Flesh & Blood ~ Drama CD 3 Dissussion Thread ⛵ 🎧

ekg · March 31, 2023, 3:09pm

**Welcome to the Flesh & Blood BLCD 3 ~ Discussion thread**

Cast:
Kaito Togo: Jun Fukuyama
Jeoffrey Rockford: Junichi Suwabe
Nigel Graham: Katsuyuki Konishi
Vincente de Santillana: Tooru Ookawa
Kazuya Norisaki: Daisuke Kishio
Rufus Berett: Masami Iwasaki
Ewan: Kouichi Kuriyama
Hugh: Ryou Sugisaki
Marcy: Kenichi Mine
Christopher “Kit” Marlowe: Shinichiro Miki
Leonard Barreta: Kouki Miyata
Cyril: Motoki Takagi
Francis Drake Kenyuu Horiuchi
Philip II Jouji Nakata

Content warning: 18+
This is an 18+ series aimed at adults, so be advised that this series might not be suitable for all listeners. It’s also a BL (Boy’s Love) series.

Home thread: Flesh & Blood Drama CD-series listening club ⛵ 🎧
Drama CD 2 discussion: Flesh & Blood ~ Drama CD 2 Dissussion Thread ⛵ 🎧
Drama CD 4 discussion: Flesh & Blood ~ Drama CD 4 Dissussion Thread ⛵ 🎧

CD Script

Need a script? Check here!

General listening tips

Use headphones! And turn the sound up a bit. It helps!

Got stuck on strange historical or nautical terminology? Fret not! Check out the extensive Nautical Terminology (found in the Book club main thread). Also, check out the respective book club discussion threads for help with recognizing historical people, places and events that get name dropped in this series. They can be found in the OP post of each respective Book Club Discussion thread. Link to the Volume 3 discussion thread

(beware that these encyclopedias contain some spoilers by necessity)

Are you listening with us?

I’m listening with you all
I’m behind the schedule
I’m taking a hiatus but will return
I’m dropping this BLCD
I’ve finished this BLCD

0 voters

Vocab list

Flesh and Blood ~ Character Book

Main Characters (minor spoilers)

Summary

Booklet (minor spoiler)

Summary

Discussion Guidelines

Discuss anything you want, be it language questions, about the plot and characters or what you think about this series. As always, be mindful of the forum rules in general.

For spoilers or current weeks tracks, please use spoiler tags. Either use the hide details or blur spoiler. Both can be found under the cogwheel.

ekg · March 31, 2023, 3:09pm

Listening schedule

Track	Scene	Time	week
1	Prologue	2:18	1	22nd April - 28th April
2	Scene 1	9:33	1	22nd April - 28th April
3	Scene 2	17:16	2	29th April - 6th May
4	Scene 3	9:33	3	7th May - 12th May
5	Scene 4	7:42	3	7th May - 12th May
6	Scene 5	6:41	3	7th May - 12th May
7	Scene 6	18:29	4	13th May - 19th May
8	Epilogue	5:42	4	13th May - 19th May

ekg · April 1, 2023, 8:12am

Let me know if you want any changes to the listening schedule!

ekg · April 13, 2023, 12:11pm

I hope everyone’s got their earbuds and headphones at the ready, because next week we’re digging into this drama CD! ^>^

eefara · April 13, 2023, 5:28pm

I’m looking forward to it! And we’ll have our first special talk CD after that. I’m both excited and nervous for it!

ekg · April 13, 2023, 5:35pm

We’ll make our way through it together!

eefara · April 22, 2023, 3:57pm

Week 1 done~ As usual I’m going to try to listen to each week’s tracks multiple times, both with and without the script. This first time was without a script. I was surprised in track 2 when Nigel gets to (very briefly) narrate his thoughts; poor guys doesn’t get a chance to this early in the books, at least, so it was a welcome surprise.

Grammar (?) question for you all in track 1: around 25 seconds in, Kaito’s going over a bit of catchup for the listeners: we sailed through a storm, La Rochelle, Vincent, etc., and then gets to the part where he says that Geoffrey’s having him train with a sword. There’s just a small part I wasn’t sure was doing there:

[00:36.62]海斗：（こっちはちょっと前まで、ただの高校生だったんだ。船に慣れてなくて当然だろ。
[00:41.93]ジェフリーもジェフリーだ。 痛いから嫌だって言ってるのに、毎日、剣の稽古ばかりして……。
[00:48.27]しかも、今日の練習相手は、冷静で厳しい航海長のナイジェルだし）

It kind of reads like a non-sequitur to me here:

“Just a bit before now, I was a regular high-schooler, one with no ship experience.”
“But Geoffrey is Geoffrey. (?) Even if I tell him I’m tired of it, I have to practice with the sword every day…”

What am I missing here?

NicoleIsEnough · April 22, 2023, 8:56pm

I’d actually put a bit more into that sentence: “… so it should be obvious that I’m not used to ships at all.”

Maybe with this it makes a bit more sense to you that he continues with “But Geoffrey being Geoffrey, he makes me …”
i.e. despite Kaito having no experience and despite the fact that this should be obvious (to Kaito at least), Geoffrey is of such a nature that he ignores this and just pushes on.
Also we have “も” and not simply は which stresses the contrast between Geoffrey’s nature and Kaito’s condition, i.e. despite Kaito being just a high-schooler, Geoffrey makes him… (I had a hard time injecting this into the English sentence so I figured I’d just add it here )

Does this make the passage a bit clearer?

eefara · April 22, 2023, 10:34pm

That does! I didn’t see that aspect of も; it’s not slotting in nicely with what my brain wants to attribute to も’s contribution to that sentence, so I need to refresh myself, I guess. I feel like there should be a けど or something in there; that だ just feels so abrupt to me.

Thanks for the nice long explanation; it’s all very clear!

ekg · April 23, 2023, 4:17pm

Track 1 - Prologue
Summary:
Kaito is getting a hard lesson in life onboard as Nigel is trying to whip him into shape by teaching him how to handle a sword. We get a bit of recap as well! ^>^

Track 2 - Scene 1
Summary
Nigel is a harsh teacher and Kaito has very little patience for swinging around a sword = a recipe for conflict. Kaito puts his foot in his mouth for real when he calls Nigel a sadist. As funny as that is, insulting your superior on a ship, is a serious offense and punishment is a given. Jeoffrey has to ensure order is upheld onboard and Kaito won’t get an exception here. Thankfully, the punishment finally decided on is less severe than initially suggested. (it sounded a bit like a keelhauling ) and it’s also interrupted by Ewan spotting an enemy ship on the horizon. *dun dun dun

eefara · May 19, 2023, 5:41pm

I’m behind, but my goal is to catch up this weekend. (i.e. finish the CD) I’m excited to start the first free talk CD; I wonder how hard it will be to understand for me.

ekg · May 19, 2023, 5:52pm

Me too! Thanks to your post I found my comment-in-the-making in this thread and where I was at in the audiotrack! XD thanks! I’ll get back to you! <3

eefara · May 20, 2023, 1:56pm

Okay, tracks 4, 5, and 6 done. Can you believe, I somehow managed to completely forget about the attack on Cadiz. In my mind it went “capture that Spanish captain” → “Vicente attacks again”. Granted, they spent very little time on Cadiz here; from what I caught I think we spent more time on Blackie than Cadiz, haha. (As we should.) I’m curious about the cat sounds they had here; were they pre-recorded cat meows? Did they bring a live cat on set? Is Blackie some kind of inanimate object they got to squeak repeatedly? These are the deep mysteries we must ponder.

Also interesting how they skipped Kaito’s fear of heights. I suppose in the grand scheme of things it’s not really all that important, though it’s a nice character trait.

Now on to 18 1/2 minutes of pure Nigel and Vicente bliss.

eefara · May 20, 2023, 2:25pm

And done~ wow, that 18 1/2 minutes flew by. Most of the way through I was sitting and thinking, “man, @ekg must’ve made a typo. This track is only 8 minutes, right?” Nope.

Anyway, as excited as I was to have Nigel monologuing, I was only able to catch parts. More than I thought I would, though! I did think it was hilarious that Blackie’s “purring” sounded like he was growling at Nigel, haha. I imagine it’s pretty difficult to get a car purr to sound right.

Vicente got like a minute of audio time and that was it. He shuffled in so Nigel could fly, I suppose.

I’m pretty sure they changed what drink Kaito washed Nigel’s wounds with there in the end, right? I seem to recall Kaito used beer in the book (since ekg mentioned how that wouldn’t work well as a disinfectant), but here he used wine! Am I remembering wrong?

ekg · May 20, 2023, 2:28pm

Track 3 - scene 2

Well, I ended up continuing on with next week’s listening since the first 2 tracks build up to scene 2.

Summary:
We’re getting another sea battle. This one is over quite quickly since the crew is Portuguese, but with a Spanish captain, and the crew is less than interested in putting up a hard fight. Thus, Gloria makes a big haul.

Kaito is musing about the fact that Jeoffrey’s name isn’t mentioned in history books as Drake’s right hand man and he’s worried it’s because he perhaps died at sea, perhaps in a fight just like the one they just had. Still, the next battle was listed in the history books and so he’s feeling secure in that knowledge of the raid on Cadiz’s success.

Kaito blunders when he’s sticking around on deck when Jeoffrey returns with the enemy captain who surrendered. The captain immediately notice Kaito’s strange appearance…Kaito ends up trying to do his best to right his mistake by being extra hospitable, which turns out to be a good thing as the enemy captain relax and get loose lipped. And more than anything, that means Jeoffrey is very pleased with his performance which Kaito takes extra happiness in clearly.

Inevitably, when Kaito is sent to serve food to their captain prisoner, the captain actually remembers where he’s heard about people like that: Japan. Now Kaito’s unique identity is known by an outsider. The sly captain also tries to make Kaito change sides to free him. But, the most interesting part is when the captain explains who found Japan, demonstrating that this history is different from the one Kaito knows…something is definitely off! Not Portugal but Spain arrived first to Japan! And the Jesuits were the first to spread Christianity, not the Fransiscans. This is a huge problem if Kaito turns out to have been lying about his predictions of the future!

ekg · May 20, 2023, 2:29pm

I think it gets easier and easier the more you listen and suddenly you’re just suddenly at the end of the track! ^>^ I’m doing my part in catching up now!

ekg · May 20, 2023, 3:31pm

Track 4, scene 3

Well, the raid soon to be underway. But before things get started, Kaito gets called on by Drake to do some predictions for their benefit. Kaito makes sure to share some tips to ensure their success. Gloria is ordered to make their preparations of explosives to put the merchant fleet on fire, though also Santa Cruz’s flag ship is in port and so one of the ships to be set on fire!

Kaito also lies about the possibility of an assassination attempt on Drake, which didn’t happen in history.

It turns out, that maybe just because Kaito mentioned that possibility, that it actually happened! Kaito is quick to act though, making sure he gets to follow Jeoffrey along to the Butterfly, to possibly tend to Drake’s wounds…

Track 5, Scene 4

We, basically skip the part where Kaito is panicky and unable to make the climb onboard Drake’s ship, compared to the books. I guess, it helps hammer home the urgency of the situation and to not drag things out. There is a reason for doing this as the story moves along, but it’s one part where the storytelling is changed by the adaption clearly.

Turns out, Drake was not shot in the attack, but rather his navigator ended up being killed! Kaito’s distraught by the events, even as Drake and Jeoffrey is pleased by his performance. Kaito knows that even his lies seem to have an impact here, and he’s already worried about the possibility that hisotry here is different from what he knows - it’s just a matter of time before he’s found out, surely? But, Drake and Jeoffrey don’t wanna hear it. They’re more than pleased after all.

In the end, Blackie is introduced into the story. As the saying goes: any great story involves a cat! (well, it should be a saying! And this one is a gift from Drake to Kaito, for his warnings about the assassination attempt.

I do love that final scene of Blackie meeting Nigel! It’s just hilarious, with Kaito dismissing Nigel’s superstitions and explaining away his allergy symptoms. XD

EDIT:

Yeah, so I also thought about this. But I think it’s a storytelling device here, intentionally left out. Because, this character trait IS explored, just not here. So, it’s a way to channel what to focus on in that scene. It’s just harder to handle too diverse stuff going on - maybe? - when in an audio media, and as it disrupts the flow of a scene. Here the focus is on getting to Drake as quickly as possible! Enough going on. The aspect of Kaito’s fear of heights is then given it’s own time and place, when it’s given full focus.

ekg · May 20, 2023, 3:33pm

Noises like this is the purview of the foley artist. Sometimes, depending on the type of animal sounds wanted, they do make use of voice actors in those roles. But, this doesn’t sound like it. It’s likely just a cat that’s been recorded and edited onto the sound track like they do with the other sounds.

Example of voice actor doggo! XD

Lol, that it took me several seconds before I realized that the ending preview, after Menchi’s doggo song, was in English!