Drama CD: [CHARM of FATE] Route.3 -Kotoda Minori-
iirc I said before on here that CHARM of FATE is produced by Ninoya but I was mistaken - it’s actually from TwoFive, the company that gave us the Toubousha series. I have listened to a couple of them, and honestly I find it a cool idea but poorly executed:
The basic setting of Toubousha is that a hot guy who is seemingly on the run from the law suddenly approaches you in public and takes you hostage by threat. So there is that element of potential danger and the whole ‘suspension-bridge effect’ that makes you go all dokidoki.
But the heroine in these scenarios ruins it by having no rudimentary safety awareness - she not only lets the possibly wanted criminal dude into her home, but also falls asleep with him, lets him shower and makes hot tea, laughs at his cuteness/clumsiness, and 100 other lovey-dovey things that I would not do with some random stranger who might kill me at any moment.
So yeah that aspect of the story was completely unrealistic to me and ruined my enjoyment of it. I don’t know why so many otome games/dramas advocate this kind of 無防備すぎ behaviour as a plus because it wins the guy’s affections. This is just a bad thing to teach young impressionable teenage girls.
...Aaaanyway. Enough about that. The premise of CoF sounded interesting [three brothers with telekinetic powers], and I had no preconceptions. So here we go.
(This is a long post and I apologise for my wordiness but I will NOT shut up.) :D
The story starts with Kotoda Minori [cv. Shingaki Tarusuke] chasing an unknown character at nighttime. He orders the person not to escape, and suddenly the guy knocks over some trash cans and falls to the ground, where Minori catches up to him.
As he's handling the situation, he notices someone watching them in secret and tells the observer to come out of hiding - he is surprised to see that it's a young woman (i.e. YOU the listener). He asks his brothers, Hibiki and Shion, to take care of the rest, and tells you to follow him.
He takes you to a bar called 'Bar Voz' (off day so no customers), pours you a glass of water, and asks you what your deal is. You tell him that you were going somewhere on your way home from work and got lost. In return, he tells you his name, and that he's the owner of the bar. The guy that he and his brothers were chasing is a shady character who was trying to plant listening devices and hidden cameras in his bar. Then, he demonstrates what you just saw:
He commands you to take a drink, and you pick up the glass, forcibly fighting your urge to take a sip. Turns out, he and his brothers were born with this gift of being able to make people/things do whatever they tell them to. He apologises for being careless and letting you witness them in action, and asks you to keep it a secret. Of course, you promise to do so. As a gesture of thanks and goodwill, he casts a 'charm' on you to come back to the bar tomorrow night for a round of drinks on him.
(Sounds dangerous? I thought so too. But since this is an otome drama, dangerous hot guys with superhuman abilities trying to corner you into shady situations are always 100% harmless. Like totally.)
The second evening, you show up at the bar, and he hands you a menu with a secret memo telling you to stay until closing time. So you stick around, drinking very responsibly in the meanwhile. After the final customer has left, he comes over to you.
Turns out the charm he cast on you last night loses its effect once the day is over, so tonight you showed up by your own free will. It was actually a test to see how trustworthy you are, and... *you passed* (/*^-^)/. He and his brothers have a deal that any witnesses would either be threatened into silence or placed under surveillance 24/7. Oh and also it's a piece of cake for him to find out your workplace and home address... But *don't you worry* he doesn't plan to do anything to you. He only wants to make you a regular at his bar. (I guess #Abenomics isn't doing much for his business?)
As you are leaving, your forget your mobile phone and he uses psychokinesis to bring it to you. You stand there being all impressed and stuff, and he is all like hurry up and leave before you miss the last train princess~
Next night, you show up all depressed and moody. He asks Hibiki to show the few other customers to a *VIP room*, and stays to listen to your troubles like a goddamned bartender stereotype. You again stay until closing time and apologise for complaining so much, but he laughs and says he doesn't mind at all - he can tell that you take your work seriously, and that you are objective and self-reflective when it comes to your own faults, which impresses him.
As he's about to call it a day, you... fall asleep right there in the bar XD. *Out of no choice*, he gathers you in his arms and uses 'charms' to collect your things and make you hold onto him securely... but a little *too tightly*, which makes him a bit flustered and he's all like: 「参ったな、これは心臓に悪い」 ('Oh man, this is bad for my heart.') #LOLZ
He takes you home to his mansion above the bar and you wake up briefly, and he 'charms' you back to sleep... and mutters that it's making him want to do something he shouldn't... XDDD
In the morning, you wake up all panicking and dishevelled, and he uses a 'charm' to straighten your open collar. He reassures you that his brothers were only here for breakfast earlier and didn't enter his room, where you were sleeping. And that he used a 'charm' across a closed door to help you change your clothes. And ofc last night he let you have his bed and he slept on the sofa in the living room.
When you thank him for all this, he replies that your sleeping face is enough thanks for him. ...Just, like, shut up and marry me already, you sexy gentleman who will never exist irl T_T
After breakfast, he makes coffee (it's Saturday so no work) and tells you more about their Charmed Family. (Does this make anyone else nostalgic for Pru, Piper, Phoebe, and Paige... or am I just a dinosaur and nobody gets my reference???)
Apparently each of them has a different 'expertise': Hibiki is good at commanding people to do stuff, Shion is good at healing injuries, and your bae Minori is good at moving inanimate objects and not so great with people. He says you are exceptionally easy to 'charm', and tells you that *it would be dangerous to become emotionally involved with the Kotoda brothers*.
Especially in the case of unrequited love: the 'charmer' might use his powers to manipulate his target, while the 'charmed one' might feel compelled to obey him to gain his affection. She would also develop a kind of dependency on the charms as a kind of side effect. So yeah, **you have been forewarned**.
On your next visit to his bar, you notice that Minori sounds tired. You offer to help him, but he refuses and asks you to just enjoy yourself. After a few drinks, you get some Zzzzzz in the bar again, he casts a 'charm' for you not to wake up yet and takes you home again.
This time, you insist on returning his care towards you. He deliberates for a bit and finally accepts you help. He reveals that he actually has a second job as a benriya (you know, that thing that those guys in Gintama do for a living). Only the regulars at his bar know about this, and they can place their requests secretly in the VIP room. He asks you to come meet with some people next Saturday night at a members-only club, so dress up ;)
Sooo. Your job at the club is to distract a troublesome man enough so that Minori can cast a 'charm' on him to make him hand over his business card. The plan works successfully, and Minori reveals the story behind it:
The job was a request from an old friend of his who is a detective, and the namecard is a piece of evidence needed in an investigation. In this youth, Minori used to hang with a bad crowd and use his 'charms' to steal and rob etc. Just before the point of no return, however, he became friends with this police officer, who helped him to turn his life around, so he wants to do something for him in return.
Also, Hibiki and Shion are actually his cousins, but their parents died in an accident when they were young, and they came to live with his family. Their superpowers were a disturbance to Minori's parents, so he wanted to start a business and buy a separate house for the three of them to move into. His benriya job generated the funds to open Bar Voz, but afterwards he kept working at it and donates the extra proceeds to orphans, as a way to make up for all his wrongdoings during his youth.
Aaand once again, you fall asleep in the bar (...s-should we be concerned? Do you need directions to an upcoming AA meeting/12-step programme???). After you wake up, he mindlessly strokes your hair, and it appears he's done this many times without you knowing. #notcreepyatall. But... he immediately catches himself and hurriedly stops and sends you away.
Another night at the bar. You stay after closing to help him clean up, and he saves you the trouble by using his 'charm' to do the dishes. You tell him that his 'charm' voice sounds *different from usual and more pleasant*. He speculates that it may be a premonition of the dependency effect, then quickly corrects himself and asks you to forget what he just said.
After this, he starts to avoid you. He asks Shion to take your orders at the bar, then you phone him and say you need to talk, but he apologises that he's busy and hangs up on you. Later, he stops returning your calls, so you show up in front of Bar Voz on an off day. He had just returned from drinking with his old detective friend and is kinda tipsy. He finds an excuse to get away, but you grab his arm, and he finally cannot hold it in anymore...
...He uses 'charms' to get you into his bed, and confesses that he has been using his 'charms' to *touch you while you sleep without waking you up*, which heals his tired overworked heart. Now he 'charms' you into touching him as well, and he tells you that he will suppress his... desires... beyond this level of touching. (I guess if he gets an erection he can always 'charm' it away.) You both fall asleep stroking each others' hair or something, fuck knows.
In the morning, he's shocked to find you in his bed... before remembering last night’s events. He reassures you that he's only gone as far as *stroking your head and resting his head on your arm*. And that he's not using you as a stress-relief tool whatsoever.
He admits that he has liked you from the beginning, and even more so after you helped him with work and listened to his life story. As he prepares for you to kick his G-rated ass out of bed, you tell him that you... reciprocate his feelings :0. He makes you confirm your feelings, and kisses you to break the spell of dependency. Now ya'll can touch each other even *without* using 'charms' and stuff. Isn't this fancy new technology awesome hey??? I think it's called 'LOVE' or sumshit.
[Thoughts] I have to admit, this is much tamer than I thought it would be. I thought that Minori might show some dark (ura) sides and/or momentarily abuse his superpower. Especially since he mentioned that the ‘charmer’ might start to manipulate and the ‘charmed one’ would react with pleasing behaviours - this seems like the *perfect* conflict that would’ve added depth to the whole story, but for whatever reason it was left unexplored (or minimally explored I guess), which just feels like a lot of wasted potential.
...The hair stroking while you are sleeping thing is creepy right? Please tell me I’m not the only one who thinks so. But I mean, within the context of this story, (A) you like him back, and (B) he’s not a psycho killer, so it’s all cool.
His backstory is also pretty sweet and made me interested in Hibiki and Shion, the first two volumes in this series. I thought the chase scene in the beginning was a nice thrill ride, and it would’ve been cool if they have followed up on what happened to that guy that they caught and what his whole ‘deal’ was. I mean, it’s not integral to the plot, but all these loose ends...
ON THE PLUS SIDE, Minori is a total gentleman, and I’m a sucker for these street-urchin-turned-successful-self-made-man stories. And probably because he’s the oldest of the three, they were probably going for a bit of an oniisan angle here,... In fact you know who Minori reminds me of? That bartender guy with the Kyoto accent in Gakuen K. (This guy.) I never finished playing Gakuen K because it’s like the otome game equivalent of watching paint dry, but yeah I would date the fuck out of him <3333.
So this also makes me wonder if Hibiki and Shion would be less... forgiving, and use threats and/or surveillance to prevent the heroine from leaking their secret. Which would admittedly make for a cooler story. (I swear I am not a do-M lolol.)
In the ANIMATE tokuten, Minori teaches you how to make cocktails, but whatever #fuckthatshit. There needs to be more (mutually consensual) touching in bed and icha-icha scenes ya dig??? If I wanted to learn to mix drinks I would go watch a YouTube video or something.
Overall this is a good concept but it left me with some/a little/maybe a lot of 欲求不満 in places. Idk. TO BE CONT’D...