A couple of years ago, female fans were openly depressed when actor
Crispin Freeman said that he wouldn't be able to attend an Anime Central
convention where he had originally agreed to appear. In 2002, the Chicago-area
native finally got back to the Midwestern event, bringing his unique philosophy
on life and art. Few people see, as Freeman does, the links between Buddhist,
Hindu and Asian religions and the story lines in anime shows. Most people
just see a slim, handsome guy and hear the deep voice. "I tend to play
the bishonen, the beautiful guys," said Freeman. I also have a sort of
young, naive hero voice. I tend to be the more heroic characters, and the
criticism of my Zelgadis (in The Slayers) is that he's too heroic and should
be more dour." Freeman recalled how he had taken over the Zelgadis role
midway through production of the Slayers dub, had tried to imitate the
previous actor and was ordered by the voice director to "do it your way."
As befits a follower of philosopher Joseph Campbell's observations
on the nature of mythology and popular storytelling, Freeman is attracted
to anime because it reflects an Asian outlook on life. One of the most
dramatic recent examples of that, the Earth Girl Arjuna series, is something
that Freeman would love to work on, because it animates classic Hindu philosophy.
"Who has the rights to Earth Girl Arjuna - I want to be part of that show,"
said Freeman about the series which retells the Bhagavad Gita in animated
form, as presented by Shoji Kawamori with Yoko Kanno's music. "It's great...there's
some good there there. Bring the hindu mythology," Freeman said. While
the actor enjoyed his Touga role in Utena, his favorite probably was Rosiel
in Angel Sanctuary. "He's so manic that you can get out there, can take
off the training wheels and get big." As for Utena, Freeman mentioned that
the "black rose" episodes are being dubbed, but he wasn't sure if the series
would go beyond that. Freeman's study of philosophy leads him to see a
link between Hindu teachings and the Utena story.
Freeman has directed shows and worked as a sound engineer, but some
of his best work was as a writer. He was part of Pokemon during that series'
heyday, and recalled that it was hard to rewrite Pokemon's Japanese jokes
for an English-speaking audience. The most difficult script adaptation
Freeman handled was for the Boogie Pop Phantom series, a mystery-horror
show that's been compared to a jigsaw puzzle in the way that it combines
seemingly throwaway scenes into a complete story. "The show is so complicated
I don't know how you get it. Boogie Pop Phantom is built like this weird
Rube Goldberg machine where a character appears for ten seconds in one
episode and then is the focus of the tenth episode. The guy who wrote it
was brilliant. It's a tour de force for the writer. It all comes together.
He poses all of these questions and at the end everything is wrapped up."
