Another fun anime I’ve been following this season is Seiyuu Radio no Uraomote, aka The Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio. It’s about two professional voice actresses who happen to be in the same high school class…and they hate each other.
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Seiyuu Radio Shows Us the Secret Life of Anime Voice Actresses
Yumiko Sato is a gyaru with a secret. For three years she’s been working as an anime voice actress under the stage name Yasumi Utahane. One day, she has a hostile encounter with Chika Watanabe, an anti-social girl in her class who has no friends. Imagine Yumiko’s surprise when she gets a job doing a seiyuu radio talk show with Chika, who has also been leading a secret life as a famous voice actress. The two girls have to do a radio show together, but hate each other!
That’s the basic premise of Seiyuu Radio. Yumiko dislikes Chika for her self-centered and depressing personality. Maki is annoyed at Yumiko for being such a social butterfly, and for mocking her for not knowing that butcher shops also sell delicious fried croquettes on air. Maki’s catchphrase is, “I despise that about you,” and she uses it often.
Little by little, Yumiko and Chika begin to understand each other and appreciate what they can learn from the other. Each episode is driven by the drama between the two girls and whatever new difficulty they have to overcome in their working relationship.
Why is the new Invoice Tax System creating challenges for new anime voice actors? Read this blog post!
Seiyuu Radio Shows Us the World of Professional Voice Acting
I positively love anime that delves into the world of anime itself and shows us what goes on behind the scenes. Here are three good examples.
- Want to know how anime is made? Then watch Shirobako, the legendary anime from PA Works. We watch five girls go to Tokyo and work hard to become professional animators, producers, and voice actors. It’s great!
- Sore ga Seiyuu! was a show about three young voice actresses trying to make it in the competitive world of voice acting. The show was unique in that it featured real voice actors starring as themselves. It was the first lead role for Rie Takahashi.
- Then there’s my beloved Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! On the surface, it’s the story of three girls who want to make animation. But it’s actually about the three founders of Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata and Toshio Suzuki.
Seiyuu Radio no Uraomote shows us what goes on behind the scenes with anime voice actors. Since it’s an anime, it naturally shows us a stylized world that’s fun for fans to watch. As I learned that time I went drinking with a real anime producer, real voice actors smoke too much and can often be hard to work with. But who would want to watch an anime about that?
Is This Secretly an Idol Anime?
It’s quite hard to make it as an anime voice actor, and it’s common for seiyuu to perform live singing events for fans. This is something Chika hates, as she has terrible stage fright. But she’s able to overcome it by observing how professional Yumiko is about her voice acting work.
If this is going to turn into an idol anime, they’ve certainly taken an interesting approach, and I’m totally down with it.
I Have Some Questions
Seiyuu Radio raises some questions. Do Japanese high school students actually work as professional voice actors? It can happen, as the voice of the Producer from Idolmaster Cinderella Girls was in his final year of high school when he voiced that role. But it’s probably very rare.
The dream of working in the anime industry while still in school feels like a reference to ClariS, a duo of junior high school girls who got a contract to sing anime songs through Aniplex thanks to making it big on Nicodouga. Since their faces and identities were kept secret for years, the idea that the ClariS duo might be in your classroom was really exciting for fans at the time.
A bigger question is, how can the voice actor otaku Kimura be in the same class with two famous seiyuu and not notice? He idolizes Yuuhi Yuugure, but she sits just a few seats behind him. How dense can a guy be?
Thanks for reading this blog post about the new Seiyuu Radio anime. Are you going to watch the show? Tell us in the comments below!
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