Cynthia Martinez
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Anime
Convention Personality of the Week - November 4, 2007
The role of Poemy Watanabe in
Puni Puni Poemy was one of the most difficult in Japanese animation.
Resembling one of the stream of consciousness characters from the early
Fleischer cartoons on crack, Poemy's dialogue stretched on in a
seemingly endless stream of words - and that was in the original. What
sort of actor could be found to handle Poemy in the dub and handle
English-language lines that were like the flood of notes from a
transcribed Charlie Parker solo? The role went to Cynthia Martinez, who
managed to get through the two volumes with her voice intact. She'd had
a good warmup for Poemy a few years earlier when she was cast as Lina
Inverse in the ADV Films version of The Slayers. It was Martinez' first
role, and it came under some unusual circumstances. When ADV got the
rights to two properties in the Slayers universe, they came up with a
Texas-based dub cast to replace the East Coast cast. That put Martinez
up against the dub acting of fan favorite Lisa Ortiz, and Martinez came
up with performances that won over a big group of Lina fans. The next
step in Poemy's direction came when Martinez got the dub role of Yuna
Kagurazaka in Galaxy Fraulein Yuna, a character that was less inhibited
than Lina Inverse but not quite as bizarre as Poemy.
The role of Poemy Watanabe in
Puni Puni Poemy was one of the most difficult in Japanese animation.
Resembling one of the stream of consciousness characters from the early
Fleischer cartoons on crack, Poemy's dialogue stretched on in a
seemingly endless stream of words - and that was in the original. What
sort of actor could be found to handle Poemy in the dub and handle
English-language lines that were like the flood of notes from a
transcribed Charlie Parker solo? The role went to Cynthia Martinez, who
managed to get through the two volumes with her voice intact. She'd had
a good warmup for Poemy a few years earlier when she was cast as Lina
Inverse in the ADV Films version of The Slayers. It was Martinez' first
role, and it came under some unusual circumstances. When ADV got the
rights to two properties in the Slayers universe, they came up with a
Texas-based dub cast to replace the East Coast cast. That put Martinez
up against the dub acting of fan favorite Lisa Ortiz, and Martinez came
up with performances that won over a big group of Lina fans. The next
step in Poemy's direction came when Martinez got the dub role of Yuna
Kagurazaka in Galaxy Fraulein Yuna, a character that was less inhibited
than Lina Inverse but not quite as bizarre as Poemy.