Hearing Voices

As mentioned in my previous post, I became curious as to why so many obviously talented Japanese seiyuus would lend their voices to eroge games aimed at women. Considering there's no similar counterpart in America (adult products are completely separated from the rest of the entertainment industry) and the fact that more than one actor's career has been destroyed when their involvement in the adult industry is revealed, I wondered why voice actors in Japan would participate in BL projects without fear of their identity being discovered.

Well, as I've come to learn, seiyuus involved in anything related to the BL genre are treated like nothing short of rock stars. No, I'm not kidding. Just do a search for “Live Pastel Collection” if you don't believe me. This probably explains why so many of them get involved without worrying about their reputation; if anything, it seems to boost their career in other areas.

There's a relatively small group of “regulars” from what I can tell, with the same names showing up again and again. I've actually come to be impressed by a number of them, the most talented in my opinion being seiyuu veteran Yusa Kouji. His resume is longer than the Amazon River, with a career that covers a great deal of projects; he's most famous for voicing Ichimaru Gin from Bleach, but that's far from his only mainstream anime.

I first heard him (perhaps unfortunately) as Midou Takanori in Kichiku Megane and took an interest in the actor behind the voice. This is rather ironic, considering I found Midou's path with Megane-mode Katsuya disturbing at best (outright horrifying at worst). Mini rant and a major spoiler ahead; highlight to read:

I take serious issue against any plot where one character drives another to the brink of catatonia/catalepsy yet you can still get a “happy” end (which, I may add, is only achieved because Midou shows up a year later and can't remember a damn thing during the time Katsuya abused him.) Right, so Katsuya finally realizes at the last second he pushed too far—so what? The player already notices about halfway through Midou's route that he's losing it. Katsuya's way too slow in the realization department.

/digression

At any rate, I first noticed the unique quality to Yusa's voice, and thanks to him I developed a deeper interest in Japanese voice acting as well as the English dubs. I explored the careers of other seiyuus, and wasn't surprised to discover a great number of them have crossed into both mainstream and BL projects: Yasumoto Hiroki, who voiced Honda Kenji in Kichiku Megane, is another Bleach alum and has gone on to voice the hunter Tooga Yagari in Vampire Knight. Even Hirakawa Daisuke, the voice behind KM's protagonist, has an extensive list of mainstream anime to his name. Other voice actors who have participated in both “regular” and BL projects are Fukuyama Jun, Toshiyuki Morikawa, Toriumi Kousuke, and Midorikawa Hikaru, just to name a few.

When researching the different voice artists I came to realize that one of the most popular products in the BL world seems to be the “drama CD”. Similar to the old radio dramas, they usually involve a plot device of sorts, and many of them have a “free talk” session at the end where the actors get together and discuss pretty much anything. Some are safe to play in public, others not so much, but I find it interesting that Japan has managed to keep the art of radio drama alive in the digital age.

From what I can tell, the vast majority of these men are straight, and many of them are married. They all seem to take a light-hearted attitude about the BL genre, which you would pretty much have to if you planned on working in such an industry for any length of time.

Given the extensive resumes of many seiyuus I researched, I wondered if any of them had also worked in any live acting series. Along the way, I discovered a few interesting things about the acting scene in Japan, and learned just how far-reaching the BL genre is.

...but that's a post for next time.
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