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| Courtesy of TEAM Entertainment |
Title CD [JAP]: ハンサム落語～華語り
Title CD [ENG]: Handsome Storyteller ~ Hana Katari
Publisher : TEAM Entertainment
Age Rating: Universal
Release Date: 2015/07/29
Series: ハンサム落語
Character/CV:
Masuda Toshiki (増田俊樹) AS Ginko (吟狐)
Hirakawa Daisuke (平川大輔) AS Shiro (志狼)
This CD is about the daily life of two storytellers both on and off stage. Other than telling us how the storytellers performs on stage and enjoy the story the performed like we really watch Rakugo performance, we able to enjoy interacting with them off stage as the heroine. In this CD you act as one of theater's helpers, and you're close with the storytellers.
This cd opened with Ginko and Shiro played pranks and runaway, only got caught by Okami-san and told to stay still with you. Ginko somehow able to swoop the inarizushi from Okami-san's room and eat them, after hearing Shiro's stomach rumbled he shared half of inarizushi for him so he will had the same amount responsibility as him if they got caught. Oh, these inarizushi actually made by you and it's really tasty, you got praised by those two troublemakers.
The first story was depicted by Shiro, the title is "Scary Manju", I actually didn't really get the gist of this story. The story setting is about men drinking sake and talking about what they scare the most. But the main story is about a man who scare with manju and Shiro plays prank with him by serving various manju to him, but only to got eaten by him even though he scared of it. He forced himself to gulp it down, in the end he admitted that he actually scared with tea. This track ends with Shiro calling out someone to bring some tea.
The interlude is about the daily life of the two again, now you're Ginko's girlfriend and three of you are going to visit their father. They came from the same rakugo artist institution that lead by Oyaji - they call him oyaji-san -. In Japan or Asia generally, it's not strange for people who had siblings like relationship with people that close and trusted the most. Apparently even though Oyaji-san looks like a nice man he could be really scary and strict. Once again this two got into trouble with the gank on the way to meet Oyaji-san. You got hit and that angered Shiro, but Ginko able to hit them back by stealing the guy's wallet and making fun of the love letter inside it. When they arrive at Oyaji's place and treat your wound, three of you are introduced with a new guy in the institution. Surprisingly the guy is the same guy who got fight with you, Oyaji told him to search the guy who hit you, that make him nervous because Oyaji-san was really scary.
The second story was depicted by Ginko. Shiro was played as the aniki from a tofu store named Hachigoro, his sister Otsuru, are married with the daimyo and live in the castle . He was invited to see his sister's newborn baby to the castle taking place of their mother who got ill and couldn't see her grandson. Hachigoro actually didn't want to come but got tempted by the possibility to get money from his brother in law. The problem is he didn't get used to speak in keigo or formal polite manner, in Japanese especially in older era, the noble and the peasants had different way in speaks. Actually the noble language is quite hard and sounds really different than normal Japanese - I also got trouble to understand them. Hachigoro had to be careful because if he speaks ignorantly he will got killed, anyway, the daimyo in shogunate era are usually the samurai ones.
After frantic, funny scenes between Hachigoro, Sandayu and the lord, he finally able to speak informally with the lord and drinks sake together. He got too comfortable calling Tonoo-sama the lord with Tonoo-chi, that only got Sandayu frustrated but the two got along easily and of course Hachigoro got drunk, he praised his sister for getting prettier. He wanted to meet his newborn nephew who still sleeping, he got more and more drunk only to babbling about their childhood stories and he even though got really drunk, acted out as a good brother still able to threatened Tonoo-chi if he ever makes his beloved sister cry he won't care if Tonoo is his friend or the daimyo, he'll come for him.
Ginko and Shiro are storytellers in vaudeville theater, we didn't get to know the theater's name. They are partner both on stage and in crime, these two loves playing pranks to customers or the theater crews. Actually these two had quite similar personality, both of them are funny and nice guys. We don't get much information about them except that they seemed works really well together as they also came from the same institution where they learn how to perform as the rakugo artist.
My Thought
First time I saw the cover of this CD I got confused with the naming. If you search about Handsome Rokugo in Google, especially google image you'll see a human version of Handsome Rakugo. It's a live version of the same series in Japan. FYI, Rakugo is kind of Japanese version of stand-up comedy alike but without standing up, instead they're sitting down on stage for the whole performance. I got confused because in this CD they opens the stage performance together, some of the characters depicted two different personalities like in Manzai and when they telling story, the main character of their story played by other storyteller. The story they told quite complicated but generally comical. In the end I forced my self to convinced that this CD is perhaps a modified Rakugo style.
In this first CD of the rakugo series, executed very nicely by the CVs. I especially love the second story with Hirakawa-san as the main character because it's really hilarious. But the general tracks in this CD is interesting. Even though I still don't get the joke of the first story, what was so scary about manju and ocha? But the point is everyone had something they scared about, even that was the most silly things to scare, like Manju. I able to get the general theme of this CD, it's about laughing. So the stories are hilarious and had vague ending, because the purpose is to make the listener to laugh. Well, I guess it works. Then I guessed, this rakugo style of this CD is maybe the shibaibanashi style or the theater discourse. Referring to original raking style, a long and complicated comical story.
Conclusion
This is all ages Drama CD so, it safe for underage people. Even for people who still learning Japanese this CD actually easy to enjoy, that might be a lot of japanese words that hard to understand but don't mind that, you still will get a good laugh. It's a nice refreshing CD after those R-18 rated CDs hehe. I really enjoyed re-listen this cd while writing this review so yes, I highly recommend this CD, and can't wait for listening to next CDs of this series.
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