A
convention visit from actor Akira Kamiya is like a present of gold, all
the more when you consider how busy this performing veteran remains as
he nears the age of 60. In a Japanese acting industry where youth
roles, Kamiya is busier than performers a fraction of his age. He's
voicing a role in the Detective Conan series known as Case Closed in
the U.S., performs on several radio shows, delivers radio commercials
for Tokyo Dome City, narrates TV shows and is part of a robot battle
series, and even promotes slot machines based on Fist of the North Star
where he was the original Kenshiro."Once I step into all these shops, I
have to say hello to the customers," Kamiya said. "There are a bunch of
slot machines in the shops, and I hear my voice from all over the place
- it makes me tired. `Push the button...' so noisy." On top of
all of that work, Kamiya continues to teach voice acting to Japanese
students. "I have to be a teacher for three days a week, so it's pretty
difficult to make time to come to Animazement every year." Students
from Kamiya's classes have given acting demonstrations at recent
editions of the Anime Expo convention.
Kamiya
offered some of those lessons to Animazement fans, showing them how
warm-up exercises can be used to develop voices. One exercise sounds
like laughing and can be used to generate that sound, but Kamiya noted
that the laughs still won't be convincing unless the actor puts the
right feeling into the laugh. He also gave the fans a lesson in the
pronunciation of Japanese. English speakers are used to putting stress
and emphasis on certain syllables in a word, but that doesn't happen as
often in Japanese, and Kamiya showed the differences to the fans. He
said that the incorrect Anglicized pronunciation of Japanese names has
still made it to Japan, in the bilingual announcements at train
stations. Kamiya, who can be considered the leading performer in voice
acting anywhere in the world in any language, said he was lucky in his
career - because he came along at the time when anime production
started to increase, 35 years earlier, and he was part of a theatrical
acting troupe that included some of the great first generation of voice
actors and learned from them.
A
convention visit from actor Akira Kamiya is like a present of gold, all
the more when you consider how busy this performing veteran remains as
he nears the age of 60. In a Japanese acting industry where youth
roles, Kamiya is busier than performers a fraction of his age. He's
voicing a role in the Detective Conan series known as Case Closed in
the U.S., performs on several radio shows, delivers radio commercials
for Tokyo Dome City, narrates TV shows and is part of a robot battle
series, and even promotes slot machines based on Fist of the North Star
where he was the original Kenshiro."Once I step into all these shops, I
have to say hello to the customers," Kamiya said. "There are a bunch of
slot machines in the shops, and I hear my voice from all over the place
- it makes me tired. `Push the button...' so noisy." On top of
all of that work, Kamiya continues to teach voice acting to Japanese
students. "I have to be a teacher for three days a week, so it's pretty
difficult to make time to come to Animazement every year." Students
from Kamiya's classes have given acting demonstrations at recent
editions of the Anime Expo convention.
Kamiya
offered some of those lessons to Animazement fans, showing them how
warm-up exercises can be used to develop voices. One exercise sounds
like laughing and can be used to generate that sound, but Kamiya noted
that the laughs still won't be convincing unless the actor puts the
right feeling into the laugh. He also gave the fans a lesson in the
pronunciation of Japanese. English speakers are used to putting stress
and emphasis on certain syllables in a word, but that doesn't happen as
often in Japanese, and Kamiya showed the differences to the fans. He
said that the incorrect Anglicized pronunciation of Japanese names has
still made it to Japan, in the bilingual announcements at train
stations. Kamiya, who can be considered the leading performer in voice
acting anywhere in the world in any language, said he was lucky in his
career - because he came along at the time when anime production
started to increase, 35 years earlier, and he was part of a theatrical
acting troupe that included some of the great first generation of voice
actors and learned from them.
