Links to indices of CD Drama translations. Except for Memorial Packs and Noisy, all tracks were translated by me.
Saiyuki
Drama CD Saiyuki Noisy
Character CD Saiyuki
Saiyuki Memorial Packs
Saiyuki Reload Blast Drama CDs
Special Edition Drama (Reload Blast Anime BR/DVD)
Extreme Bath Log
Masterlist (warning: big and unwieldy table): Contains all translations I found and my own. Updated whenever a translation is found or a new one is added.
Araiso
They’re Back! Araiso Private High School Student Council Executive Committee Volume One
They’re Back! Araiso Private High School Student Council Executive Committee Volume Two
If you have a CD Drama in mind you'd like me to translate, please message me or leave a comment to this post! :D
After four months, I finally finished the English translation of Shiki’s chapter of the Togainu no Chi novel. I hope this translation will give you a bit more idea of what the original text is supposed to convey, on top of what you could already get with the myriad tools available in 2026 (OCR, machine or LLM translation, etc).
You can download the original novel at aarinfantasy.
Special thanks to @shiki-aki for providing the original text and for their patience.
Lamento -BEYOND THE VOID – Figurine Special Drama CD
Four Drama CDs that come with the characters’ figurines. [Google Drive folder of translation]
Track List (with links to translations)
An Unusual Day (Konoe)
A Very Quiet Day (Rai)
A Sunny Day in Town (Asato)
A Very Lively Day (Bardo)
Download the Drama CD here.
(pw to archive: aarins3434)
Notes
(Round brackets): actions and sound effects. [Square brackets]: translator’s notes or clarifications. Double asterisks **: Stuff I am not sure of. Suggestions for improvements and corrections are more than welcome.
Disclaimer: I found a translation of Asato’s track by someone else after I was done with mine. I shall not link it directly since the translator has expressly indicated forbidden any redistribution of their translation, but you can look it up on their LJ blog.
Lamento, a convenience store staffed by cats. The customers are just as quirky as the store staff. Exploding merchandise? What’s the reason behind the devils’ visit to the store? Will a fateful battle break out? As this parody of a convenience store unfolds, even characters from Togainu no Chi are not spared from becoming embroiled in the ensuing chaos. [Google Drive folder of translation]
Track List (with links to translations)
Prologue / Episode 1: A customer from Toshima
Episode 2: The Theme Song of Convenience Store Lamento
Episode 3: The Devils’ Errand
Episode 4: The Devils’ Hotpot
Episode 5: It’s Raining Men at Vischio Mart
Episode 6: Dogs and Cats
Episode 7: Cats and Cleaning Up
Episode 8: The Sorcerer and the Hotpot / Epilogue
Notes
(Round brackets): actions and sound effects. [Square brackets]: translator’s notes or clarifications. Double asterisks **: Stuff I am not sure of. Suggestions for improvements and corrections are more than welcome.
Finally, after 10 long months, I am done! I took a 5-month break to play Lamento in-between, but it still took me nearly half a year to translate this Drama CD. I would have loved to read the older translation (which can no longer be found despite my best effort), just to see how the other translator would have worded some of the tricky parts. (What on earth is this thing that I could only transcribe as 六淫取り?)
After 5 months, I finally completed all endings. And my favorite pairing is... everyone else x Shaman. Just kidding! I like Tokino a lot. Much more than any of Konoe's three official potential suitors, though Asato comes close. The other two guys are... um, too seme-ish for my taste.
(Screenshot: Tokino is telling Konoe to make sure to eat the kuims and grow taller. The fact that something that would have sounded mean coming from any other character is a testament to what a truly nice and caring character he is.)
I am really glad I decided to play the game in the original. It was painful at first, as the onscreen OCR/Dictionary app I had was not working for characters I did not understand. In the end, I just looked up unfamiliar terms the old-fashioned way on jisho.org, either via radical lookup for kanji or combining kanji from terms I already know. On lazier days, I just let go if I already knew the meaning thanks to my mediocre Chinese skills but don't know the Japanese readings. Still, by the time I was done with the game, I managed to add a few hundred terms to my renshuu learning list! I also added my contribution to Bardo's endings on the fandom wiki, which had been empty until then.
Now, back to translating Convenience Store Drama CD....
It's already one month and I am nowhere near the end of this endless route. I don't dislike Rai, but his pairing with the MC is not my cup of tea. Now a 3P consisting of Rai, that shrine priest/seer and Bardo.... maybe.
Also, what's with the sudden POV change. In writing skool they taught us that was a sign of bad writing.
Synopsis: His fascination with a yakuza awakens lustful passions in him.... — “You’re plaything that’s been given to me.” — Art college student Nagito Enjou has a skeleton in the closet – he is the illegitimate son of the boss of a crime syndicate, the Kiryuu-gumi. Upon being picked as a potential successor to the boss of the Kiryuu-gumi, Nagito becomes a marked man to his half-brother. Then, Kadono Taka'aki turns up to serve as Nagito’s bodyguard. Having no intention of succeeding his father, Nagito puts up a defiant front against Kadono, a man who is under the yakuza’s patronage. However, as the two men get to know each other, Nagito, who has hitherto led an inconspicuous life for the sake of concealing the secret of his birth, and Kadono, who is distrustful of others, are gradually drawn to each other.
This Drama CD contains two short audio dramas (Toshima Urban Legend and Arbitro’s Plot), audio versions of Arbitro’s Room (Tracks 5-14) and a must-listen final hidden track (Arbitro Time – Vischio Company Song). Link to translations [Google Drive folder]
Track List: Summary
Track 01: Short Drama “Toshima Urban Legend”
At Rin’s insistence, Akira and co. check out a certain urban legend. Is the building really haunted? Or is a flesh-and-blood monster responsible for the sightings? Did someone actually feed their pet cat Line for a laugh? [Translation]
Tracks 02-04: Compilation of Reactions
The characters react to various scenarios: someone breathing into their ear, coming across an abandoned kitten by the roadside and being told by God that he will grant them one wish. [Translation]
Arbitro’s Room (Tracks 5-14)
Audio version of a series of web pages on Nitro+Chiral’s official website, in which Arbitro (and occasionally, one or two of the other characters) answers selected questions from fans. The questions mostly revolve around the fans’ First World problems or their curiosity about Arbitro’s life. Arbitro’s ridiculous answers are truly worth reading for those with a macabre sense of humor. They are all just so typical of him 🤣
Click on the header (“Track....”) for the corresponding translation.
Tracks 05-06
How do I stop my grandmother from wearing my newly-bought socks?
I’m too shy to speak to my crush.
Does Arbitro keep his mask on at all times?
Track 07
My father’s voice is embarrassingly loud.
What is the title of the song Arbitro hums at the beginning of each session?
How do I become Arbitro’s pet dog?
Track 08 (Fill-in host: Keisuke)
My two male pet hamsters seem to be more interested in each other than the sole female hamster.
I’m depressed because I’m short.
My dog hates me.
Track 09 (Fill-in host: Rin)
I need an effective weight management plan for my chonky dog.
My younger brother is a crybaby.
How do I deal with a mouth ulcer?
Track 10
How do I leave a strong impression on interviewers?
Track 11
Someone is dumping their garbage in front of my house on days other than the collection days.
My new boss keeps getting on my case.
Track 12 (Fill-in host: Akira)
I am the only cat people in my social circle, which is filled with dog people.
How do I get my hands on a mask similar to Arbitro’s? (unanswered)
Track 13 (Fill-in host: The Executioners)
My arms are getting too thick. How can I make them slender like Arbitro’s?
Track 14
Is there any vacancy for a part-timer at Vischio? [Highly recommended!!]
Track 15: Short Drama “Arbitro’s Plot”
Gwen orders Akira to investigate an unprecedentedly odd activity at Vischio. The truth turns out to be something much more benign, and, in Akira’s words, “a letdown.” [Translation]
Tracks 16-17
Arbitro’s Monologue
Arbitro Time – Vischio Company Song [version with romaji for those who would like to sing along]
Download the Drama CD here.(pw: aarin888)
Notes
Italics: POV character’s thoughts. (Round brackets): actions and sound effects. [Square brackets]: translator’s notes or clarifications. Double asterisks **: Stuff I am not sure of. Suggestions for improvements and corrections are more than welcome.
I'm not even there yet at translating stuff from Japanese to English. Hope to be able to competently translate from English to Japanese in about... ten years?
Togainu no Chi ES Figure Tokuten Drama CD Series (Vischio Theatre of Love)
[Link to translations]
Track List: Summary and Release Dates
Surprise! Dangerous Tutor (2006/09/30)
High school student Akira gets a new tutor, who is supposed to help him with his English but seems more inclined to ‘discipline’ him. [Translation]
Round-the-Clock Dangerous Toshima (2006/09/30)
Having received an order from his boss to deliver a document to Executive Director Motomi, salaryman Akira hails a taxi. Little does he know that he is in for the ride of his life. [Translation]
The Transfer Student Saw It All! The School at Midnight (2008/03/25)
Reporter Akira goes undercover at Toshima’s Vischio Private Academy in order to investigate rumors of solids made with human meat. [Translation]
The Thrill of the Fascinating Student Council’s Office (2008/03/25)
High school student Akira forgets his lunch box and the regular school store is sold out of bread for the day. He tries his luck at at another school store, which supposedly sells only one piece of bread a day – Il Re’s bread. [Translation] [Youtube]
Fight on! Dangerous Tutor Part 2 (2008/03/25)
Tutor Akira meets his new student, who does not seem inclined to be tutored in any of the usual high school subjects but keeps insisting that Akira “show him everything he (Akira)’s got.” [Translation]
Brand New Salaryman Life (2008/03/25)
On his first day as a fresh recruit at the sales department of Vischio Company, Akira accompanies the department head, Arbitro, on a sales visit to the office of a potential client, who is known to be a bit, no, very hard to please. [Translation]
The introduction in hibikiforum fails to do this wonderful Drama CD justice, so here is my attempt:
Nymphomaniac Jun'ichirou is more or less resigned to the fact that to his workaholic boyfriend, Kasai, work will always come first. After all, Jun'ichirou has loved Kasai since he was thirteen years old. However, when Kasai announces his intention to get married (to someone else), Jun'ichirou finally snaps and starts to sleep around. A chance encounter with the Caliente brothers, a pair of twins of mixed parentage, changes his life.
Brief review
Kosugi Jūrōta was the reason I downloaded this Drama CD. Kosugi-san does not disappoint (as usual), but Toriumi Kousuke truly steals the show despite not being the main character. I was impressed by his performance as the sadistic twin driven to desperation by his forbidden love for his brother, Sam. To round things off, Tobita Nobuo gives a subtle, yet profound portrayal of the conflicted Sam.
Through the Caliente twins, the listener is exposed to a bit of Mayan mythology and the political conflicts that occurred in Mexico between the late nineties and the early 2000s.
Warning: Jun'ichirou was underaged when he supposedly seduced Kasai. Sex scenes involving a minor is not something I’m comfortable with. At one point, I was ready to delete this Drama CD. But then, I found out that both the thirteen-year-old and the thirty-two-year-old Jun'ichirou were voiced by Yoshino himself. He was quite convincing, but I feel less icky listening to that track when I keep in mind that the child character was voiced by a fully grown man.
Character Profiles
Kasai Shuutarou: Over-serious and (despite his relationship with young Jun'ichirou) straight-laced manager of the sales department of Houjou Trading, he is the personification of the perfect Japanese salaryman.
Houjou Jun'ichirou: Son of the company president of Houjou Trading, he is also the vice company president and basically Kasai’s boss, giving this pairing a fresh twist which departs from the ‘typical’ seme-uke power dynamic that I dislike most (masculine/powerful/older seme vs. feminine/subordinate/younger uke). Despite his hedonistic tendencies, he is clearly an able businessman, fluent in English and Spanish and at least as shrewd as Kasai when it comes to negotiating a deal.
Sam Caliente: A Mexican man of mixed parentage who is in Japan for his undergrad study. Uses Jun'ichirou as a distraction from his carnal love for his twin brother, Rico.
Rico Caliente: When Jun'ichirou picked up Sam at a bar, he was not aware that Sam and Rico share everything, including sex partners. Rico dislikes Jun'ichirou for, in his own words, ‘being a rich little brat’ and for Jun'ichirou unyielding attitude in face of Rico’s sadistic treatment of him.
Dear fellow fujoshi and fans of boys love Drama CDs from the 2000s, I have updated my wordpress Drama CD translation blog :D
Adult Education ～The Training of a Gentleman～
Kondou Takashi x Morikawa Toshiyuki
Now Here
Toriumi Kousuke x Tobita Nobuo
Love Blooms at the Law Firm (Houritsujimusho Ni Koi Ga Saku)
Takahashi Hiroki x Ishikawa Hideo
A Tale of the BL Detective / BL Inside Stories Special 2004 (BL Tantei Monogatari)
Nakahara Shigeru x Kosugi Jūrōta
Horiuchi Ken'yū x Kosugi Jūrōta
That's all for now. I hope to post my thoughts and reviews on these old Drama CDs one of these days. In the meantime, please enjoy the translations and the Drama CD themselves. (Download links and pw are available in the introduction post for each Drama CD.)
The first Drama CD I ever translated is One-Day Store Manager. That was in July 2022, nearly two years ago. Until recently, the workflow was simple, at least on the surface. I listened and either typed out the first thing that came to mind or looked up what I heard in jisho. If the sentence was long and complicated, I would listen to it at half-speed a few times, transcribed it into romaji and tried to figure out the translation as I stared at the transcription. Obviously, it was a slow and painstaking process.
During the past few years, rapid progress has been made in the fields of machine transcription and translation. Even back in 2022, I had the nagging feeling that things could be sped up.
Last April, I finally did it. After scouring the world wide web, I cobbled up some python scripts to do a couple of things.
1. Automatic transcriptions from mp3 files. Yep. This removes the major pain in the neck. However, as they say in computer science, garbage in garbage out (GIGO). The quality of the transcription depends on the audio quality of the mp3 file, of course. The amount of corrections I have to make is correlated to the bitrate. If the quality is good, I only have to correct about five percent of the transcription.
2. Automatic translation. Not so great, but it takes away the hassle of translating simple sentences and stock expressions. It is equivalent to copying and pasting into Google Translate site, but in bulk. Again, the GIGO principle applies. Hence the importance of making sure the Japanese text makes sense in the first place.
I will use a short scene from Kyouka Suigetsu to demonstrate the advantages and the pitfalls of automation in Japanese to English translation.
The speech to text output is a chunk of text, sans punctuation and indication of who is speaking. The script is particularly bad at transcribing our guy’s names. Hakkai is either eight floor, destruction, eight times or Bajie. (The last is not technically wrong, though.)
Here is how the translation looks like. Of course, it is also a chunk of text.
Here is the edited transcription. I corrected the obvious mistakes and indicated who is speaking at the beginning of their lines.
Again, GIGO. The output of machine translation this time is much better. It is not perfect, but I find it so much easier to re-translate with the Japanese text just below each line.
Still, the fact that even the automatic translation from the automatic transcription makes more sense than a translation made by a human being nearly twenty years ago is a testament to how far the transcription and translation technologies have come. The fears expressed by some professional translators are far from unfounded.
The day Google Translate matches a human translation more than ninety-five percent of the time is the day yet another job becomes obsolete thanks to AI. (Yes, I’m quite pessimistic about this. Why are we letting AI do all the fun stuff [art, writing, translation] and none of the soul-crushing or dangerous jobs?)
Advertisement: I made a wordpress blog for putting my BL Drama CD translations. If you happen to be a BL Drama CD fan, you can compare my manual translation to the one using this semi-automated workflow (ongoing, first disc completed).
There's this series of videos from 1994, each featuring a voice actor where they talk about various stuff. It's fascinating to observe how good the VHS technology was at capturing normal skin flaws and stubble.
Which, on the same person, is no longer discernable on youtube video supposedly shot using a digital camera in 2022. Magical make-up, or AI-enhanced video editing?
This is one example but you can see it for most of the VAs featured in the 1994 videos (the ones that are still alive and making public appearances in the 21st century, that is).
He might look different, but it was uncanny how in 2022 he echoed again the view he expressed back in 1994, that a VA nurtures fans that will grow old with him and continue to support him.
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.
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.
They’re Back! Araiso Private High School Student Council Executive Committee Vol. 2 (links to translation and download)
Vol. 2 Scene 1: The Beginning of an Adventure (10:14)
Vol. 2 Scene 2: The Grandmotherly Witch (04:34)
Vol. 2 Scene 3: The Trickster Crow and the Prince (09:57)
Vol. 2 Scene 4: Friendship with a Bandit (04:36)
Vol. 2 Scene 5: Showdown! The Snow Queen (07:31)
Vol. 2 Scene 7: Extra (03:22)
Vol. 2 Scene 8: Cast Talk (07:29)
Extra: Fairy Tale Characters the Cast Wish They Were
Scene 6 is a song (Today’s Going to be a Sunny Day).
You can download all of the tracks (64 to 128 kpbs mp3 saved from youtube) here!
