j1m0ne's blog

Supplementary seiyuu notes to complement the main guide.

The number of series in the summer season usually drops by half from that of the busy spring period, meaning half as many roles to go around an increasingly large pool of seiyuu but there are a few doing very well for themselves as usual. This isn’t really a big issue as there’s tons of 2+-cour series continuing their runs from previous seasons, but you can see that the list of most active seiyuu this summer is almost entirely different from that of the top 15 or so from spring.

The majority of the anime airing this season have a moe feel to them that is firmly reflected in the group of seiyuu who are winning the majority of the roles. A real dry season for the guys this time, with the exception of Hetalia all the series appear to be dominated by female seiyuu cast members. Also there are no real breakout stars either this time, with a select group of names popping up time and again, while the likes of Orikasa Fumiko and Saiga Mitsuki are conspicuous by their absence.

The Winners
Horie Yui
(Aoi Hana, Bakemonogatari, GA Geijutsuka, Kanamemo, Umi Monogatari, Umineko no Naku Koro ni)

Busy, busy summer ahead for Hocchan. Six regular voice roles, an album in July, a single in August and playing live at Budokan in September – it’s certainly a great time to be a fan of hers.

No secret that her range of roles is somewhat limited, but at least you know what you’re going to get – consistently moelicious, fluffy mind-numbingly sugary performances. I don’t expect anything Horie’s doing this time to be wholly different or groundbreaking compared to what she dose 95% of the time, but I’m sure a lot of people will lap it up anyway.

Sawashiro Miyuki
(Bakemonogatari, CANAAN, GA Geijutsuka, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Umi Monogatari, Zan. Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei)

Rent-a-Voice Sawashiro consistently lands roles left and right every season – no matter lead or supporting roles, she’s never lacking impact no matter what she’s thrust into.

Unlike the others on the rest of this list, she has such a wide range of voices in her repertoire that it’s always refreshing to hear what she brings to the table with each character she slips into. This season she tackles the titular role in CANAAN and supports in a mix of comedy and drama shows, so you can be assured that there’s got to be some Miyuki voice for everyone.

Toyosaki Aki
(Aoi Hana, Kanamemo, Spice & Wolf II, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Umi Monogatari)

The Toyosaki moe machine (she was Yui in K-ON!) spills over to the summer. Looking at the list Kanamemo seems the obvious highlight, giving her a role that obviously plays to her strengths and allowing her to inject more of that sweetness that she used to great effect with every shout of ‘Ui~~~’ or ‘Azu-nyan~~~’, making every moe-loving otaku go into overload.

On a personal level, of more interest would be her roles in serious fare like Aoi Hana & Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 – I have no idea what sort of characters she’s voicing in those, but I certainly hope it’s not those ‘prerequisite moe-loli sister’ roles… I really would like to hear something different from Aki-chan.

Tomatsu Haruka
(CANAAN, GA Geijutsuka, Sora no Manimani, Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou)

There appears to be no sign of Tomatsu’s hot streak ending just quite yet, another fruitful summer harvest adding to her spring haul of Cross Game, Basquash and Asura Cryin’ (which I believe are all running for another cour). All four roles were announced way in advance,

At this point, not a whole lot more I can say about her without sounding like a complete asshat, you are looking at a total 100% Tomatard after all… OK, legs! legs! legSSS11!#^#$^ Pretty fantastic voice too. Terrible singing as usual though, which we will have the unfortunate privilege of being assaulted by in the Sora no Manimani opening theme via Sphere.

Kitamura Eri
(Kanamemo, NEEDLESS, Taisho Yakyuu Musume., Tokyo Magnitude 8.0)

Most recently and best remembered as voicing Ami from Toradora!, Kitamura is possibly just as versatile and talented as Sawashiro Miyuki but unfortunately somehow manages to lands three times the amount of forgettable C-grade roles as Miyuki. Her singing talents are quite something to behold too, but little is coming from that avenue so fans will have to look to her voice and radio presenting for their fix.

This season yields just the one major role for her, as one of the three main protagonists in the shonen anime NEEDLESS and adds to another bunch of supporting roles. Radio is where KitaEri really comes to life however so be glad to know that she is hosting/co-hosting 5 of those these season, including Kanamemo’s radio show alongside Toyosaki.

Also notable: Ito Kanae and Kamiya Hiroshi both have two lead roles this season.

If you wanna pick a real winner from this season then it’s gotta be Music Ray’n – all four of their charges (Toyosaki, Tomatsu, Kotobuki Minako & Takagaki Ayahi) are scoring good roles plus they’re collectively singing the Sora no Manimani opening theme. Whether it’s really the power of SonyTM at work there – who knows? At least they’re really having a good go at it.

If I were forced to pick an anime to watch based solely on the cast it would be CANAAN. Sakamoto Maaya is a sweet enough deal already, but with Sawashiro + Tomacchan + Tanaka Rie… I’m probably sold on at least the first episode anyway.