Hunter x Hunter Character IN CD
This is my kinda random summary of the Character IN CD series. Done mostly for my own entertainment, and for future reference, as I'm quite sure I'm gonna go back to these CDs many times again. :D Next to Kurapika and Leorio's LeoKuRadio, my personal favourite among the HxH drama CDs I've listened to so far. :D
Vol. 1 - Gon
* First meeting, the five decide that they're going to run a radio broadcast together. Gon being cute not knowing what "radio” is. :D Leorio randomly giving out roles for the show: “Okay, so I’ll be the director, Gon is gonna be the main personality, Killua, you’re the guest, Kurapika will be in charge of the studio equipment, and you Hisoka, you’ll be our sponsor, so hand over the money.” :D
* Gon’s "animal language class”, and Kurapika perfectly capable of speaking cat language. :D Leorio not so skilled at bear language.
* “Hunter x Hunter Famous Scene Collection”, retelling of two Gon-centered episodes from the beginning of the series: his departure from Kujira Island and him meeting Killua for the first time. All with Gon’s comments, and the things he says about Killua are cute and kinda moving. ^^
* Leorio bullying Kurapika (by sending a false postcard to the show, saying “I am a fan of Kurapika-san. I want to know a lot about him, so please tell me.”) and getting heavily beaten by the latter. (Gon’s guesses about Kurapika’s interests are really cute too, like “is it staring at yourself in the mirror? or writing cute poems?”, all said with that 100% innocent Gon voice :D)
* Hints at probably the most impossible pairing ever, that is Leorio x Killua. XD Leorio, while trying to get some scoop of sleeping Killua to “attract female fans”, hears him sleep-talking “Leorio…”, and freaks out at first. XD (Leorio, to himself: “Hey… the story we’re in, was it this kind of story?” Gon: “Like what kind of story?” Leorio: “…Anyway! The kind of story kids better not know about!”) Then, though... “What do I do… what do I do… to be honest, this kind of preferences… but if it’s Killua, maybe it’s okay?...” He actually does say that! XD
Vol. 2 - Killua
* Killua persuading Gon to steal a march on Leorio by sneaking into the studio early. First thing he does is play his own song on air, admitting aloud “yep, I’m so cool!”. :D (Gon admits eagerly "yes you are!" XD)
* Hint at Leorio x Killua no. 2!? XD Killua, to Leorio getting angry at him: “Hey, don’t get so close all of a sudden! People might misunderstood you.”
* Hisoka showing off his magic tricks (whatever being the point of doing it on the radio) by cutting a cucumber with cards.
* Postcards from Tonpa and Hanzo, who would like to be let into the show too.
* Menchi appears! To inform Killua that he’s the new sponsor, only to result in Killua running away in the middle of the program (“I’m following my own pace, can’t help it!”).
* Everyone together advertising a fishy mysterious training device for future hunters and assassins. (“Only today! With every purchase, a book “Hunter Exam - Guide to instant passing”, and a set of knives!”)
* Hearing Hisoka saying he’s not interested in anyone but Gon, Kurapika cautiously asks him “what about girls?... don’t you like them?”, then quickly backs off upon Hisoka’s ambiguous answer. :D
* Hisoka and Killua firing up to fight over Gon… by playing niramekko (a staring contest).
* Menchi brings Killua back by force, and threatens Leorio to include her in the program. Next up is Menchi’s Tasting and Ingredient Guessing Game, revealing personal tastes of some, and ending up in everyone running away from furious Menchi… except for Hisoka, who decides that when there are people running, it ought to be him chasing them, and not the other way round.
* A very cute talk between Gon and Killua, kind of reprising their talk from the manga/anime when they both are on Kujira Island after the hunter exam. Gon asks Killua if he has any plans for now on, and whether he wouldn’t like to travel together with him. Although Killua feels kinda OOC here, since he has no problems speaking aloud about his feelings, like he’s glad to have met Gon, and he wants them to stay friends.
* Then, the same talk repeated between Kurapika and Leorio! And I mean totally the same, they’re literally repeating the previous lines! Why does this one feel so much more like a lovers’ talk though. They're using the word "partner" instead of "friend" too. XD
* The legendary torture techniques of the Zaoldyeck family - screeching nails on a chalkboard and a tickling machine.
* Overall, Killua mostly behaving even more selfish and moody than his usual self, but ridiculously cute while being so!
Vol. 3 - Hisoka
* A sudden switch from radio to a TV station, with Hisoka as its president and Mito-san as his secretary. XD Hence the origins of Hisoka and Mito’s duet song revealed! (Always wondered why would the two of them ever do a song together…)
* Hisoka appearing in (self-description) a violet shirt, white trousers, and a lemon yellow sweater, with a pocket watch, and threatens to cut Mito’s wages for criticizing his fashion sense.
* The four are working for him also, surprisingly obediently.
* Hisoka calling Kurapika “Kura-chan”. :D
* Kurapika is responsible for the noon TV drama, which he describes as “a pure love story”. Hisoka is not very happy with it, pointing out that nobody dies, and Kurapika should bring in more action.
* The “chan” series continues, with Gon-chan and Mii-chan :D Hisoka explains that this is how things are in the business world, but opposes to Gon trying to call him “Hiso-chan”. It only goes one way.
* Gon proposes a fishing program (“Gon’s Anyone-can-do-it Fishing Class”!), Leorio a late night program with lots of girls in swimsuits (“All Night Hisoka”), to which Hisoka replies he’d rather have boys in it… ahem, he’s not interested in such unrefined ideas.
* All of them act out some ideas for new TV programs: a police action drama, a train mystery drama (? XD) and such. In a school drama, Kurapika stars as a high school girl, Leorio as a homeroom teacher. XD
* President Hisoka constantly favoring Gon and Killua, whether they go out to eat or to an onsen (hot springs), saying he’ll pay for the two, but the other two (Leorio and Kurapika) are on their own.
* Aside from working in the TV station, Mito-san is doing all kinds of odd part-time jobs in each scene, such as a waitress or a taxi driver.
* Hisoka and Mito-san perform their duet at the onsen.
* Hisoka denies him singing enka (a sentimental Japanese-style song) - “It’s not enka, it’s mood-ka” (as in a mood-creating song?... no idea XD;).
* While Kurapika is absent, Hisoka and the rest think up a new program starring Kurapika as a girl, reminiscing the York Shin arc and Kurapika’s girl disguise. And they do ponder whether he’s not actually one! Leorio being the first to suggest making Kurapika wear girl’s clothes. XD Followed by a wild imaginary service-y scene. XD
* Leorio trying to make Kurapika take off the onsen yukata, to check whether he’s not in fact a girl. XD;
* Hisoka receives twice a mysterious phone call from somebody requesting to see him at once. (Illumi?... XD) Both result in Hisoka’s disappearance.
* It seems that the TV programs mentioned here are (mostly or all of them?) parodies of existing ones. In one called “Gogo wa Mouretsu Omoikkiri Hisoka” Hisoka introduces himself as Hiso Monta - there was a popular program “Omoikkiri Terebi”, ran by a comedian Mino Monta. “Odoru Hisoka no Daisousasen ni Hoero!” is obviously a parody of a long-running police drama and movie series starring Oda Yuuji, called “Odoru Daisousasen”.
Vol. 4 - Kurapika (definitely the weirdest one, though the Leorio one comes quite close ^^;)
* This time it’s a hotel floating on the sea surface, called Hotel Gunkanjima, with Kurapika as its enthusiastic manager. The other four of course are also there (at first, only Leorio, Gon and Killua, but the first scene results in Hisoka being fished out of the sea…).
* Guests keep on leaving, and there are no new reservations, so Kurapika is worried about going out of business (it’s probably some kind of a hunter hotel? since Kurapika mentions chairman Netero, and then keeps writing him letters about the progress of restoration).
* Suddenly, they find Satotsu-san on a drifting raft, then rescue him. Kurapika recognizes him as… “the legendary wandering hotelman”. ^^; Apparently he is a world-famous concierge. Kurapika asks him to help them restore the hotel.
* Gon appears in a hotel maid’s clothing (which he apparently put on by mistake), which results in Hisoka nosebleeding heavily. XD
* Satotsu-san turns out to be more knowledgeable than Kurapika, and steals his spotlight as the one explaining things to others. Yet, the overload of explanations causes the five to fall asleep.
* Satotsu-san makes everyone (except Hisoka) drink wine, as a part of a special training. Gon starts crying, Killua becomes ultra-bright and laughs all the time (one of the cutest Killuas I know so far XD). Leorio starts taking off his clothes and dancing. Satotsu-san tells lame jokes (dajare). Kurapika becomes immersed in his grudge against Satotsu-san taking his lines from him.
* Kurapika is possessed by ghosts three times, each of them female, and each being some actually existing Japanese idol/actress/singer, from ‘50s~‘80s (Kishida Kyoko, Segawa Eiko and Yamase Mami, respectively XD).
* Kurapika dressed against his will in “net tights, high heels, a frilly long dress and a hat with wings”. Isn’t that kind of overdone though. ^_^;;
* Kurapika encounters a big spider, turns red-eyed, goes rampage and splits the floating hotel in half. Then Satotsu-san appears on a surfing board, and discloses that in fact, he’s a surfer and he had departed onto the sea in search of a legendary big wave. Hisoka ponders whether he should learn to surf while upside-down.
* Leorio wants everyone to do Midsummer Night’s Dream next time, and casts himself and Kurapika as the lovers. Hisoka gets a female role too.
Vol. 5 - Leorio
* The five are celebrating the release of all 4 CDs in an izakaya (Japanese-style bar), Hisoka and Mito-san’s song playing in the background. The four claim that Leorio is not popular enough to get his own CD, and tell him to give up.
* Mito-san appears (with a portable cassette player to play her own BGM), and it turns out that she is the secret producer of the series.
* Leorio asks if he’d get his own CD if he was stronger and cooler. A scene from the hunter exam in which Hisoka plays an examiner is reprised, but this time the cool Leorio appears and beats Hisoka in no time. Unfortunately the rest of the group say it’s impossible, and that Leorio is just fine the way he is.
* Mito-san agrees to give him a chance for a CD, on the condition that he comes up with a plan to make it sell. The rest, if reluctantly, agree to lend him a hand.
* The group suspects Mito-san of being a secret Nen user, because she tends to appear from nowhere all of a sudden.
* Leorio fantasising about getting Kurapika to wear a high school girl’s uniform…
* Everyone join together to create an image song for Leorio. Leorio invites them to an underground recording studio, where they find him randomly practicing electric guitar. Leorio tries to make them back members of his “Leorio Band”, to which Mito-san opposes, saying she should be the lead vocal, and the name should be “Mito and the Hunter Fives”.
* For starters, they decide they should put together some words they associate with Leorio, to make a song that would fit him the best. The list goes along the lines of “oyaji (middle-aged man)”, “uncool”, “simple-minded”, “perverted”, “bow-legged”, “obsessed with money”, “frivolous”, “hairy legs” and so on. Hisoka says “mazusou (looks like it would be disgusting)”, and when Gon ask him about what would be “oishisou (looks like it would be tasty)”, Hisoka points at Gon. XD
* Kurapika says that they should put all of these together and treat them as ingredients for the song. His reasoning is that even if you have only “unpopular” ingredients, like green pepper, celery, or nattou, if you handle them well, there’s a chance that you get a delicious dish. Then he writes the lyrics, and makes Leorio sing them to his instrumental theme track from the OST.
* Leorio is obviously not too pleased with the result, and he proposes his own list of words. So Kurapika and the rest create new lyrics, but they put all the words Leorio proposed in the negative or “wannabe” form (“I wanna be cool, I envy all the nice guys, I’m not handsome, nor do I have long legs…”)
* Finally Leorio writes his own lyrics, but then it’s already time to leave the studio.
* Killua, Hisoka and Kurapika decide it’s time to drop out. Only Gon stays by Leorio’s side, but it turns out it’s only because he hopes they would do a sentai (Power Rangers-style superhero) show together.
* Mito-san gets angry and turns into a big monster?! (Pokemon-style, from that point on she only talks like “Mito, mito, mito”… XD Kurapika seems to somehow understand her though, and translates her words to the rest.)
* Gon calls Leorio “Leader!”, and all of a sudden the team transforms into a sentai team called MMV, wearing shining vinyl uniforms. XD Kurapika ends up as the Pink Ranger.
* They notice that they all have various companies’ advertisements on the backs of their uniforms, to which Leorio says that if they don’t do a tie-up, they won’t have enough money. A company called Togashi Cars, and companies with names of all the seiyuus appear too. (Takeuchi Products, Mitsuhashi Engineering, Goda Meat Shop, Alcohols Kaida…)
* Kurapika opposes strongly to being called “Pink”.
* They all join into a big warrior called Marvelous and defeat Mito. Each of the special attacks is sponsored by a different company.
* In the end, the group goes out to celebrate, this time the real completion of the series. This time though it’s a cheap outdoors ramen (noodles) stand, cause apparently they went over budget with the productions.
* The last track is a talk between seiyuu, after the recording. They mostly talk about how this CD drama series differed from the anime, especially how their roles were out of character.