, usually the first part of their character name+"chin" (Kuro-chin, Mido-chin, Mura-chin), even thinking of nicknames for the members that only voiced a few lines on the spot xD


Conclusion:
This made me want to see more of the Kiseki no Sedai era!! Everyone just seems so happy together it just breaks my heart to see them as they are now (but I love Seirin as well so I want to see more of them as well). I hope that they will continue releasing drama CDs like this. Meanwhile, I think I'll try to locate some of the short dramas that came with the limited editions of the DVDs.

Kuroko no Basuke: Drama Theater 1st Games

黒子のバスケDRAMATHEATER 1st GAMES

Company: Lantis
Based on: Manga --> Anime
Released: 2012.07.04


Kuroko no Basuke is a basketball manga serialized in the Weekly Shounen Jump, and follows Kuroko Tetsuya and his team mates at Seirin High. During middle school Kuroko was part of the "generation of miracles", 6 extremely talented regulars on the Teito Gakuen basketball team. All of these players went to different high schools, and of course Seirin will have to face them one by one. This summer an anime adaption started airing, and this drama CD is officially based on the anime, even though it features a completely original story.

In fact, the story has little to do with basketball this time. Seirin was supposed to have a practice match, but thanks to a miss by the other school the gym is already in use by the mama-san volleyball team (volleyball for  middle aged women). Everyone concludes that there is no way they can win the gym from them, so they decide to give up on the match. But since they've already traveled all the way there, they decide to go to the nearby amusement park.

Once there everyone wants to do something different, and they split up. Kuroko (CV: Ono Kensho) and Kagami (CV: Ono Yuuki) end up going to the food court, where they run into Kise Ryouta (CV: Kimura Ryouhei) who just finished a modeling job there. They decide to hang out together a bit, and Kagami has just won a stuffed toy from a crane machine when they run into Midorima Shintarou (CV: Ono Daisuke) who is there looking for his lucky item of the day. As luck will have it the stuffed toy Kagami just won is what he is searching for, and thus they decide to have a match to decide who gets the toy.

All of the matches they hold have nothing to do with basketball though. The first one is a match to see who can make the best puns, Riko (CV: Saitou Chiwa), Hyuuga (CV: Hosoya Yoshimasa) and Itsuki (CV: Nojima Hirofumi) are the ones that come up with this. The second match is telling scary stories, Koganei (CV: Eguchi Takuya), Tsuchida (CV: Inoue Gou) and Mitobe (who doesn't talk -ever- and isn't voiced by anyone) are the ones who thought of that. the first year members Furihata (CV: Mizutani Naoki), Kawahara (CV: Yoshimoto Yasuhiro) and Fukuda (CV: Sasaki Hiroo) miss their chance because they are in the ferris wheel and no one notices them. The final match is a sumo event that is held at the theme park, and eventually all four of them need to work together to beat an actual sumo wrestler.

First thing about this CD: if you don't know the series (manga or anime) it isn't going to be much fun to listen to. The CD assumes you know everyone and doesn't introduce anyone, and continues a couple of running jokes (Itsuki his puns, Mitobe not speaking, Kuroko being invisible, etc). If you do know the series though, this CD is pretty much gold. Only the characters introduced in the anime at the time of release are featured, but on the other hand it also uses the same background music, which makes certain scenes hilarious.

Midorima and Kise are two of my favourite characters, so this was gold for me to begin with. But the rest of the characters also get their funny moments. Two scenes with the other characters that I loved were the first years lamenting that no one knows who they are, and Koganei imagining everyone as hero's, which is followed by a short sentai parody.

Something else I loved is how they used a 'surround sound' effect. When the characters are talking in a group you can hear that they are standing in different positions, as if you are really there standing among them. I don't have an actual surround sound system to test whether this is actually surround sound or just very clever use of stereo sound, but it is interesting none the less.

In the free talk everyone is definitely having a lot of fun. Apparently they turned Kuroko his name into a verb ("kuroko-ru") with the meaning "to disappear", and Ono Kensho was very good at doing that during the recording. Kimura Ryouhei never mentions his name but simply does his freetalk as Kise, and Ono Daisuke uses a lot of the stock phrases for Midorima in his part. The rest switch between making semi-serious comments and absolute chaos, especially near the end (when they are running out of time) some of them stop in the middle of their talk and make way for the next person xD


Conclusion:
If you know the anime this is definitely worth a listen. It doesn't deal with basketball, but the story is pretty fun and uses all of the lovable quirks of the cast. I hope they'll release more of these when more members of the generation of miracles are introduced, and although a serious drama CD might be interesting too, this is a perfect way to have some fun with the characters.

Halloween+Town

 ハロウィン+タウン

Company: Frontierworks
Based on: Mobile game
Released: 2011.09.23
Official Site: http://www.halloween-t.com/


Halloween+Town is an otome game for mobile phones, an online comic is also published by Zero-Sum online. In Halloween+Town the human world and demonworld ("Makai") coexist, even though most people don't know the Makai exists. The cast of Halloween+Town all live as normal humans going to school, however at night they revert to there actual forms: wherewolf Ookami Shirou (CV: Kimura Ryouhei), Invisible man Ichinomiya Tooru (CV: Hino Satoshi), Vampire Kuroki Takaya (CV: Yusa Kouji), Jack-o-Lantern Uryuu Minami (CV: Fukuyama Jun), Frankenstein Rikudou Yuudai (CV: Suwabe Junichi), and.... a pumpkin (CV: Takemoto Eiji).

The scene starts with Shirou, Tooru, Takaya, Minami complaining that there is too much homework during the summer vacation and that they want actually go somewhere. After various ideas to decide to go camping. Yuudai and the Pumpking tag along for the trip.

Of course the trip wouldn't be complete without some activities. After managing to successfully raise their tent (despite the Pumpkin doing his best to interfere) they go on a short bicycle trip, ending with Yuudi and the Pumpkin plunging into a lake xD  In the evening everyone tries their hand at cooking something, which ends surprisingly successful. And through all of the, the Pumpkin creates immense amounts of chaos.

After Diner is finished all of them spend some time watching the stars when they realize that the Pumpkin is missing. Wondering whether he simply wandered off or got stuck somewhere they decide to go and search for him. A little chaos later they have found him, apparently searching for some special herbs that he wants everyone to eat. However when they do... (^-~)

The Seiyuu also comment on this in the cast talk, but this drama CD is light hearted and there is absolutely no serious or dark content (as opposed to the original work, apparently). The characters sound like they are really having fun, but the setting is a bit generic.

The cast talk itself was pretty funny, Takemoto-san acts almost the same like the Pumpkin, and everybody is just fooling around. The topic is which member of the cast would be the most fun to tease, and poor Takemoto-san is chosen by everyone, even by Fukuyama and Suwabe-san who did the recording or their own and therefore both have a sepparate comment after the rest.


Conclusion:
I feel like I'm missing out a bit because I don't know the game, but more than that they could have made better use of the night-time personalities of the cast. This way it was a bit of a generic story. However the pumpkin was hilarious. Also, isn't a story that has Halloween in the title, but takes place mid-summer... a bit weird? xD

Perabu! A Capella Love!?

ぺらぶ！ A cappella love！？

Company: Frontierworks
Based on:  Original
Released: 2011.06.22
Official Site: http://perabu.jp/index.html



Perabu!! A Capella Love!? is the story of 5 high school students who are suddenly told that from now on they are the school a capella club (or for schort, perabu). Oh, and that they have a performance in front of the entire school in exactly one month.

The person behind all of this is the rather eccentric music teacher Sakikabara Ryuunosuke (CV: Ono Daisuke) for reasons you'll hear at the end of the CD. Our five victems are of course all completely not interested in a capella and completely different types of people (although they at least seem to be familiar with each other).

Inoue Yoshiya (CV: Kimura Ryouhei) is the moodmaking of the gang. He is always in high tension and tends to make up words (for example he keeps using 'perabu' as a verb). Katagiri Hayato (CV: Hosoya Yoshimasa) makes the impression of being a delinquent, but is actually a great cook and overall housewife. Learned all of these things for the sake of his beloved little sister. Arisaka Keiichirou (CV: Maeno Tomoaki) always acts very serious, but actually loves cats and has his own cat-blog. Mitsunaga Chihiro (CV: Kakihara Tetsuya) is your standard much-too-popular-with-the-girls narcissist. And finally Tokieda Ayumu (CV: KENN) is always either sleeping or eating, and looking cute while doing so.

Story-wise this follows the pattern of a random group of unwilling people is thrown together to do something, problems must be overcome, and they succeed. Usually there is a "friendship bonds are formed" step somewhere in between, but these 5 were already pretty close. Perabu relies on the quircky personalities of its characters to make the story interesting. However this works only half of the time. While their quircks did make you laugh, it still feels like the 'story' is too simple.

However it gets bonus points for actually including the a capella song they were practicing. The last track consists of the song + everyone stating that they've come to like a capella and want to continue (surprise surprise)


Conclusion:
Perabu! certainly isn't a bad drama. It is actually pretty funny and the quirky characters are very lovable. Yet it feels like it could have been so much more. Despite the funny take on things the plot is just too thin, literally almost everything is predictable from the start. Hopefully they'll improve this a little for the next entry in the series.