FREE TALK in otome CDs

[BlackF]

Personally, I usually skip them because they feel kinda irrelevant. Once the main story ends, I'm already satisfied, so hearing the seiyuu talk about the recording, their character, or random behind-the-scenes stuff isn't really something I'm interested in.

But I've noticed that so many drama CDs have a free talk track, so now I'm curious why is it such a common thing? Is it mainly for the fans who enjoy hearing the seiyuu themselves, or is there another reason they're included?

 

[Daisy Magnus229]

Same here, I'm not interested in the free talk either, so I'm quite curious why they always include it. Other than free talk, maybe sleeping sounds, like an ASMR type of thing, lol

 

[mowanjian]

So do I. Unless the content of the talk is very interesting — they just need to focus on doing their voice acting work properly,

 

[ufoufufu]

I enjoy free talk ^_^ Though I don't often listen to CDs nowadays, so I'll mostly be talking about games where they're included, so feel free to correct me on anything that doesn't apply.

I'd say seiyuu is indeed a big factor (even more so for voice CDs where more people probably pick them up depending on the specific people they're into), but I'm also not very invested in real people lol. I'm mostly interested in the process. After experiencing a story or a situation my first instinct is to want to talk or hear others talk about it and this kind of thing satiates that desire instantly. It's especially nice to listen to seiyuu gushing about (or slandering lol) their character.

Even when the story stuff I'm more interested in isn't the focus of these talks, it's pretty funny to see the gap between character and the seiyuu. Often it'll be a regular dude talking about something awkward that happened in a restaurant he went to other day, and I'll be like, "this is the voice that broke into my apartment and drugged me?!" Same with energetic ray of sunshine types being voiced by really lowkey/tired dudes lol. It might be immersion breaking to some, but to me it has the opposite effect where I'm really able to see the character as their own separate being who miraculously, somehow was able to come alive.

 

[innikomoru]

i like the free talks! i don't always listen to them, especially since i don't know the language super well, but when it is a voice actor that i particularly like i do take the time to understand what they are saying. part of it is interest in the voice actor themselves, but i think most of it for me is just getting to hear more of their voice