Tag: fruits basket

HCD Series: Fruits Basket Drama CD

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I just can’t believe there is a new drama CD about Fruits Basket! Moreover, this features basically the same stellar cast… and much more!

Okay, so I didn’t understand some parts at all, so please bear with me on this.

About the drama
This drama CD is composed of 2 stories, the Cinderella play, and a story about the student council. While I understood the Cinderella play, the student council part really boggles me up to now (complex Japanese conversations), so I can’t describe it.

The Cinderella play is loosely based on a couple or more chapters in the manga. Garten over at Memento’s blog has a summary for those chapters (87 and 88), among others.

Cinderella play gone totally wrong
The school play Cinderella is composed of the following cast:
Cinderella = Hana-chan
Prince = Kyo-kun
Fairy Godmother = Yuki-kun
Evil stepmother = Minami Kinoshita (Prince Yuki fanclub member)
Evil stepsister = Tohru
Friend of Prince = Uo-chan

Notice something? Yup this play is up for disaster! The only remotely decent casting was that of Minami, because her attitude is like that. A denpa-Cinderella who loves tea parties and food, a prince who doesn’t even care about girls, a fairy godmother who cross-dresses (to the delight of Yuki’s fans), an evil stepsister who is definitely not evil at all, and a royal friend who is a Yankee. Because of this, the script radically changed, and it even has a narrator continually doing improvisations whenever the dialogue screws up. Kyou actually speaks Tohru’s name while in the play, then the narrator reminds him not to do that… that gave me a big laugh. Also funny is the part when Cinderella appears in the ball… with a black dress. Everyone in the audience

Seiyuu
Hearing the generic Yui Horie voice feels like a dream. The main three guys of the juunishi are the only Soumas that appear in the drama, because this is basically some school comedy stories. Momiji is mentioned but I didn’t hear him (too bad, he’s my favorite). The biggest surprise is that Tamura Yukari is actually in this drama, as new character named Kimi (who doesn’t appear in the anime). I love the rapport of the student council parts even though I didn’t understand it much, so I guess it’s time for me to follow the manga again.

All in all, this drama CD served me like a teaser… I want a second Fruits Basket anime season!

Horie Yui

Well, she’s just one of the few seiyuu I find beautiful, on certain angles and levels of make-up though. It’s undeniable that she is one of the cutest and most popular faces in the industry, and she has that extremely distinct voice that is instantly recognizable. I have already seen a LOT of anime with her voice on it. I like her songs too.


These are some shots from a certain School Rumble Live Concert. She sang Scramble and Feel My Feeling in these two shots, along with other songs. Well, she’s cute here with the gothloli outfits and all, but she didn’t sing well in Scramble. Having her jump around and dancing made her voice a bit skippy at times, but I enjoyed the live rendition of Scramble. In Feel My Feeling, I feel like her voice is a bit off at some notes.


This is from the same School Rumble live, singing School Rumble 4Ever, along with 3 other female seiyuu. I enjoyed this performance! She has a nice outfit here too. The musical notes in her dress… liked it.

Apparently some groups are kind enough to share many anime/jpop promotion video goodies to the public, I’m thankful to them. Please support them as much as you can.

More PVs meant more Yui Horie for me, so here’s some more!


This is a music video called Sakura. Apparently it’s from her first solo album, which is virtually unknown to me surprisingly. Seeing that in that album there is another version of Yakusoku (my all-time favorite Love Hina song), I feel deprived of information. Sakura as a music video… isn’t too good by jpop standards, but oh well, it isn’t aimed at mainstream anyway.


Okiniiri no Jitensha looks like a very refined PV. On the flip side though, dunno why, but I didn’t like her in this one.


All My Life, the OP for Mao-chan, is a simple PV. If you ask me it’s trying to be jpop mainstream but as always anime-related stuff rarely succeed when they do that.


Do I have weird taste? Just tell me. This is Kirari Takaramono, the Love Hina Again OP. And… I liked it. I just like those scenes where she sings in an 80’s microphone and dances around (it’s much like the School Rumble PV). This kind of fun, hectic, and wicked energy is just what anime PVs should be.


Here’s a promotion video for Sister Princess, she sings Love Destiny here. Not bad a music video, not too good either.


She’s in a live concert here, singing again Love Destiny… wearing some sort of school uniform. Kinda in-fashion for that otaku crowd, they like her a lot apparently.


In the Fruits Basket DVDs, she has some sort of omake interview show, where she’s the host and she interviews the three main male seiyuu of Fruits Basket. These are kinda interesting segments.


This is an Ultra Maniac making-of interview. On the left is Kanda Akemi, a bit of a newcomer seiyuu back then.


Another PV, this time from the anime Da Capo. In the anime she plays Shirakawa Kotori, one of my favorite bishoujo game characters. It would have been interesting if she had a PV for Soyokaze no Harmony (a very beautiful song), but this (Pureness) is kinda a consolation.


And another PV, this time from School Rumble. The song is Scramble, a joint with a certain ska group named Unbalance. I have to admit that this is one of the best anime PVs I’ve seen so far because of its style, plus the catchiness of the song itself.

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