j1m0ne’s blog

Since I already have this info on hand I thought, why not share the observations I’ve made on the casting of seiyu for the spring season’s anime? I’m not going to comment on their performances or talk about how I despise whoever – just sticking to the stats & facts & figures.

This is purely looking at the number of roles a seiyu has that has been officially announced (ie I’m not gonna believe that Koyama Rikiya is in Kyoran Kazoku Nikki, or that Horie Yui is in Wagaya no Oinari-sama until I see concrete proof.

I’ll be using a points system:
+2 points for every lead role – How do you define a lead role? I’ll generally take the notion that it’s a lead role if the character appears in the main promo pic, or is described as ‘main heroine’ or ‘shujinko’ in the character biodata.
+1 for all other roles - that does not include cameos & special episode appearances.

Note: There are still roles that are un-cast or yet to be announced; half of the Allison+Lillia cast for example, so this ranking is only accurate up to 21 March 2008. Do please point it out if I’ve missed anybody or made any errors and I’ll amend the list.

Spring Season ‘08 Seiyu Ranking (Lead roles in bold):
1. Fukuyama Jun

No. of roles: 6 (Macross Frontier, xxxHOLiC Kei, Special A, Vampire Knight, Amatsuki, Code Geass R2)
Total Points = 10

2. Suwabe Junichi
No. of roles: 6 (Monochrome Factor, BUS GAMER, Blassreiter, Amatsuki, Vampire Knight, Nabari no O)
Total Points = 8
=. Nakamura Yuichi
No. of roles: 5 (Zettai Karen Children, Blassreiter, Macross Frontier, Neo Angelique Abyss, Wagaya no Oinari-sama)
Total Points = 8

4. Sakurai Takahiro

No. of roles: 4 (Junjo Romantica, KKMO3, Uruk, Code Geass R2)
Total Points = 7

5. Takahashi Hiroki

No. of Roles: 4 (BUS GAMER, Neo Angelique Abyss, Crystal Blaze, Real Drive)
Total Points = 6

6. All total 5 points
Arai Satomi
No. of Roles: 5 (Code Geass R2, 20-menso no Musume, Crystal Blaze, ToLove-Ru, Net Ghost PiPoPa)
=. Ito Shizuka
No. of Roles: 4 (Wagaya no Oinari-sama, Blassreiter, D.C.II S.S., xxxHOLiC Kei)
=. Okawa Toru
No. of Roles: 4 (Soul Eater, Neo Angelique Abyss, Amatsuki, Macross Frontier)
=. Watanabe Akeno

No. of Roles: 4 (Soul Eater, Real Drive, ToLove-Ru, Code Geass R2)
=. Tomatsu Haruka
No. of Roles: 3 (ToLove-Ru, Zettai Karen Children, Kyoran Kazoku Nikki)
=. Noto Mamiko
No. of Roles: 3 (Kanokon, Kaiba, Allison to Lillia)
=. Hirano Aya
No. of Roles: 3 (Zettai Karen Children, 20-menso no Musume, Macross Frontier)
=. Endo Aya

No. of Roles: 3 (Blassreiter, Macross Frontier, Neo Angelique Abyss)
=. Yukana
No. of Roles: 3 (Code Geass R2, Wagaya no Oinari-sama, Uruk)
=. Ono Daisuke
No. of Roles: 3 (Wagaya no Oinari-sama, Monochrome Factor, Neo Angelique Abyss)

16. All total 4 points
Nazuka Kaori
No. of Roles: 4 (ToLove-Ru, Soul Eater, Code Geass R2, Gag Manga Biyori 3)
=. Sawashiro Miyuki

No. of Roles: 3 (Kure-nai, Crystal Blaze, Toshokan Senso)
=. Sato Rina
No. of Roles: 3 (20-menso no Musume, Net Ghost PiPoPa, Kyoran Kazoku Nikki)
=. Kawasumi Ayako
No. of Roles: 3 (Real Drive, ToLove-Ru, Kanokon)
=. Kishio Daisuke
No. of Roles: 3 (Junjo Romantica, D.C.II S.S., Vampire Knight)
=. Kuwashima Houko
No. of Roles: 3 (Soul Eater, Macross Frontier, Kaiba)
=. Horie Yui

No. of Roles: 3 (Vampire Knight, D.C.II S.S., Uruk)
=. Paku Romi
No. of Roles: 3 (Kaiba, Amatsuki, Itazura na Kiss)
=. Yamaguchi Kappei
No. of Roles: 3 (Ikuze! Gen-san, D.C.II S.S., Neo Angelique Abyss)
=. Ohara Sayaka
No. of Roles: 3 (xxxHOLiC: Kei, Code Geass R2, Blassreiter)
=. Saiga Mitsuki
No. of Roles: 3 (Monochrome Factor, KKMO3, Nabari no O)
=. Mizuki Nana
No. of Roles: 2 (Itazura na Kiss, Allison to Lillia)

Random Stats:
Oldest male seiyu on the list (age this year): Okawa Toru – 48
Youngest male seiyu: Nakamura Yuichi – 28
Oldest female seiyu: Paku Romi – 36
Youngest female seiyu: Tomatsu Haruka – 18
Seiyu agency with most entries: Haikyo – 4 (Kishio Daisuke, Sato Rina, Ohara Sayaka, Suwabe Junichi)
Anime with the most (voice acting) Seiyu Award winners: Special A - 3 (Fukuyama Jun, Goto Yuko, Yonaga Tsubasa)
Anime with the most j1m0ne Seiyu Award winners: Macross Frontier - 3 (Kuwashima Houko, Kamiya Hiroshi, Konishi Katsuyuki)

I’m not surprised that the top 5 are all guys – probably points to the lack of bankable male seiyu out there; the industry does tend to keep hiring the same people over & over again. Going further down the list, it’s almost entirely dominated by female seiyu - outside the top 6, just 4 male seiyu made it into the rest of the top 26.

There’s just too many female seiyu and too limited a number of lead roles to spread out evenly so once again, the girls eat into the guys’ territory. Nabari no O’s two male leads are voiced by females (Kugimiya Rie & Saiga Mitsuki), as is Kanokon’s male harem chief (Noto Mamiko) and ToLove-Ru’s head pimp (Watanabe Akeno) as well as Soul Eater’s ninja meister (Kobayashi Yumiko). Female-playing-male seiyu veterans Minagawa Junko (Blassreiter) & Paku Romi (Kaiba) don’t miss out either.

Although Fukuyama is top of the rankings, you can see that he tends to get the sort of roles that don’t exactly require him to stretch his voice acting ability. And with so many roles this season, it makes me wonder how much effort he’ll bother to put into each one – I had this dreadful thought the other day that he might get confused & mix up the voices for Lelouche and Watanuki……

Some of my picks for the more unconventional castings that are worth looking out for:
-Blassreiter’s lead is Matsukaze Masaya, who I like for his performances as Ouran’s Kyoya & Jigoku Shojo’s Ichimoku Ren. He also has a supporting role in 20-menso no Musume.
-Real Drive’s main characters are voiced by the legendary Mori Katsuji and a fresh face, Oki Kanae.
-Bones have always hired a mix of famous-but-surprisingly-unexpected seiyu, plus a handful of unknowns or stars-on-the rise for their shows. Soul Eater is no different – there’s familiar Bones names like Miyano Mamoru & Nazuka Kaori, but the main cast also features an untried 18-year old stage actress (Omigawa Chiaki) and a 17-year old actor best known for voicing Roxas in the Kingdom Hearts II game (Uchiyama Koki).

Posted on March 22nd, 2008 under seiyuu • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback