Love Sweets Vol.2

ラブ★スイーツ Vol.2

Company: Livret
Based on: Cooking/baking
Released:　2010.08.13


Love Sweets is a series in which you cook / bake sweets together with your boyfriend. It isn't explicitly stated that you are dating but it is kind of obvious. Each CD has two guys, and you make something different with each of them. The second CD has Miyano Mamoru and Hino Satoshi. Surprisingly, the series really is more about telling you how to cook a recipe than acting all lovey-dovey.

The first character to help you make something is your butler (CV: Miyano Mamoru). You don't feel like getting out of bed unless he makes you some sweets, and when he promises to do so you want to help. Thus you show up in the kitchen a few minutes later to make an almond Florentine. This side is so incredibly sweet it almost hurts. As you can guess your butler is head over heels in love with you and he worries about everything you do. When you've finally finished making the Florentine you ask him to sit with you to eat it he completely freaks out because there is no way that is allowed. Yet he does kiss you slightly after that, hmmmm.

In the second scenario the roles are reversed and you are now a maid, trying to wake up the young master (CV: Hino Satoshi). This time he doesn't want to get up until you promise to make him something, but he also offers to help. Just like in the first CD you are the one that knows the recipe in the second story. It is obvious that he likes you though, even having small conversations with himself on how to make your time together last longer.

Thanks to Miyano-san his extremely sweet butler story this CD is probably even sweeter than the first one, bordering on the too sweet line. The first character feels a little overdone though, so I didn't enjoy that one too much. In terms of recipes; I'd like to try and make the second one some time.

Whether this is a positive remark or not, I think I liked the free talk best. While they did their recordings separately Miyano-san and Hino-san recorded the free talk together. It begins very cryptically with Miyano-san saying thanks for something that happened a little while ago, but we never get to now what it was about. They talk a bit about their roles (partly explaining them to each other) and Hino-san says that he found his role (which he describes as "tsun-tsun dere-dere chu-chu") slightly embarrassing to do.

They continue to talk about sweets for a while, and amongst other things they about an Aomori prefecture speciality called サバップル (sabappuru) which is apparently an apple pie with mackarel in it (I kid you not, go and google it). Either way, they are obviously having a lot of fun in the free talk.


Conclusion
This was even sweeter than the first CD, and a bit too much for my taste. Even though it is still mostly about actually making the sweets and almost no lovey-dovey.

Oujisama (warai) Variety Drama 2nd Season.

After all the Yandere, it is time for something light hearted. And what better than my favourite princes?

王子様(笑)シリーズ バラエティドラマCD 2nd Season

Company: Frontierworks
Based on: Original
Released: 2012.01.25
Official Site: http://www.fwinc.co.jp/princewww

Oujisama (warai) re-tells the story from several well known fairy tales from the perspective of the prince. This time however the princes go on a vacation, or at least that was the plan. The princes in this CD are Aladdin (CV: Miyano Mamoru), Genji (CV: Yoshino Hiroyuki), The Emperor (from Taketori Monogatari, CV: Okiayu Ryoutarou), and the Frog Prince (henceforth know as Kaeru, CV: Sugita Tomokazu). Of course Takemoto Eiji is also present, as every other role.

The plan was for all of the princes to go on a winter holiday, but all of them find it much to cold to do anything, so eventually all of them (except for the emperor) end up doing nothing while sitting under a kotatsu. While three of the princes are spending their time relaxing, the Emperor is talking with the Narrator (CV: Takemoto Eiji, of course) about what they could do.

The narrator suggests doing something with Christmas, however none of the princes know anything about Christmas, resulting in everyone giving their own hilarious misunderstood version of Christmas, but in the end nothing much happens.

Eventually, they do find something to do: Yaminabe.
Yaminabe is a sort of nabe where everyone puts something in the dish, but you don't show the others what it is. The joke is that everyone usually brings unusual foodstuffs, and that you have to eat whatever you get. This can get pretty disgusting (trust me).

The princes have two rounds in which each of them have to eat something. Some of these are pretty hilarious, such as Genji putting frog legs, or the Emperor putting konyaku (which really does taste like nothing, which is exactly why it tastes so weird) in the mix.

Afterwards all of them end up looking through all kinds of fairytale books in order too find a type of magic that can bring Kaguya-hime back from the moon (cue the Emperor saying that Kaguya-hime is not an alien countless times). Of course all of the fairytales they talk about are in some way misunderstood or simplified far too much. Eventually they talk about going to the Wizard of Oz.

During all of this, Genji manages to annoy the rest so much that they want to teach him a lesson. And thus they take him to a spring where a fairy appears (the say that is a goddes to Genji, but it turns out to be a guy). If you drop something into the spring, the fairy asks you what you dropped and offers you something better. If you refuse that and say what you actually dropped you receive one of the better items.

And so, they throw Genji into the spring, and receive a Genji with better manners in return (the way Genji his personality is described is briliant, I don't think I've ever heard so many negative character traits together). However it soon turns out that this new Genji isn't exactly what they hoped for either...

Between the main story are short tracks depicting how each prince spends their everyday life. Of course all of them spends their days in rather strange ways.

Especially the first part is a 100% winter story. Relaxing under a kotatsu which is so comfortable you don't ever want to get out of it, and eating nabe sounds like 100% winter in Japan to me. The atmosphere is also one of being lazy and doing absolutely nothing. The kind of thing that makes me want to huddle in a blanket as well. Although the Yaminabe part is pretty hilarious, their reactions to the food are just too much fun.

Personally, the part where they discuss all of the fairytales was ok, but not that special to me. But the entire thing with Genji getting a different personality was pure gold. I don't remember where I know the whole fairy in a spring thing from though (except for maybe the Legend of Zelda). Genji his new personality is in a way just as annoying as his old one.

I'm still not very used to Kaeru being there, but his conviction that his princess is just a tsundere whenever she refuses his romantic advances is hilarious. He actually calls it "play", causing Genji to remark that things like that are dangerous when they become habit, and Aladdin to wonder what kind of experiences Genji has.

In the cast talk everyone talks about how they spend their winter. Which is mostly talk about wintersport. Miyano-san gets very excited in his explanations, and apparently makes some incredibly funny faces while doing so.


Conclusion:
While I didn't laugh as much as with other CD's in the series, I still had a lot of fun listening to this. Somehow I just like the other princes (especially Cinderella and Snow White) a lot more, although I do love Aladdin.

Oujisama (warai) series vol.04 ~Oujisama ha Kaeru~

I missed a post yesterday *is shot by Cinderella* Sorry about that. But without further delay:

王子様 (笑)シリーズ  ドラマCD 第4巻 ～王子様はカエル〜

Company: Frontierworks
Based on: Fairytale
Released: 2011.03.24
Official Site: http://www.fwinc.co.jp/princewww

The 'Oujisama (warai)' series re-imagines various well know fairy tales. The stories are told from the perspective of the prince and in a rather hilarious way. This time, the story of 'The Frog Prince' is re-imagined, although there are a few things surprisingly close to the original story,


(For those unfamiliar with the series "Cinderella" and "Rapunzel" refer to the princes from those stories)

The story begins when Cinderella (CV: Suzumura Kenichi), Rapunzel (CV: Ishida Akira) and Aladdin (CV: Miyano Mamoru) meet at some sort of social event. Rapunzel mentions Cinderella his real name (prince Charming) and nearly gets shot. Afterwards Aladdin almost suffers the same fate. The three of them quarrel a bit over their new lifestyle now they are married, when suddenly a frog (CV: Sugita Tomokazu) joins in on the conversation.

It turns out that Cinderella once borrowed something from the frog (who is the prince of the frog kingdom) and got it dirty, so now the frog wants Cinderella to make it up to him by fixing a date with a certain princess who is sitting near the fountain. Everybody keeps switching sides in helping or not helping the frog, most notably Aladdin who switches sides depending on where he expects to gain the most profit.

Of course, the Frog eventually turns into a human (which grosses him out, leading to a funny scene where he is grossed out by his perfect appearance), but I was surprised that this happens not because of a kiss (like in the modern fairytale) but because he was thrown against the wall by the princess (like in the original)

The zadankai (where all the characters gather for a drink and chat away) this time mostly revolves around whether the frog (who they keep referring to as 'Kaeru' (Japanese for frog) has gotten used to being a human yet. He turns back into a frog for a while, and to 'prevent confusion because this is a drama CD' they make him say "geko" after every sentence when he is a frog. The other hilarious thing is that Kaeru still doesn't know 'how human babies are made'. The zadankai fades out while Rapunzel tries to explain this in a cute way.

A special mention should probably be made for Takemoto-san, who voices 3(!) roles in this drama: Cinderella's younger brother, The servant of the princess, and the Genie. Not to mention he did his recording alone. I must say he did a really good job of keeping these roles completely different. I also like how they made one character mistake him for another, just so that he could state who he is at moment. Several times in the drama. It was a good way to avoid confusion.

The cast talk is ok I guess. They all need to talk about what their favourite animal is, but Sugita-san is busier doing impressions of his grandfather. While Suzumura-san and Ishida-san simply talk about cat's or dogs, Miyano talks about elephants...


Conclusion:
Maybe I should have listened to this before listening to vol.5, but it was a lot less hilarious. It is still however a fun drama CD (partly because I love Cinderella, and starting from this CD Aladdin as well). But now that I've listened to the entire series, bring on the next two!!!

Oujisama (warai) Yomikatari CD Vol.2

王子様（笑）シリーズ 読み語りCD ～君に捧ぐ物語～ 第2集

Company: Frontierworks
Based on: Fairy tales
Released: 2011.01.26
Official Site: http://www.fwinc.co.jp/princewww/


The original 2 entries to the Oujisama (warai) series told re-imagined version of a few well known fairy tales. The yomikatari CDs are a sort of spin-off CDs in which the princes from the main series read their own fairytale to you, but not without making side remarks.

This is paired with the second CD and has the princes from that CD read their own story, while the other two keep interupting and commenting on the story.

First up is Aladdin (CV: Miyano Mamoru) who starts by trying to read out the entire story of 1001 nights (the story of Aladdin is actually one of the stories told by Scheherazade) but the other two stop him and get him to tell only his own story. I have to admit, I only know the Disney version, so this had some surprises for me as well.

Next up is the Emperor from Taketori Monogatari, who reads his own story. He gets through the story fairly ok, but becomes so heartbroken by the end that he drowns his sorrows and ends up completely drunk. Aladdin also tends to remark on the fact that "your country is very strange at times". (Both the Emperor and Genji are from Japan, and the cultural differences between them and Aladdin were already used for humour in the main series).

Finally we have Genji (CV: Yoshino Hiroyuki), who intends to read all 54 chapters of the story, but the (now completely drunk) Emperor tells him to tell an abridged version. Aladdin is mostly saying that Japanese culture is still strange, and the Emperor his drunk remarks are brilliant too. The best thing however, was Genji comparing all of the female characters from his story with anime archetypes like tsundere and yandere, ending with Murasaki as a lolicon xD

Come to think of it, this is the second time the Emperor gets drunk (he also did that in the zadankai of the vol.2) but he wasn't half as drunk that time as he is now xD That the Genie (CV: Takemoto Eiji) also made an appearance was a nice surprise, even though he mostly just feeds the emperor more alcohol.

The seiyuu all make a separate cast comment, making me wonder whether they actually recorded this all separately. If they did they did a really good job on making it sounds natural, at least to me it sounds as if they were all together.


Conclusion:
Just like the first yomikatari CD, this is only funny to listen to if you know the original CD (or otherwise you'll miss out on a lot of in-jokes). But just like the first on it is pretty short (only 30min) so if you have heard the first one it is perfect as a snack. On the other hand, you can also argue that that makes it relatively expensive. I really do hope that they will make a third CD like this now that we have 9 princes.

Oujisama (warai) series vol.02

王子様(笑)シリーズ ドラマCD 第2巻

Company: Frontierworks
Based on: Fairy tales
Released: 2010.06.23
Official Site: http://www.fwinc.co.jp/princewww/princewww.php


Oujisama (warai) re-tells the story from several well known fairy tales from the perspective of the prince. Only... somewhere along the way things changed a little bit. This second vol has three new stories: Aladdin, Taketori Monogatari, and the Genji Monogatari. This time the princes actually have a name, which makes reviewing a lot easier xD

In the first story Aladdin (CV: Miyano Mamoru) has to find the magical lamp for a magician. However he gets stuck in the magic cave with no way out. When Aladdin tries to clean the lamp to read some faded inscriptions on it the genie of the lamp comes out and promises to do anything Aladdin says. Aladdin plans to have the genie kidnap the princess of the country so that he can 'save' her and marry her.

Miyano Mamoru his character saying "I will build anew world"= Death Note Raito?! Was all I could think for a while. No "it's a whole new world" romances here, just Raito Aladdin planning to improve the world by setting up a scheme to marry the princess and become the new king. Hihi, this makes the story a lot more interesting.

The second story is Taketori Monogatari (sometimes known as Kaguya-hime) from the perspective of the Emperor (CV: Okiayu Ryoutarou). Rumours of Kaguya-hime her beauty have reached the capital, and many important figures are competing for her hand. The Emperor feels that she is causing too much trouble and travels to her residence to make sure this stops, but of course he also falls in love.

There isn't much to say about this story accept that... it actually fits?! A few expressions aside, this could actually be the other side to Kaguya-hime her story.

However the third story makes up for this almost-serious story. Genji (CV: Yoshino Hiroyuki) is technically a player even in the actual Genji Monogatari, but is this story he actually sounds like one. Genji want to raise the (still 6year old) Murasaki into the perfect bride, and his rather strange way of getting this done. But especially the way Genji talks is just brilliant.

Like in the first CD there is a zadankai in which the three characters talk with each other. Genji treating the Emperor as his older brother is brilliant. They mostly talk about how they met their respective princesses (kidnapping in two cases) and they keep calling Kaguya-hime an alien.

The freetalk starts with Takemoto Eiji (who once again played the servant in every story) introducing Miyano and Okiayu-san. Like in the first CD the topic is 'a fateful encounter'. The discussion is going absolutely nowhere but they sound like they are having fun. Again the freetalk is done in two parts, with the second part done by Yoshino Hiroyuki and Takemoto Eiji (again)


Conclusion:
Again: Hilarious, Brilliant. I like this one even better than the first CD. There just isn't much that I can say, except for go and listen!

官能昔話2~アンデルセン童話~

Kannou Mukashi Banashi 2 ~Andersen Douwa~

Kannou Mukashbanashi is a series that tells well known tales in a... slightly different way. Each volume contains several stories, all done by a different seiyuu. The series uses a special recording method called 3D dummy microphone, a microphone shaped like a head. using this technology you can hear the voice of the seiyuu as if they're talking right into your ear (when using headphones or earphones), and they've made sure that they talk very eroi. This volume contains stories based on the fairy tales by Andersen.

We start out with Inoue Kazuhiko once again explaining that headphones should be used to listen to this drama CD, and testing whether you've put them on properly. This time he instructs you to 'open [the headphone] wider' or in case of earphones 'insert the earphones deeper'. Here we go again~

Like I already mentioned, all of the stories in this volume are based on famous fairy tales by Andersen. Inoue-san once again acts as the person that loosely links all of the stories, by telling you the stories that his master (Andersen) wrote.

The first story is The Little Mermaid and is told by Sakurai Takahiro. We probably all know the Disney version of this one, which actually follows the original pretty closely, except that the original doesn't have a happy end xD This one does follow the original though. As much as I love Sakurai his voice, couldn't bring myself to really like this story. It just didn't leave as much impact as the others.

The second story is that of the Match-selling Girl and is told by Yusa Kouji.
I don't think this is a very well known story, but I might be wrong. At any rate it is a story about a girl who tries to sell matches while it is snowing outside. As she lights a match to try and keep herself warm she sees an image of a warm home with a warm meal that is all to tempting. I know I'd be instantly tempted if a voice like that invited me for sure...

The third story is that of the Snow Queen and is told by Miyano Mamoru. I couldn't remember the story at all to be honest. A magical mirror that in which everything that is beautiful seem ugly and twisted and everything that is ugly and puny will seem beautiful and important breaks and scatters over the world. When the childhood friends Kai and Gerda are playing outside two splinters fall into Kai his eye and heart. Kai changes from kind and warm to cold, and eventually marries the Ice Queen. Gerda goes after him to bring him back. Mamo-chan actually has a pretty versatile voice range, making this story interesting to listen to.

The fourth story is that of the King with Invisible Clothes (I don't know the actual name of the story) and is told by all of the seiyuu. Mamo-chan voices the role of the King who is deceived by two fake tailors (Sakurai and Yusa) into wearing invisible clothes. Like before this last story is less serious, and there is much less ero. Although the scene in which they 'dress' the king is... xD


Conclusion:
Inoue-san his introduction is brilliant just as before. While I didn't like the first story all that much I loved the rest. Hearing these well known stories told this way is just too entertaining. Ehm, my perverted mind has absolutely nothing to do with this. Nothing at all.

Full Score 02 -side Classic-

While we are at it, another review. I had so much fun with the first Full Score that I decided to do the second one as well.

Full Score 02 side Classic

 Starts of with Tsutomu trying to introduce who he is, but the focus is drawn to an interview with the half French blond haired narcissistic violinist Shindou (because French people are always blond -FAIL). Against all odds he is not rich, but in fact actually comes from a poor family. On the other hand the plain Tsutomu is the one that is the heir to a massive multi-billion company.

Shindou has an outspoken personality that would have fitted the 'rich prince' image but as said before, comes from a poor family. Somehow he managed to hide that up to now. The only one who knows is his childhood friend Tsutomu. Opposite to Shindou he has a soft and rather indecisive attitude.

Once again the story is about a music club at Freedom University. This time it is about the Classic Music Club, who also somehow ended up with only two members (actually all the girls quit because Shindou said he would be absent for a while, and all the guys quit because all the girls quit). Thus they start to think of ideas to recruit new members, resulting in a hilarious scene with Shindou and Tsutomu singing recruitment songs to famous classical tunes xD


The story is once once again not that memorable, but the conversations are. Shindou his dramatic fits and Tsutomu his 100% pure personality are just as much of a mis-match as those of the last CD. Speaking of volume one, it is referenced a couple of times. I somehow liked the first one more though, maybe because Baba was better at creating trouble xD

The last three tracks are random again. The first tells how Shindou and Tsutomu met each other in full fairytale fashion. After that they switch introducing who the characters were based on in a variety show fashion. Hyoudou Tsutomu was somehow derived from Beethoven (yes, they don't sound similar to me either). Shindou (神藤) was based in the wonderchild (神童, shindou) Mozart.

Aaaaand Miyano once again portrays a blond haired violinist xD I already guessed from the cover (one day I have to research exactly what percentage of the characters he portrayed have blond or bleached hair xD). I have to admit that I wasn't really listening to him though, all my attention went to Hirakawa-san~

*edit* only later I realized the similarities between Shindou and Tamaki (Ouran High). Both blond, half French, same personality and same voice actor. The only difference is that Tamaki is super rich while Shindou is incredibly poor.




Sadly there were no references to the Jazz volume. I'm still looking forward to it though! Compared with the first volume this one doesn't stand out that much. Hirakawa-san makes up for most of that, but I kept hoping he would suddenly show a whole different side xD

Captain HOOK love's lock.

An older series again. It took me a while to track this one down, but I finally found it. Written by Ninomiya Ai (IM Label) this is once again a very twisted story. However except for the title and a few names it has little to do with the story of peter pan.


The series has two entries: Get off track and Genetic Aberration, as well as a third image song album called Stay a Fake. It tells the story of several characters that reside inside the city "GIALOCK". Mostly the story tells about Shibako and Ichi, who are both searching for a girl called Wendy.

Captain HOOK love's lock is by no means an easy story. To begin with it is advised to read the story introduction to get an idea of the setting on the official website, otherwise chances are you'll be majorly confused throughout the story. But rest assured, even with said knowledge you're guaranteed to get confused.

The story takes place inside GIALOCK, which is basically a prison for a certain kind of prisoners that have been sentenced to death. The concept is that they can live freely, but execute each other. At some point though, someone discovered that a person can be (re)born from the strong memories and will of another...

Get of track begins with a recording of an interview with Wendy, who has just killed her parents. Or her younger brothers (she changes what she says every few sentences). She says that she did it to protect her younger brothers from the abuse of her parents, or that said abuse was the only gesture of love that they had. At the end of the fragment however, it turns out that while Wendy constantly talks about her 'brothers' she only had one younger brother.

As is often the case with Ninomiya Ai her works the story is told fragmented, in this case through recordings of interviews with the prisoners on the one hand and the current actions of Shibako and Ichi on the other hand. In between there is a story about Ichi raising a dog with puppies which is partly metaphorical for the rest of the story. Because not everything is told you have to put together the various fragments to understand what is going on, which is puzzling at best.
  
Genetic Aberration continues in the same fragmented style. And in my opinion adds more questions that that it solves. While it does explain Ichi his backstory, it also adds more questions on other points, especially on whether Wendy is still alive or not. On the whole I liked the story, even though it is very vague and left me with a whole bunch of questions. I suppose it was simply the atmosphere that was so great.


The voice acting was good, although Wendy (CV: Mitsuishi Kotono) her performance in particular got stuck in my head. Wendy sounds incredibly innocent, and either doesn't feel that she did something wrong, or is so insane by now that she no longer understands the implications of killing someone. Either way, how she talks about things is chilling.

The only real flaw for me is that the story is so fragmented that it is really hard to understand. What is going on in specific scenes isn't to hard to understand, but how everything is connected or the bigger picture is bloody different to figure out. This is definitely a story that you might want to listen and re-listen, just in order to make a little more sense out of it.