Flesh & Blood ~ Drama CD 4 Dissussion Thread ⛵ 🎧

Welcome to the Flesh & Blood BLCD 4 ~ Discussion thread :headphones:

Cast:
Kaito Togo: Jun Fukuyama
Jeoffrey Rockford: Junichi Suwabe
Nigel Graham: Katsuyuki Konishi
Vincente de Santillana: Tooru Ookawa
Rufus Berett: Masami Iwasaki
Ewan: Kouichi Kuriyama
Hugh: Ryou Sugisaki
Marcy: Kenichi Mine

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 3 discussion: Flesh & Blood ~ Drama CD 3 Dissussion Thread ⛵ 🎧
Drama CD 5 discussion: Flesh & Blood ~ Drama CD 5 Discussion thread ⛵ 🎧

CD Script

Need a script? Check here!

General listening tips

Use headphones! :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 4 discussion thread

(beware that these encyclopedias contain some spoilers by necessity)

Are you listening with us? :high_touch:

  • 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. :slight_smile:

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. :gear:

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Listening schedule

CD Track Scene Time week & starting date
CD1 1 Prologue 8:06 1: June 10th
CD1 2 Scene 1 9:21 1: June 10th
CD1 3 Scene 2 17:03 2: June 17th
CD1 4 Scene 3 16:08 3: June 24th
CD1 5 Scene 4 11:55 4: July 1st
CD1 6 Scene 5 15:01 4: July 8th
CD2 1 Scene 6 7:38 5: July 8th
CD2 2 Scene 7 9:35 5: July 15th
CD2 3 Scene 8 14:55 6: July 15th
CD2 4 Scene 9 10:55 7: July 22nd
CD2 5 Scene 10 10:17 7: July 22nd
CD2 6 Scene 11 6:44 8: July 29th
CD2 7 Epilogue 13:49 9: July 29th
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Oooh, two CDs for this one. :eyes: Trying to remember what happens in the books this far back; I guess it’ll cover (major volume 4 spoilers) Kaito entering the Elizabethan court and meeting Kit and Good Will. And confession time. :eyes: Should be a pretty good time. :smiley:

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Yeah, I think we’re in for a ride…I might need to put a more clear content warning on this one though? ^^; Maybe it’s quite enough with the general one. I can’t really warn about specific tracks before listening to it either…

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By content warning, are you referring to the scenes with the Raven?

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Yeah, at least one of them. My memory is very vague about this. I guess, we’ll have to find out the hard way and afterward I can add some sort of note about the specific track? :thinking:

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Might be best; either that or we could check the scripts to see when his scenes kick in.

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It’s just more fun to go in blind I find. XD

Which also affects the schedule. I’m just doing a rough minutes count here, rather than seeing where a natural stop point might be. ^^; So, we’ll see how that works out as well.

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Fine with me. :+1: Also, this is the first CD with F&B’s new artist! Look at that delectable cover; I’m so glad the CDs have difference covers from the books. Such beautiful art!

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Yeah, I love her use of color in this series. And the amount of detail is pretty jaw dropping as well. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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Thank you for always posting the artwork and booklets, by the way. They add a very nice touch to the home posts!

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No problem! While this is an Audio Drama I think seeing those images make a big difference as well in how you imagine these characters. ^>^

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Today’s the day!

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CD1 track 1 - Prologue

We start off with Vincente writing his report to Santa Cruz about his run-in with Gloria. He’s clearly very frustrated being stuck on land, wanting to return to the ocean and make another attempt to get Kaito back.

Leo makes an appearance finally, carrying an invitation to meet with Santa Cruz at the navy headquarters. Vincente knows that Santa Cruz doesn’t have long left, being sick for a while apparently.

I love the banter between Leo and Vincente, Leo’s grumblings about how picky Vincente is about food. ^^’ Leo clearly has a way to make Vincente do as told as well. XD

Vincente is also waiting for word from the King about how to proceed. After all, Vincente has failed twice now when faced with Gloria and her crew!

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CD1, track 2, scene 1

This scene takes place as the Spanish navy headquarters, where Vincente is waiting for his audience with Santa Cruz. He ends up chatting with another man also waiting, who approach him. Turns out the man is Miguel Servantes! :astonished: He’s quite the character to say the least! XD And while he’s a successful writer, he longs to board a ship to join the war efforts against England.

The music is a treat I think, bringing it home that this takes place in Spain. ^>^

For some reason, I found this conversation a bit difficult to follow in the beginning and in the latter part I spaced out a bit, then suddenly I regained focus and now I feel like I understood more about this conversation than back when I read this chapter. :sweat_smile:

Clearly, Vincente is appreciative of the arts, expressing his wish to see Servante’s play and getting disappointed when told it the run of performances will not last that long.

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Since I’m on a roll here, I’m giving next weeks’ listening a try as well. :slight_smile:

CD1, track 3, scene 2

Vincente gets his audience and as he’s faced with Santa Cruz, he sees a man on death’s bed. I think this was a pretty difficult to follow along with. Santa Cruz speaks in this convoluted way. Good that I can relisten next week.

The interesting part is when Santa Cruz confronts Vincente about letting Gloria escape 2 times and asking point blank why Vincente is going after this ship. Vincente doesn’t wanna mention Kaito’s existence and his ability to predict the future, but his silence is enough of a confirmation for Santa Cruz: he’s already aware about the person who predicted his death.

Then there is discussion about the scheming of high court and how noble families vie for influence and power.

This conversation moves over to Kaito’s prediction about the military commander to take over after Santa Cruz’ death, Medina Sidonia, and he’s not pleased to hear that name. Again, it’s about nobel families getting influence and power, rather than putting competence first for choice of commander.

Finally, Santa Cruz asks Vincente that he eliminate Kaito if given opportunity, rather than bringing him in front of the King. To him, predicting the future is an affront of God, something no one should be allowed to do, and I suspect - he doesn’t want some outsider heathen gaining the King’s ear with his knowledge about the future either. Vincente says he’ll think about it, while internally balking at the request - he has no intention of hurting Kaito again. Good man! :triumph:

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I listed to tracks 1 and 2 last week but forgot to post. :sweat_smile: I listed to track 3 yesterday though, which reminded me I had forgotten to post. Anyhow, both weeks have been full of Vicente goodness; on the other hand, they’ve also been full of formal talk and old man talk. Just how I remember the book going. :') Suffice to say I picked up very little; less general thoughts and more individual sentences, if that makes sense. You’d think I’d be able to pick up more while Santa Cruz was talking, given how slow his speech was due to illness; I think vocabulary might have been the larger blocker there.

It was really cool having Cervantes getting an entire track to himself; I was thinking it would get cut, but maybe he’s a major enough historical figure that they gave him the time?

Anyhow, I definitely need to give these two weeks another listen to, both with and without the script; they’ve felt far harder than what we’ve listened to for a while. Thankfully, I don’t believe it’s critical to the story to fully understand everything here, as long as you come away with the main idea of “Vicente is still pursuing Kaito, and his mission is known in the Spanish court”; would you say that’s correct, @ekg?

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Yeah, the main thing from the this and last weeks listening is that Vincente is currently in Spain, waiting for further orders from the king. We also know that Santa Cruz is on death’s bed and that he wants Kaito dead. But, Vincente doesn’t promise him anything, and actually silently making clear that he has no intention of ever hurting Kaito again. Also, Santa Cruz knows about Kaito’s powers.

Also, very important information: Vincente is picky about food! XD

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The drama CD including the important things. :fish:

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Soo not only did I forget to post that I listened to track 4 last week, but I listened to this week’s track (5) and next week’s (6) yesterday. :face_with_spiral_eyes: Track 6 was a mistake; I didn’t check the schedule beforehand and assumed it was two tracks this week. :person_facepalming: I’ve been super all over the place lately; really sorry. orz

This drama CD continues to be a beast; it feels by far the hardest of any we’ve listened to so far. Lots of politics, lots of very polite language. Kit’s VA is perfection by the way @ekg, absolutely awesome. I can see him clearly in my head when I listen to MikiShin. :open_mouth: I was a little disappointed in the lack of smooching sound effects when he grabbed Nigel in track 5, haha.

I really need to do something about this CD; I need to refocus with the script, I think. I’m getting far less than the other CDs, and I don’t like it. >:( I need something constructive/interesting to say here, darn it.

Considering that it takes all of the first CD just to meet Elizabeth, I wonder how quickly we’ll be moving in the second CD. Is the London arc going to take another disc? Granted it also felt like a pretty quick arc in the books, but they’re going to have a lot of ground to cover from both Kaito and Geoffrey’s perspectives here soon…

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