"Every
character sounds like me," joked actor Tomokazu Seki about his anime
voice acting roles such as Chichiri in Fushigi Yuugi and Van Fanel in
Vision of Escaflowne. "They all have supernatural powers or are
extraordinarily beautiful. So it's really hard to find anything in
common except the voice." At an Anime Expo interview session, Seki told
how he stays active in the theater by staging three productions each
year. The stage work keeps his skills sharp and his voice ready for the
many anime roles he plays. The voice gets him plenty of work, mostly
the strong leading-man type. "I do get type-cast a lot," said Seki
through an interpreter. "I'm happy that I'm recognized for that type,
but it gets tough because I do the same thing over and over. Therefore,
when I get a certain type of voice, I like to break the mold by doing
something completely different." Even those departures from the norm
tend to get Seki offers to play those roles again; his unusual G Gundam
performance resulted in offers to play hot-headed characters, for
example. It helps that Seki can easily switch from a high-pitched voice
to a low-pitched voice.
That
high-pitched capacity has gotten Seki a Doraemon role as a kindergarten
student, something that couldn't be any more different from his
Escaflowne role. To keep his voice in top shape, "especially when I do the high-pitched voices on
a regular basis, I keep the room humid, I gargle a lot, and I heard
when you wash your fingertips a lot it's hard to catch a cold, so I
wash my hands regularly. But no matter what I do, I can't quit smoking
(Mild Sevens) - and a lot of voice actors in Japan smoke." Seki
wishes that he could live an adventuresome life like the most heroic of
his characters, but he's gotten no closer to that life than his Initial
D role of Keisuke Takahashi, which inspired him to get a driver's
license. The Chichiri role required Seki to sing for the series' image
CD's but that hasn't changed him into a singer- he still considers
himself an actor first.
"Every
character sounds like me," joked actor Tomokazu Seki about his anime
voice acting roles such as Chichiri in Fushigi Yuugi and Van Fanel in
Vision of Escaflowne. "They all have supernatural powers or are
extraordinarily beautiful. So it's really hard to find anything in
common except the voice." At an Anime Expo interview session, Seki told
how he stays active in the theater by staging three productions each
year. The stage work keeps his skills sharp and his voice ready for the
many anime roles he plays. The voice gets him plenty of work, mostly
the strong leading-man type. "I do get type-cast a lot," said Seki
through an interpreter. "I'm happy that I'm recognized for that type,
but it gets tough because I do the same thing over and over. Therefore,
when I get a certain type of voice, I like to break the mold by doing
something completely different." Even those departures from the norm
tend to get Seki offers to play those roles again; his unusual G Gundam
performance resulted in offers to play hot-headed characters, for
example. It helps that Seki can easily switch from a high-pitched voice
to a low-pitched voice.
That
high-pitched capacity has gotten Seki a Doraemon role as a kindergarten
student, something that couldn't be any more different from his
Escaflowne role. To keep his voice in top shape, "especially when I do the high-pitched voices on
a regular basis, I keep the room humid, I gargle a lot, and I heard
when you wash your fingertips a lot it's hard to catch a cold, so I
wash my hands regularly. But no matter what I do, I can't quit smoking
(Mild Sevens) - and a lot of voice actors in Japan smoke." Seki
wishes that he could live an adventuresome life like the most heroic of
his characters, but he's gotten no closer to that life than his Initial
D role of Keisuke Takahashi, which inspired him to get a driver's
license. The Chichiri role required Seki to sing for the series' image
CD's but that hasn't changed him into a singer- he still considers
himself an actor first.
