j1m0ne's blog

Kannagi seiyuu cast is <3

In recent years I’ve barely taken notice of any seiyuu performance in an anime unless it’s so bad/dead/crap that it spoils my enjoyemnt of the show (like Omigawa Chiaki in Soul Eater, or the Shikabane Hime dudes). Until now.

Watching Kannagi sort of reminds me of what it was like when I first got into seiyuu, noticing the subtle lilts & twists in every line and drooling over every little ‘Ara ara’ or ‘kawaii no’ that spewed forth from a character’s mouth. That tended to happen more with comedies, where the impact of a perfectly delivered line can itself be comedy gold (think Hosaka/Ono Daisuke’s ‘Volleyball o Yaranaika’).

Kannagi is full of hilarious lines, from Nagi’s ‘baka unko’ to Tsugumi’s ‘Niga-ama? Ume? Gomu taiya?’ to naturally, Akiba’s ‘It’s a Sony!’ More than just being good at delivering their lines, I was rather impressed by how the seiyuu seemed to fit their characters visually as well (except maybe Hayamizu). But really, this is the first time in a long while that I’ve really paid attention to the seiyuu involved in an anime. Or maybe I need to watch more anime?

Briefly, sifting through the characters and their voices:

Shimono Hiro as Jin

Jin: I normally hate male harem leads of any form or shape, but Jin is quite tolerable. It helps that he’s not a complete asshat who thinks all girls should be falling over themselves to lick his boots. Not a huge fan of his carving skills though.
Hiro: Hiro is Hiro, reliable as ever. These kind of roles are bread & butter stuff for Shimono, his natural boyish charm comes across easily in his portrayal of Jin. I just hope they don’t make him sing.

Tomatsu Haruka as Nagi

Nagi: Nagi gets all the best lines. She’s also selfish, has weird food fetishes and is generally annoying. And has lots of mouth ulcers. But she has a cute accent and best of all, she’s a DFC! (Us) DFCs need to unite against the Zanges of this world!
Haruka: I’m starting to wonder how hard (or if at all) Sony pushed to get Haruka cast in the role of Nagi [she's signed to a Sony-affiliated agency] . She needed some sort of break to kickstart her career, her agency placed their bets on Kannagi and it looks to have paid off. Thankfully, she’s putting in a solid performance to silence most of the naysayers – though Nagi’s voice was all over the place in the first 1-2 episodes, I think Haruka’s gotten into the groove & is pulling off everything pretty much effortlessly now.

Sawashiro Miyuki as Tsugumi

Tsugumi: I’m not into the whole ‘childhood friend’ thing, but Tsugumi is pretty hard to not like – even if she can only cook tamagoyaki and vegetables. Love for head-banging is another plus point.
Sawashiro: Sawashiro’s Tsugumi is the best and most consistent performance of the cast, but that’s to be expected from a seasoned pro like her. It’s almost like she’s on autopilot most of the time.

Hanazawa Kana as Zange-chan

Zange-chan: Doesn’t appeal to me at all – she reminds me of the uber-bitches in school I used to know who’d act all sweet in front of you then once your back is turned, stick pins into a voodoo doll that somewhat resembled you. Or the ones who use their assets to get their way with all those stupid guys who can’t keep their hormones in check. Ugh. I want to stick forks in her eyeballs and shove spiders down her throat D:
Kana: I still think Hanazawa’s delivery is a little stiff at times, but she has had two of my favourite ad-libs(?) – the ‘Wohh, mabushii!!’ line at the end of episode 5, a joke that is recycled on the drama CD, and the ‘Fufufunofu’ bit also from the drama CD.

Kakihara Tetsuya as Akiba

Akiba: Is my favourite character <3 Every time he appears on screen I know I'm in for a good laugh.
Kakky: A string of impressive roles (Simon in Gurren Lagann, Mercutio in Romeo x Juliet, Fujioka in Minami-ke) has turned Kakihara into one of the top young male seiyuu around, and he’s popular with the female fans for obvious reasons. Kakky’s Akiba is most impressive for his talking speed, I wonder how many takes he needs to get his long rants word perfect…

Hayamizu Risa as Takako

Takako: I don’t really identify with most of her fetishes, but I gotta admit that Takako is probably the closest thing to an animated version of all us crazy seiyuu idol fangirls that you’ll ever see. Minus the nosebleeds, of course.
Risa: She’s a very solid, versatile seiyuu but unfortunately hasn’t quite built on her initial success in landing the lead role of Yankumi in the Gokusen anime a couple of years ago, and is restricted to supporting roles most of the time (Momokan in Oofuri, Satomi in Itazura na Kiss, Kanae in Skip Beat!). Hayamizu is Osakan, so it surprises me she hasn’t gotten more Kansai-ben type characters… or maybe Ueda Kana is stealing all of them. Anyway, Takako is a great role that allows her to show off her comedic chops once again. Even if nobody remembers Hayamizu, they’ll remember her ‘too-pure-pure-boy’ line.

Nakahara Mai as Shino

Shino: Oh god, I so have a weakness for these kaicho-type characters. Takako is stupid to ogle girls in frilly maid dresses when she has a goddess like Shino by her side.
Mai: She’s one of my favourite seiyuu but I’m struggling to think of anything memorable she’s done recently (I have no interest in Clannad). At first I thought somebody like Ohara Sayaka might’ve been a better choice for Shino, but Mai’s polished her ‘Ara, maa, ara’ act to perfection & I’m loving every bit of her performance so far.

Hoshino Takanori as Daitetsu

Daitetsu: He’s your typical large, huggable bear. Daitetsu hasn’t really done that much except stand around and er… act cute. I’m not sure I find him cute.
Hoshino: Since I went into watching Kannagi cold with no knowledge of the characters beforehand, I couldn’t stop giggling when Daitetsu first appeared and I heard Hoshino’s voice booming out. As you can see from the cast pics above & below, Hoshino’s over 6 feet tall and he’s a bit of a bumbling softie too (witness Gun x Sword radio) – like a real life Daitetsu xD I don’t know why Hoshino bleached his hair though, it looks weird. Hoshino isn’t too well known as a seiyuu, Van from GxS, one of the Ha-ha brothers in Eyeshield 21 & Shido from Getbackers are probably his best known roles.

Kakihara Tetsuya’s blog is probably the best place to stalk for random nuggets and trivia on Kannagi, since he actually bothers to watch the show on TV every Saturday night.

He revealed that he was the voice of Konnyaku (Lolikko Cutie’s magical stick thingy), while the other cast members also voiced an assortment of characters in episode 7’s ending sequence. That Kakky was the stick is somewhat amusing anyway, since he voices Vita’s Graf Eisen in the Nanoha series. Inside joke? There’s so many of them on Kannagi.

I’d definitely recommend listening to the drama CD that came with the December issue of Comic REX as it’s got lots stuff we probably won’t see in the anime. An onsen episode, Takako calling Zange a ‘yandere’, the stupid ping-pong matches between the girls, Daitetsu’s fear of naked mannequins, Shino opening her eyes etc – oodles of fun.

Quick reference: Kannagi on ANN [so you can look up the individual seiyuu]