You can do it! I was also behind! XD But will finish tonight as I’m on a roll! <3
Well the last tracks are very short also!
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Track 12 ~ scene 11 ~thoughts
Well, immediately transported to the sea, seagulls in the air and waves breaking on the rocks. That sort of feeling. ^>^ 
We’re back on Gloria! Nigel is having some issues with the fast draw decision to depart Gloria, even thought their preparations aren’t even complete yet. ^^’
Lol that Nigel is still suspicious about Kaito’s alliances and reasons. Like he’s still out to kill Drake, even though Kaito just missed his best opportunity.
I do love the scene when they all raise anchors. It’s like you can see it all! O_O At least to me. I don’t mind too much about the nautical stuff, frankly, you can “feel” what they’re doing anyway! 
Way easier than reading frankly! 
You really feel like you’re there with them! <3
Some fun stuff: Kaito is apparently to sleep with Jeoffrey from now on! So, he should work hard to keep the captain’s cabin very clean as a cabin boy! I’m sure Kaito agrees! XD 
Whistling! Never whistle on a boat! 
If anyone has watched the second season of Mushishi, ep 2, “the Wind Raiser (recap on wordpress I found)”, I’m sure you get the reference that maybe Matsuoka was thinking of, this superstition that you’ll call down bad things on a ship if you whistle. Rufus is not amused! XD
Track 13 ~ scene 12 ~ preview ~ end thoughts
Change of POV!
We’re transported to a place of stone pavings, bells rolling, giving a stately air.
Vincente is meeting with the King of Spain, Philip II at the Royal Palace of El Escorial, reporting back of his last journey.
This is another great cast choice, imo. Jouji Nakata (also written George Nakata), he’s got this lovely bass voice! 
He’s done a ton of big anime roles. I won’t bring them up now, unless prompted. Here, he’s regal and sure, and he’s heard Vincente’s report on Kaito. 
He’s quite interested by the fact that Kaito predicted the change in military leadership to Alonso de Guzmán y Sotomayor, 7th Duke of Medina Sidonia - Wikipedia. Which is not something anyone but Philip II would know himself! Kaito is right again! And so, Philip II orders Vincente to get Kaito back to Spain, where he can serve their war efforts!
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Alrighty, so I listened to two tracks last night. Thank goodness I’ve got a script handy, and that these go much faster than a regular book chapter; I’d have no hope of catching up otherwise. And man, I just want to say that I have no idea where time’s gone. I could swear I only missed, like, a week tops of listening, but noooo. Dunno what’s been happening to my sense of time lately.
Thank you as always for the great summaries, @ekg! it’s so much fun to read them; they’ve always got a lot of personality!
(Track 7) Scene 6
Niiiigeeeeel~ 
Finally you arrive! I have to say, his voice wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I put all the blame on Geoffrey’s VA, Junichi Suwabe: his voice is just too sexy, it’s so hard for the other to compete. 
I was also lol’ing throughout Nigel’s suspicions of Kaito being a Spanish spy. Kaito is the complete opposite of spy material, haha. Geoffrey brought up a good points, to: “Have you seen his hands? They’re softer than a princesses!” (or somesuch).
(Track 8) Scene 7
Man, you’ll be hearing this from me again and again, but it’s slightly weird to be experiencing Kaito and Geoffrey again before they really get to know each other. Oddly, I find Kaito and Nigel’s interactions rather funny; I guess Nigel’s suspicions are so far off how I see Kaito that it just makes me giggle. I was glad to hear the mention of the red hair here, since it isn’t until later in the series that that point of superstition is brought up again; I couldn’t remember if his red hair was commented upon by the Gloria’s crew or not.
Phew, it’s also tough to listen to people cry/fake cry; I was feeling uncomfortable along with Geoffrey, haha.
…Man, I just realized that the next track is like 5 minutes long. Should’ve listened to that last night as well. 
It’d be perfect to listen to while I’m waiting at the doctor’s today, but my earbuds died a few weeks ago and my replacement pair won’t be here until at least tomorrow. D:
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I just finished listening to the last track! I’ll be honest, I can only understand about 40% of what they are saying 
But, the comments with descriptions of each track have been very helpful for when I listen again. I think at my level the script would be very helpful.
@eefara How did you get the script? Do you know if I can access it online?
Thank you everyone!
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Yes, I found the scripts for all the F&B drama CDs online at a certain forum. I don’t think I can link it here, though, since the forum is a rather large one and is partially dedicated to hosting uploads of copyrighted material. I’ll definitely be posting the scripts of all the drama CDs as we go along here, at least.
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Congrats on getting to the end! 
It’s always the hardest the first time, then it gradually gets easier. But it takes time, there is no ways around that. ^^’
Ganbatte everyone!
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Okay, so I listened some more this weekend! I’m actually not 100% where I ended in terms of tracks; I took your advice @ekg and just kind of let the CD flow through me, and stopped when it seemed reasonable. I got up to Kaito finishing his talk with Drake and going back to his room.
I’ll mark these spoilers for Track 10, Scene 9. I did listen to Scene 8, but I have basically no comments. I wasn’t following along with the script this time, and I’m not quite good enough to catch most of Geoffrey’s monologuing. I will say that Kaito must’ve been exhausted, to fall asleep upright on a moving horse.
(Later edit: turns out some of my thoughts in the upcoming paragraphs are from after hearing information in Scene 10. I don’t think it’s a huge deal if you accidentally read ahead, but just wanted to give a heads up.)
Anyway, Scene 9. I felt like you could really feel the camaraderie between Geoffrey and Drake here; Geoffrey is respectful, but they work together to get Kaito to 'fess up and laugh together about Kaito admitting Drake’s shorter than he thought he’d be, haha. Definitely a smart move on Kaito’s part to refuse to answer questions about the Gloria, given that he’s mentioned (or will mention later in the track, I can’t remember) that he’s never heard of the ship or it being in Drake’s employ before.
When we initially read this section in the book, I remember being curious if that was a reasonable thing to say - “I know all of the ships under Drake’s command well enough to say whether this specific one was there or not”. And after having done more research and reading into the matter, it feels surprisingly likely. The military fleet, at least, seems to be rather well-documented (probably because they’re all expensive government ships), and there’s not a whole lot of them. Don’t quote me on this or anything, but having something like 20-30 ships around this time period in the Navy sounds about right to my inexpert ears. I don’t know if Geoffrey and the Gloria are formally considered part of England’s Navy or not, given that (slight spoilers for later volumes) they’re privateers, but the Gloria seems to be, for all intents and purposes, a sizeable ship, and so likely would’ve been documented in some way for Kaito to find.
Speaking of which, I don’t think we ever get hard details about the Gloria’s construction, thinking about it. 
Anyway, I don’t have many recommendations at this point in time for book covering the Navy of that time (working on it~), but I’ve found this book to be a good introduction to Elizabeth’s Navy so far!
I felt it too! He’s got such a deep voice, with a sense of…gravitas, maybe?
This sounded so goofy listening to it, haha. “Please tell me about, uhhh, the Bonaventure, and, uh, tell me lots of things, and, uh, uh…” If only they could understand what he was saying. 
I’m also kind of curious: how are you guys listening to the CD so far?
- Using a CD player to listen to the CD
- Ripped the CD and listening to the files on a different device
- Other
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Just curious; I recently picked up a CD player to use, and was curious what others’ setup was. If I’m away from the CD player, though, I have a backup of the ripped tracks I’ll use as well.
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My stereo has CD-playing capabilities. That’s the best option for sure, but the most important thing is headphones. It just makes it easier to pick up slight nuances, even when characters speak less clearly. But, I have also ripped the CDs, so I also listen on them on my computer. The benefit of that is mostly to do with pausing and continuing between different days. And, I still use headphones or earbuds. 
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And finished! And I’m only a week off schedule! 
Haha, I figured I’d listen to the last few tracks at work, so I was using my work headphones, and they were awful, haha. They have some sort of setting where, if there’s no sound playing for a second or two, they decrease the volume for some reason, and then increase it back to normal levels when they register something.
So the last few scenes, Scene 10 in particular, sounded like everyone was pacing back and forth as they talked. I could barely hear them at times, haha; gave me a new appreciation for what I can understand when I can hear them. 
I had a lot of fun with the CD overall; the production values are crazy to me as someone who doesn’t usually listen to them, and there ended up being more things than just “I have no idea what they’re saying” to the whole experience. The background music and effects in particular, particularly in Scene 11, when the Gloria was casting off, were awesome; it brought to mind movies in English with similarly impressive scenes where I couldn’t understand the characters shouting over the noise anyway, haha. I’m super looking forward to the second CD, though it’s clear to me how much work I’ll need to put in to get closer to the experience that I want to have.
I wonder how the storm scene in CD 2 is going to shake out.
So where are we at participation-wise? @spaceboy6, @pyororon, @Angelica7714, @sycamore? (Anyone else I missed?) Haven’t heard from you guys for a while; still hanging with us?
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Dang that sound pretty rough! I don’t use all that great headphones or earbuds, still, nothing that distorts the sounds at least.
Agreed. And, just so you know, not all Drama CDs get the same amount of flair, but this one is indeed movie-esque in experience, imo
I think patience is key here. You’re starting out with this now, and so struggling is only natural. You’ll be able to return later and understand much more. But, expecting for that to change soon is unrealistic. You’re still going to have to make the slow and steady road up that hill. But continuing listening will definitely improve your comprehension skills! That much is given! Ganbatte! ^>^
Also, I second your shout-out to everyone else! 
Hope to see some more comments about your all thoughts!
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Thank you for the kind thoughts and reminder. ^o^ The same thing happened to me when I was still dipping my toes into reading real books: I’d get so frustrated that I was having so much trouble with something I knew I should one day be able to understand with a degree of fluency. Same thing here: I can see the end goal, I can at times taste it, but it’s humbling to sit and consider just how much it’ll take to get where I want to be, and the work I’ll need to do in the meantime.
Like books, though, having a goal in mind is really key, so I can have something measure my progress against, and F&B fills that slot nicely here. I’m a bit sad there aren’t more listening clubs here on WK; having a schedule and a set amount of material that I need to cover and understand helps keep me on track, if nothing else even if I got off track time-wise in this thread, haha.
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Me too! I was surprised to find out how few people even knew drama CDs existed, but for sure, there could be many types of listening clubs: podcasts, YouTube channels, about music. it just hasn’t materialized yet. But, hopefully, this one can show people one way to make it work! ^>^ <3
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Hi all! I’m still here, and still listening 
.
I originally was trying to do more intensive listening with these chapters, but it was pretty difficult for me, especially without a transcript.
Instead, I switched gears to have this be more of an extensive listening exercise for me. It brings me back to when I was maybe 5 years old and watching all the shows and movies that the adults were watching where the words and concepts were well beyond me, but somehow I found a way to still enjoy it.
This right here is why this is extremely entertaining for me because the production and voice actors are so good that I can really picture the scene and the characters, even when I have almost no clue what’s going on.
At this point, I’ve lost count how many times I’ve listened to the first CD. For some reason I don’t seem to get bored listening to these episodes over and over again. And I especially get a kick out of Jun Fukuyama’s voice acting.
I have not yet read anyone’s episode synopses with the spoilers because I was hoping to figure more of it out on my own. But I’m thinking maybe that’s the wrong approach and I should probably get a better grasp of what’s happening in each scene. I’m just one of those people that likes to solve puzzles on my own without any help 
, it’s probably to my detriment I’m sure.
I’ll definitely be trying to keep with you all on the next chapter next month.
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I think any approach is a good approach and I’m glad to hear you’re still listening with us! ^>^
Back when first encountering this BLCD-series, I was just like you. I had no transcripts or people to ask questions of really, so I just kept on listening, until I managed to get more and more of it. As you say, even if you don’t get it all, there’s a lot going on that helps you visualize what’s going on here, and I just find that really enjoyable.
I think if you don’t want to read a full synopsis, you could also just post your own questions in the thread. No question is too small or stupid, imo. We’re all here to learn and just have fun. I’m sure we can all help each other out understanding what’s going on!
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I did post a transcript earlier in this thread if you missed it!
I’m glad to hear you’ve been enjoying the CD otherwise, though! I’d love to hear your thoughts on the story as well, given that you haven’t read the source material, right?
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Thanks for the transcript!!! I’ll definitely go through this.
I honestly can’t say too much about the story in detail since I don’t know too much beyond what’s incredibly obvious.
-
Kaito is with his classmate/“friend” Kazuya in London. From what I can gather, they got the idea to visit Plymouth from a history class they were taking. They seem to have a bit of a strained relationship that is explained a bit in the book. The fight they had on the train seemed so out of place, and I still haven’t been able to figure out exactly what’s it’s about. I can hear the word じょうはつ which seems to have something to do with it. I find it interesting that so much time is spent on this dynamic between Kaito and Kazuya considering what happens at the end of scene 2. I’ve been wondering why
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And then Kaito hears a taiko drum, coincidentally right after they were talking about Francis Drake’s drum story (which I eventually looked up on wikipedia….very interesting, and the actual drum still exists in a museum in London). Something grabbed his hand and pulled him into a トンネル. I’m still trying to translate that whole bowling ball “nine pins” part that he kept uttering. Anyway, he’s found by Vincent, and then somehow he ends up in Jeffrey’s custody. There’s also that guy with the low, gruff voice, I think his name is Rufus? I really enjoy the actor doing his voice.
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So now Kaito is made to join Jeffrey’s crew, I guess. Everyone seems to be only a little shocked about some jápones kid in very odd clothes with very out of place items (ID cards, bank cards. Why no 携帯??). I hear “スペイン人” so I’m wondering if they are asking him to pretend he’s from Spain. I also hear “cabin boy”, seems like a good set up for a BL story. Oh right, I forgot!
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Poor Kaito, seems to spend the majority of the story in shock. At least when he’s not busy smelling Jeffrey (I heard いい匂い….lol). And he seems to find Jeffrey very handsome. Apparently the ship, Gloria, isn’t too shabby either.
-
We interrupt our story to bring you a brief bit of BL. A pass is made, a pass is rejected. Moving on.
-
More shocked sounds coming from Kaito. I get the sense that he knows some history about when and where he is and is able to predict that something is going to happen. I‘m still not sure if he is letting everyone else in on this intel that he has.
How am I doing so far?
I’ve gotten farther than that, but I still need to spend more time on the second CD to even get just a basic (possibly incorrect) summary. The good news is every time I re-listen to a scene, I’m usually able to add or fix a tiny detail.
Anyways, I’m quite addicted. The score, the background noises, and all the voice actors I find to be extremely pleasant to listen to.
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I think that you’ve gotten the gist of it. 
Kaito is indeed using his knowledge about history to predict what’s going to happen next, and so makes himself useful to Drake and Jeoffrey at the end. His position onboard is indeed to be Jeoffrey’s cabin boy. As for the phone, I guess, we’ll never know why Kaito was not an avid mobile phone user. 
But, perhaps it’s just to make the story work. 
I can imagine the perplexion technology like that would have caused. The bit about Spanish people, Vincente is the spanish guy. So, it comes from the conversation about him.
The relationship with Kazuya is interesting. What happened on the train was Kaito being a bit of a jerk, not acknowledging Kazuya’s real friendship, but suggesting he’s only hanging out with Kaito due to their fathers’ relationship (Kaito’s father is Kazuya’s father’s boss), which makes Kazuya angry for real: he never thought about their friendship as something shallow as that!
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Dang, you caught so much! Great job for with no transcript and hadn’t read the novel beforehand!
A quick tip here: this scene may be hard to parse out because it’s so unexpected. There’s not actually anything too weird happening (beyond the whole time tunnel thing, of course). Here’s a brief explanation, but spoilered in case you want to keep puzzling it out:
Kaito sees ghostly nine pins on the other “side” of the time tunnel. I believe it’s mentioned right before that by Kazuya that Drake was a fan of the sport; apparently he was finishing up a game when the Spanish Armada began their invasion. Anyway, Kaito is drawn to them for some reason and tries to touch them, leading to his getting pulled into the tunnel.
Opposite here. Kaito is suspected of being a Spanish spy by one particular member of the crew because he’s so out of place.
But you’ve basically got the gist of most of it! And honestly, reading through your thoughts, even if you weren’t able to grasp more minute details, I’m not sure you necessarily need to know them right now anyway. The spoiler right above this para was the only major thing I wanted to point out. But anyway, thanks again for sharing everything! I look forward to hearing your thoughts on disc 2!
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This is about what it seemed like to me, so it was good to know I was on the right track. The details of the work relationship between the fathers I got from the book rather than from the CD. Also, there was a sentence in the book where Kaito basically internalized that he viewed himself and Kazuya as “not really friends”.
Okay, the only indication I could get that he is spanish was when he said jápones But he also said “Call me Vincent”……
It was getting confusing hearing English and 日本語 and español
Thanks that helps!
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[quote=“eefara, post:78, topic:59950”]
Kaito sees ghostly nine pins on the other “side” of the time tunnel. I believe it’s mentioned right before that by Kazuya that Drake was a fan of the sport; apparently he was finishing up a game when the Spanish Armada began their invasion. Anyway, Kaito is drawn to them for some reason and tries to touch them, leading to his getting pulled into the tunnel.
[/quote]
Cool, this seemed to be the likely explanation. It’s still weird to hear “Nine pins” right before someone is pulled into a time warp
Okay, that makes more sense!!
Thank you!
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