18/02/2014

Toubousha ~Ryou Hen~


逃暴者 ~リョウ編~


Company: Twofive inc.
Based on: Original
Released: 2013.07.31
Official site




Toubousha is a CD in which a fugitive is on the run from someone. In the previous CDs someone would use you to get away, in this one you are the one being chased. The CD uses the dummy head mic for the entire length of the CD (and does so very effectively). As always there are two endings; a good and a bad one.


The CD starts with you getting of the Shinkansen at Shinagawa station. Immediately someone demands your bag and tries to take it from you. Iikura Ryou comes to your help, and urges you to go back into the shinkansen. He holds off your pursuers so the two of you can get away in the train.

Once inside he begins to explain that your bag probably got switched with the one those men were looking for. He seems to know more about the situation but doesn't explain much at the time. Meanwhile he occasionally gets calls on what sounds like a walky-talky, keeping him up to date with what is happening.

Once you arrive at Tokyo station he instructs you to go to the station office to hand over the bag and tell them your own is missing, but a few comrades of the people who harassed you before were apparently still on the train and come after you. One of them fires a gun, and panic and chaos ensues.

Ryou takes you through the ticket gates into the shopping area of the station, and finally properly introduces himself. He is an inspector currently working to catch the remaining members of a terrorist organisation that was disbanded not too long ago. Because this is the best chance they've had in ages he asks (almost threatens) you to cooperate in order to lure them out. He is nice enough to you while you walk around the station though.

However the terrorists are not entirely stupid, and set off fires at several entrances to cause chaos and prevent the officers in civilian that serve as backup from reaching you. You are cornered by the remaining members of the organisation and have no choice but to follow them.

Ryou whispers instructions to run away when you reach a flight of narrow emergency stairs, and you manage to get away, but due to the fires the fire prevention shutters are down and you can’t get out. You are once again cornered, and Ryou gets shot twice while trying to cover for you. While he urges you to stay behind him the backup arrives and the scene fades out. From here you can go to either to good or bad end.

In the bad end the terrorists get away, causing Ryou to confine you at his home. He is convinced that they will come after you, and seems obsessed with catching them so he intends to keep you close. At first I thought it was another yandere ending, which made me slightly excited, but it soon turns out that Ryou just went completely crazy, and is scary a hell.

In the good ending the terrorists are captured, and you visit Ryou in the hospital. While he seemed full of confidence on the job he is being adorably awkward now, not knowing what to talk about and mumbling a lot. In the epilogue you have just moved into his apartment after you’ve been dating for a while, and he is still being adorably awkward.

I know Hirakawa-san is good at playing characters that are insane, but even so the bad ending scared the hell out of me. As soon as I realized that he was not yandere but completely broken his bad ending became a nightmare. It was so bad that when Ryou mentions how warm you are in the good ending it made me shiver because he said something similar in the bad one. If you are going to listen to the bad ending, listen to that one first, that way you’ll at least have the super sweet good ending to heal the scars it will cause.

Part of Ryou his obsession with the terrorist organisation is due to the fact that his former room mate was a member, causing his colleagues to treat him like dirt. This is only hinted at in the bad ending and properly explained in the good ending. But you only discover this in the endings, and I think they could have used it a bit more to create some more suspicion during the story. The entire time you are with Ryou you have no real proof that he really is a police officer, and I personally think they could have made more use of that as well.

Despite these things, this CD was all I could have asked for as the (for now) last entry in this series; a seiyuu that I love, a bad ending that I will remember for years to come, and a good one that was super sweet. And after two stories that had less to do with running away this one was much more satisfying. I loved that they made you the one being chased this time, it made for a nice change. My love for Hirakawa-san obviously makes me biased, but I think that this is still a good CD if you are a fan of the series but not of the seiyuu.


Conclusion:
I am kind of sad that this is the last CD for now, but on the other hand they were clearly starting to run out of inspiration, and I’d rather have that the series ends with a good CD (because it is good) than that they release more CDs that fail to live up to the earlier ones. Just, be wary of the bad ending when you listen, ok?

And the series continuuuueeeees!
I am both happy and cautious. But mostly Happy.

1 comment:

  1. I adored this! Though considering how much I love this series and this seiyuu...that was pretty much a given. The good end was just so adorkably sweet! But the bad end was effing terrifying OMG... I still get shivers whenever I think about it.

    And I am not quite fluent in Japanese, so there are things I didn't pick up on. Didn't realize his roommate had anything to do with the terrorism, for one thing. I got that he'd been under suspicion, but never caught on as to why, so thanks for that, it clears things up a bit! XD

    I was also expecting that maybe in the bad end you'd find out that Ryou was a part of the terrorist organization, after all, so I was surprised at the way it turned out, too.

    But the good ending was all the sweetness and awkward affection that I could hope for - I love it when Hirarin plays adorkable characters!

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