Amuro
Rey from Mobile Suit Gundam. Tuxedo Mask from Pretty Soldier Sailor
Moon. Kasuga Kyosuke in Kimagure Orange Road. All of these
distinguished roles and more have been performed by actor Toru Furuya
over his nearly five-decade acting career. After starting as a child
actor, Furuya decided he didn't want to become a salaryman after
college, so he went to an acting school. His deep voice and acting
ability earned all of his great roles, and he discussed them at an
Anime Expo interview session. Rey was his breakthrough character, and
he took an understated, non-cartoony approach - nothing like his Saint
Seiya performance as Pegasus Seiya - to the role of the Gundam Newtype.
"Before the Gundam era, most of the animation was a hero type, but they
(Gundam producers) preferred a realistic approach - they looked for a
cool approach," Furuya said during the interview session. "My voice
acting was overreacting, but after I saw the Gundam storyboard and saw
it was like in real daily life, we didn't overplay it. It was like a
daily, ordinary conversation, and that's what we tried to do." On the
other hand, Tuxedo Mask, Sailor Moon's protector, was played like an
old-fashioned hero. In that role, Furuya recalled acting as a big
brother to the rest of the Japanese voice cast. "Most of the Sailor
Moon actors were live-action actors and all (voice acting) rookies. If
a producer had nothing but rookies, there's no intensity and they're
too loose, and it could hurt the working environment. It's good to have
at least one veteran so the acting can be better."
For
Kyosuke in Orange Road, the esper who is hopelessly caught in a
teenaged love triangle, Furuya returned to the understated acting
approach. "Kyosuke in Kimagure Orange Road is a normal middle school
student, a normal boy. He had pure feelings toward the girls, and I
tried to be natural when I acted him, and tried to make it as if he
existed in the real world. When I acted that character, I was almost 30
years old, so I tried to remember my childhood and my pure love for the
girls during my childhood." Furuya said he tries to carry a character's
emotions to the recording booth as much as possible; if his character
likes another character, he can develop the same emotions for that
other character's actor, "...which is how I met my second wife," who
was an actor in a show in which he appeared. In two respects, Furuya's
approach sounds like American dub actors. Where he's had to resume an
anime role after years away from the character, he has to pay close
attention to the video playback of his voice, just as dub actors have
had the same experience. And as dub actors have said that villains can
be meatier roles than heroes, Furuya says he enjoys switching from his
usual good-guy roles to bad guys. After recent work in the latest
Detective Conan movie and a Gundam series, Furuya will play a lead role
in Paprika, the highly-anticipated story of dreams and fears from
director Satoshi Kon.
Amuro
Rey from Mobile Suit Gundam. Tuxedo Mask from Pretty Soldier Sailor
Moon. Kasuga Kyosuke in Kimagure Orange Road. All of these
distinguished roles and more have been performed by actor Toru Furuya
over his nearly five-decade acting career. After starting as a child
actor, Furuya decided he didn't want to become a salaryman after
college, so he went to an acting school. His deep voice and acting
ability earned all of his great roles, and he discussed them at an
Anime Expo interview session. Rey was his breakthrough character, and
he took an understated, non-cartoony approach - nothing like his Saint
Seiya performance as Pegasus Seiya - to the role of the Gundam Newtype.
"Before the Gundam era, most of the animation was a hero type, but they
(Gundam producers) preferred a realistic approach - they looked for a
cool approach," Furuya said during the interview session. "My voice
acting was overreacting, but after I saw the Gundam storyboard and saw
it was like in real daily life, we didn't overplay it. It was like a
daily, ordinary conversation, and that's what we tried to do." On the
other hand, Tuxedo Mask, Sailor Moon's protector, was played like an
old-fashioned hero. In that role, Furuya recalled acting as a big
brother to the rest of the Japanese voice cast. "Most of the Sailor
Moon actors were live-action actors and all (voice acting) rookies. If
a producer had nothing but rookies, there's no intensity and they're
too loose, and it could hurt the working environment. It's good to have
at least one veteran so the acting can be better."
For
Kyosuke in Orange Road, the esper who is hopelessly caught in a
teenaged love triangle, Furuya returned to the understated acting
approach. "Kyosuke in Kimagure Orange Road is a normal middle school
student, a normal boy. He had pure feelings toward the girls, and I
tried to be natural when I acted him, and tried to make it as if he
existed in the real world. When I acted that character, I was almost 30
years old, so I tried to remember my childhood and my pure love for the
girls during my childhood." Furuya said he tries to carry a character's
emotions to the recording booth as much as possible; if his character
likes another character, he can develop the same emotions for that
other character's actor, "...which is how I met my second wife," who
was an actor in a show in which he appeared. In two respects, Furuya's
approach sounds like American dub actors. Where he's had to resume an
anime role after years away from the character, he has to pay close
attention to the video playback of his voice, just as dub actors have
had the same experience. And as dub actors have said that villains can
be meatier roles than heroes, Furuya says he enjoys switching from his
usual good-guy roles to bad guys. After recent work in the latest
Detective Conan movie and a Gundam series, Furuya will play a lead role
in Paprika, the highly-anticipated story of dreams and fears from
director Satoshi Kon.
