I wish I could enjoy Japanese Drama CDs

I've spent some time on this blog advocating for Audio Dramas and Radio Plays.  And over the last year and a half I've been increasingly focused on Anime and to some extent other Otaku media.  So perhaps it's about time I discus Drama CDs.

A lot of Manga seem to get a Drama CD as practice for the Anime.  But some are made to milk an already successful Anime.  So they are an interesting and important part of Japanese Otaku media.

Problem is, they are the least convenient form to enjoy if you don't actually know Japanese.  Part of the appeal of Audio Dramas is that I can listen to it without needing to use my eyes at all.  And you can't really "Dub" an Audio Drama because once you've replaced the voice acting you've basically replaced all of it.

Pretty much any notable Drama CD has on YouTube or somewhere else a video posted providing English Subs, so the ability does exist, but it's not the ideal form.

Still, the idea of doing remakes of these with the voice actors who do Anime Dubs I would fully support, I've love to hear that.

So basically it's a piece of Otakudom I wish I could delve into more.

First one I heard of was the Origin of Mewtwo Pokemon one, basically a much longer version of the 20 minutes the Anime gave us.  It's something I'm going to have to check out eventually.

However at this time the only one I have actually listened to is the 3rd Puella Magi Madoka Magica Drama CD, Farewell Story.

Ahead will be lots of spoilers for the Madoka Magica story-line.




One of the few Manga I've read, and only Madoka Manga so far, is The Different Story.  In fact it's the only Manga I've read twice.  The first third of this Manga is a Prequel set before the time-loop begins, depicting the history between Mami Tomoe and Kyoko Sakura.  Then it depicts one of the abandoned timelines.  The Prequel part of it I think was great, 10 out of 10.  The rest has some pretty good parts, but my main problem is how it depicts Madoka herself, it seems to have catered to people who think Madoka is stupid, because the decisions she made in this are really stupid and don't fit her character in my view.

I later learned that the Prequel portion of that was adapted from the 3rd Drama CD.  So I checked it out, the acting all seemed pretty good, but the Manga is a more fleshed out version of the story.

There is almost no point to this blog having separate tags for Prequels and the Star Wars Prequels, since any time I talk about another Prequel I feel compelled to compare it to Star Wars.  And now is no different.

Mami is to begin with comparable to Obi-Won as the mentor figure who dies less then a third of the way through the original story.  So in this Prequel story Mami is like Obi-Won and Kyoko is kinda like Anakin sorta.

It's a pretty good story, but the Manga version of it is better.  I would love to see/hear a version of it performed by Lauren Landa and Carrie Keranen.