So, Matt wanted me to write a review for Koe de Oshigoto! And I’m guessing that is because I’m the seiyuu otaku in our club. Well, I’ll just say it. I won’t. Anime review is not really my forte. I’d say that’s because I’m a type of person who lives in his childhood memories, so while I DO like current stuff, if I have to choose, I’d rather watch all the old stuff I watched back then. So I don’t really watch relatively new anime carefully enough to write a review.

However, I WILL write about my love for VA’s in general. That should make it up, right?

• In the beginning, there was Hikaru

Well, before I go into any details, I have to mention this. I think I said the first anime I watched was Magic Knight Rayearth, but I’m not sure. I mean, people can’t really remember well when they were little. What I DO know is that few animes I can’t really remember when I watched, which means they are most likely some of the first animes I watched, are Astroboy (well, obviously not the first time it was airing. I remember it as B/W), Tetsujin 28 (I think this was also before my time), Magic Knight Rayearth, Slayers…… Okay, I should stop now. I thought I had 3, but as I’m listing them down, more names keep coming up.

I believe Rayearth is the very first anime I actually liked and followed and excited every Monday through Thursday. Yes, when I was little, they showed anime more than once per week. Not sure if they still do in Korea or not. I guess not, because the biggest reason would have been that either the original was aired like that (and Japan doesn’t do it like that now) or the original show had been already aired (and now Korea gets shows almost same time as Japan.)

Anyway, I really liked Shidou Hikaru, although she was not “Hikaru.” Her name was Sunny. It kinda makes sense, cause hikaru means light.

Btw, Umi (ocean) was Marine, and Fuu (wind) was Windy. But most of you who read this wouldn’t know who they are. Don’t worry about it much. They are just the 3 main characters of the show.

And since I really liked the character, I also really liked the voice. That’s when I thought “wow VA’s give characters life,” and that’s how it all began.

• The start of my obsession

That voice I liked, she is one of the most famous Korean voice actress, and thus she was basically in everything. Since I heard the same voice everywhere, I started to pay close attention to the voices and having fun looking at the names in the credit to see if I recognize any names.

Initially, I only knew 2 or 3 names, but when I was in 6th grade, I went to my friend’s house and played Dynasty Warriors 4. We really loved that game. Then I started realizing that some voices. I was thinking I heard them in Keroro Gunsou. (or SGT. Frog)

So the next time I watched Keroro, I wrote down the names and roles, and read the cast page in Dynasty Warriors manual. I was right. We had some laugh, and called the heroes accordingly. For example, the voice for Giroro also played Zhou Tai (in Korean, something like Joo Tae). So we called him Joororo.

That was the peak of first half of my otaku life.

• The dark age

Then I came here. I never have thought that there would be a time that I can’t watch animes on TV. Well, at first, we didn’t even have a TV. And when we finally got one, I was disappointed, so I stopped watching TV at all. Well, I guess that at least made me not waste my life watching TV for no reason.

And our only computer, my sister’s laptop, was for everyone, so I couldn’t really download stuff either. Well, to be honest, I never saw the point of downloading since everything was on TV anyway. So the dark age in terms of anime started.

• My second life as a seiyuu otaku

The dark age lasted about 3 or 4 years. First anime I watched after the dark age of my life was Angel Beats. My casual friend showed it to me, and a streaming website with it. Okay, call me casual, but I’m still more hardcore than many of you for watching and following legit anime on TV. My entire childhood life was full of anime.

To be honest, that’s a big part of reason why my favorite Japanese voice actor is Kamiya Hiroshi, and favorite Japanese voice actress is Hanazawa Kana (to bad Kazane. I didn’t really like Yuri). They basically saved me from a life without anime. If you thought my favorite voice actor was Ishida Akira, he is in some higher level that can’t even be compared to the “favorites” along with Hikaru’s Korean VA.

And after that, you pretty much know what happened. I’m still sad that I can’t listen to the Korean VA’s anymore, but at least I’m watching something.

I’d like to go into more detail about the actual industry, and how it changed compared to the past. If I may, I’d say the seiyuu industry nowadays has some problem. What I fear is that people want more moe voice and the actual voice “actors” are decreasing in numbers, and the average age seems to go down as well.

I mean, I like the fact that there are many rookie VA’s now, but that’s because I want to see them succeed from the start, (that’s because I want to do what I really like, and I feel good whenever I see someone doing work they enjoy the most) not because I want to see them retire when they are in their 20′s and new rookies show up.

I think I should post something like that after some research.

So, SeeU (which is also the name of the first Korean vocaloid.) later.

PS: and here‘s the Korean OP for Rayearth. Chris, Daniel, or Gene may remember the melody. (I didn’t know how I should list the names, so I went with alphabetical order.)