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tofueggnoodles · 1 year ago

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The man behind the voice: Horiuchi Ken'yū

I previously wrote about how, in a roundabout way, Saiyuki was my main gateway to BL. But, in a more direct way, Saiyuki plays a large influence on which BL Drama CDs I tend to listen to. Thanks to a kind soul who has compiled a directory of BL Drama CDs with the voice actors (VAs) as the index, it is very convenient to download those Drama CDs based on the VAs playing the romantic leads in the Drama CDs.

There are two characters in Saiyuki whose VAs I became a big fan of. I now have tons of their Drama CDs on a few hard drives, one USB thumbstick, my phone and my tablet. This post is about one of them, the funny guy and BL legend who played... *drumrolls* the Great Zakuro.

In some ways, Horiuchi Ken'yū the VA is just as silly and dramatic as Zakuro. Did you know that

he once asked the VA of Ni Jianyi / Ukoku to sell him a copy of the script because he had mistakenly brought a telephone directory instead to the recording session? (click on CC button for EN subtitles)

he is notorious for making up ridiculous and yet inventive excuses for being late to recording sessions?

The second video is not subtitled, but here’s my quick and rough translation regarding the ‘excuses’:

Excuse #1: He saved an old lady by extricating her from a spider’s web. He admitted to both actually giving this excuse and that it was a lie (obviously). Also, although he made up this one excuse under pressure, he said that this was the origin of his reputation for inventing ridiculous excuses for not being on time.

Excuse #2: He got stung on the head by a rhinoceros beetle. He claimed that this one was actually true.

Excuse #3: A goat ate his copy of the script. He denied ever giving this one. According to him, it was the director who remarked, “Seems like goat ate your copy of the script, eh?” Finding it bothersome to contradict the director, he simply responded, “Yes, sorry [for being late].”

He was also one of the leads in the Radio Pastel Collection and co-hosts of Live Pastel Collection events. Being an old fart myself, I just can’t help wax nostalgic about how young everyone looked in those bilibili videos. *sighs”

My favorite BL Drama CDs in which he appears as the main lead:

Takarara Hadaka (Vibrator Company). You can find the scanlations of the manga here. The second half of the story depicted in the Drama CD begins in Chapter 3 (Page 61).

Open Sesame. Trigger warning: sexual abuse, multiple personality disorder. Although I must say that the real star here is Miki Shin’ichiro, who must be having the time of his life playing the multiple personalities: a child, a woman, a thug and a seemingly normal young man, on top of the main personality, an erratic actor.

Shinjuku Lucky Hole. A couple who founded a gay porn studio. Scanlations of the manga here.

Of course, Horiuchi Ken'yū seems to be pretty famous for mainstream and non-BL stuff, though I have scant idea what they are, since I don’t watch much anime or listen to Drama CDs from other genres such as otome.

#horiuchi kenyuu #Horiuchi Ken'yū #fujoshi #saiyuki #drama cd #Live Pastel Collection

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tofueggnoodles · 10 months ago

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Saiyuki Novel by Minekura Kazuya/Misagi Hijiri (published by G-Fantasy / Square Enix in 1999): Introductions and links to translations of the Drama CDs

This post was inspired by @miss-fiery’s musing on Sanzo’s seemingly unlimited supply of bullets. 😁

As stated on the Saiyuki fandom wiki page, the novel consisted of three volumes. Interestingly, I have always thought of each volume as a separate novel.

Why? The plots are independent of each other. To understand and enjoy the stories, you do not need to read the novels (or volumes) or listen to the Drama CDs in order.

Now, on to the introductions and my brief thoughts on each volume.

Volume 1: Kaen no Zanmu

Goku rescued a baby in a wooden crate floating down the river (sounds familiar, right). Hakkai got rid of a salamander youkai who turned up to claim the baby as his prize. On closer examination, the Ikkou discovered that the baby possessed red eyes and hair.

They entered a nearby town, only to be greeted with hostility by the townspeople. It turned out that the town had a pact with a youkai, a different one from the youkai that Hakkai had killed. Each household were to send a member as a sacrifice to this youkai. Otherwise, the town would be attacked by the youkai.

The Ikkou met the baby’s young aunt, Rikei, who told them that she intended to send her nephew to the youkai again. The penalty for not sending a sacrifice was a wholesale massacre of the household. Moreover, since the baby’s parents were dead and she was his sole surviving relative, she reasoned that the baby would not survive anyway if she were to offer herself as the sacrifice.

The Ikkou, or rather, Goku, came up with a ‘brilliant’ plan to save both the baby and the town.

The hanyou baby served as a plot device and to highlight Gojyo’s and to a lesser extent, Sanzo’s pasts.

Translation of the Drama CD by KonnyakuHonyaku can be found here.

Bonus: Horiuchi Ken'yū played the unfortunate salamander youkai who met his end at Hakkai’s hands.

Volume 2: Kyouka Suigetsu

A bloodthirsty mass-murderer seemed to be making their way toward Chang’an. Several nearby villages had already been wiped out at the start of the story. Because of the gruesome way the victims were killed (torn apart as if by a youkai’s claws) and Hakkai’s past, the monk-enforcers tasked with investigating the murders considered him the prime suspect.

Goku befriended the sole witness to one of the mass murders, a boy called Yoku, who seemed to still be in shock. Yoku had no idea how the murderer looked like. He only remembered hearing the unseen murderer utter the word ‘Kanan’....

Meanwhile, Gojyo had to deal with a hostile new housemate whom Hakkai had brought home one rainy night. Sanzo was away on a mystery mission from the Three Aspects, a mission apparently unconnected to the case of the mass murders.

Hakkai’s past is the focus of this volume, which also explained how he met Hakuryuu/Jeep and why our lovable little dragon seemed to have two names.

Translation of the Drama CD by Anthey Oom can be found here.

Note about this translation: There are places that did not make sense to me until I listened to the corresponding sections in the Drama CD and realized that those translations were technically correct, if one were to substitute the phrases with their homonyms. My guess is that the translator did their best in a pre-jisho.com era. Although their grasp of Japanese did not seem to be as good as KonnyakuHonyaku’s. the mistakes are understandable, since Japanese is rife with homonyms.

[As an aside, virtually all subtitling projects of Japanese (TV) Dramas today employ Japanese subtitles, which can be machine-translated to English and then checked manually. One has to be very brave and foolish (or a die-hard fan) to translate by ear these days. I am still looking for a machine-translator that can handle Drama CDs and do not require installations on a Linux/Unix machine or expertise in Python. DeepL and Google Translate might work with short sentences but not an hour worth of dialogues. Until then, I am slowly translating some favorite BL Drama CDs in my free time, averaging 1-2 minutes worth of dialogues each night....]

Volume 3: Rasen No Koyomi

Having run out of bullets, Sanzo asked Hakkai to make a detour to a small town, where an old blacksmith acquaintance lived.

During the drive to the town, we hear a juicy tidbit from Hakkai about how Gojyo narrowly escaped a forced marriage. Later, we get more insight into why it is a bad idea for Gojyo and Goku to room together, at least, bad for the proprietor of the inn.

The flashbacks reveal an adventure of Kouryuu’s not long after he left the Kinzan temple. Wounded after an encounter with some youkai and having lost his consciousness, he woke up in the dwelling of a strange man, who sardonically replied to Kouryuu’s curt question of “You are?” with: “What do you want to know about me? Age? Name? Or my type when it comes to the ladies? My three sizes?” 🤣

Back to the present, after an apparently humdrum walk, Gojyo returned to the inn with a guest. The problem is, only Hakkai and Sanzo were able to see the guest, at least in the beginning....

The focus of this volume is obviously on Sanzo, but 39/93 fans will enjoy the tender moment between Sanzo and Goku near the end.

Translation of the Drama CD by KonnyakuHonyaku can be found here.

You can download the Drama CDs here, courtesy of @seiten-taisei.

#saiyuki #minekura kazuya #drama cd #最遊記 #translation

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