Hey all, it’s been a while. I’ve been a bit busy here and there with this and that so I thought I’d use the Easter break to catch up on my blogging. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed.
Sore ga Seiyuu/Seiyu’s Life is an anime series centered on three friends who are all rookie voice actresses (seiyuu): Futaba Ichinose, Ichigo Moesaki and Rin Kohana. As the girls go through their individual troubles of working in voice acting, they end up hosting a web radio show together and form the unit, Earphones, according to Wikipedia. It’s based on a 4-koma comedy manga by voice actress Masumi Asano (if you went “Who?” you’re not alone, but her list of credits are pretty decent) with art by Kenjiro Hata of Hayate the Combat Butler fame.
The Sore ga Seiyuu anime is short and sweet with no violence, no fanservice, no nudity, no bad language, in short nothing objectionable to get in the way of my enjoyment. I thought it presented a rather idealized view of the voice acting world where almost everyone was nice and supportive of everyone else and even if your friend got the part you wanted you got over it in a day, that sort of thing. It also made it look too easy for a nondescript, insecure, not all that talented rookie like the main character to succeed in the industry. At least they showed how much nagging and lobbying it took for her to land certain parts.
It’s bad of me I know, but I’m always looking for drama when I watch a “behind the scenes” special on any industry, and this was just bland. But of course I can’t expect a show like this which actually features cameos from famous VAs like Nozawa of Dragonball to show all the warts and all. What’s that they say about not biting the hand that feeds you? Plus maybe Masumi Asano likes her job just that much and doesn’t have any horror stories to share (yeah right). Okay, we’ll go with that.
I still enjoyed Sore ga Seiyuu a whole lot, though, and its relative lack of ambition was probably part of it. At least you knew there were no ugly surprises coming up, just three hardworking girls in a saccharine-sweet friendship, best friends forever, yay, and so on and so forth. I’ve watched one or two features on seiyuu on Japanese TV so I knew some things like how VAs have to wear rubber-soled shoes and non-rustling clothing and how they have to audition for parts and stuff. A lot of other things were new to me though, like how nice everyone is (riiight) and how idol units are formed (totally randomly) and how often the art isn’t finished yet so the VAs work from rough sketches (that’s hardcore).
There were a few boring episodes where nothing happened, but apart from that it was a smooth show from start to finish, it did end on a fairly realistic note (i.e. the writers acknowledged the main character kinda sucked as a voice actress) the characters were likeable in a bland, inoffensive way and at only 13 episodes long it didn’t outstay its welcome. Recommended for any anime fan who is interested in voice acting. The only downside is now I sometimes picture the VAs in the studio when I’m watching an anime, which does tend to ruin immersion a bit. I’ll get over it. In the meantime, watch it if you get the chance!
Sore ga Seiyuu still has the best ending out of all the summer anime I love how every week they reference a different anime
Yeah, it was pretty awesome. There are other seiyuu anime out there (I think one is coming out next season) but few of them treat the profession with respect and seriousness while still making it seem fun like this one does.