The wonders of being American and, as such, Japanese-illiterate, is that new content manages to come out for old, popular shows seemingly endlessly.

When in reality perhaps all the rampant merchandising of a show ended a few years ago – in this case, the last drama CD was released in 2003 – the slow trickle of the content through the fansub community (understandable, non-anime content is usually a bit slower to translate) allows for a steady supply of material on the English side of things

As such, the continuing translation of the Kanon drama CDs (supposedly 5 in all; or at least, the third ‘Akiko’ set) is something that really sends rabid fanboys like me over the moon.

The drama CDs are, admittedly, less than canon (insert pun) content, in that many characters’ personalities are different than what’s seen of them in the anime. This is mainly true for the side characters, who didn’t get much exposition anyway, though; as such, it’s entertaining enough to see a side to the secondary characters that time didn’t allow.

So Mishio – and, dare I say it, Kuze – fans will really find a lot to like with the drama CDs.

And pardon the fanwankery, but I think a lot of people will be pleasantly surprised with the animation of the drama CD as well.

OTL really went above and beyond the call of duty with their release of the drama CD. Presented in visual novel format, the backgrounds and characters on-screen change in true VN fashion; starting with the second CD, the mouths even move – in sync – with the voices!

Not to mention, some of the extra work in creating backgrounds – such as this manga Yuuichi was reading – or entire characters, in the case of Kuze, who had no sprite in the original VN! It really does a lot towards extending the entertainment value of the drama CD, and I have to hand it to OTL for all their extra work.

Not to say that the drama CD is any less subpar. Check out this previous post for the first ten stories of the first CD.
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got uguu~?

As is common, or so it seems, for most anime (and by most I’m using two or three popular anime as a benchmark) Kanon has a series of drama CDs out in Japan. Drama CDs, as you would expect, are audio-only stories, typically side stories (i.e. not relevant to the plot) which are more for light entertainment than anything else – I bring this up considering the often heavy plot matters of Kanon.

Recently, the Kanon audio CDs have been getting fansubbed by OTL, which I think is a first for this sort of stuff. They’ve done a good job of it as well, presenting it in the visual novel format, with character portraits and backgrounds to match up the text. It might be a simple task, but it really adds a lot to the experience.

But what of the stories themselves? The question one really has to ask when going into this is,

Can you get too much Kanon?

Do the drama CDs fall into the cash-in category or are they worth your time? There are 10 stories and they run about 40 minutes in total. The download size for all of them is roughly equivalent to that of a normal episode of anime (170 MB) and since, well, it’s Kanon, the seed speed shouldn’t be too bad.

And with that, I can give it a solid recommendation, although it does get a bit awkward at times. Hit the jump for full details.
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