I remember writing "I have absolutely no interest in seiyuu" on an anime questionnaire just a few years ago. So I changed my mind--so sue me.

Pull in for close-up, fade to 1996... I was spending a year as an exchange student in Japan, and I had gotten into Gundam W because of the copious magazine publicity and the cute pilots (I liked Duo and Trowa back then--I usually don't go for blonds). While I was bypassing the seiyuu interview section of a little Gundam Wing furoku booklet, one photo (at left) caught my eye. I had two thoughts, Whoa, check out the teeth on this guy and Hey, this is the first time I've ever seen a real live person with eartails. (Eartails=very long sideburns often found in anime/manga characters, e.g. Lum.) So, Zechs' seiyuu left a bit of an impression on my mind.

Cut to an Animate shopping bag, some time later. I read a flyer announcing that Takehito Koyasu was going to have an autograph session at Animate Ikebukuro, the store I visited almost every week, to promote his new CD. But I DIDN'T GO!!! (Why? Well, I'm shy, I didn't have anyone to go with, I figured at such a special event someone would say something about me (Aa, gaijin da!), and anyway, it's not like I was a big fan of his or anything, I just thought of him as the guy with the crooked teeth and eartails. Now stop hitting me over the head. I've done enough of that myself already.) Fizzle fizzle fizzle.

Cut to my return to America. Having decided that Zechs was my favorite Gundam W guy (it's a maturity thing), I played certain scenes over and over on the VCR, trying to understand the words, and finally I noticed... Eartail Boy had such a voice! There were those persistent Weiss ads in my Animedias, too. By 1998 I was noticing The Voice in other anime I was watching (Fushigi Yuugi, Saber Marionette J, Mahou Tsukaitai, etc.) and actively looking for Takehito Koyasu's name in the credits (another point in his favor--his name contains three very easy kanji).

The final catalyst was my research for the seiyuu profile section of my Zechs Merquise and Lucrezia Noin shrine. Most of the seiyuu pages are made by male otaku (and frankly, I think any non-Japanese anime fan with an interest in seiyuu deserves the label otaku) who are obsessed with female seiyuu; the seiyuu mailing list involves more of these people (someone recently posted a magazine's top 10 seiyuu list in which all the women were identified by name and all the men were listed as "some guy"*). Consequently, I decided that there was a crying need for a Takehito Koyasu webpage. (Actually, I think there's an even greater need for a How-to-Tell-Tomokazu-Seki-and-Toshihiko-Seki-Apart webpage, but sorry, my interests lie Koyasu-ward. Maybe some other time.) I went through my Takehito Koyasu magazine articles with a fine-tooth comb (read: waei jiten), scanned pictures from my magazines, braved the Japanese internet, and watched a whole lot of anime to make these pages that you see before you.

* To be fair, he said it was because he couldn't read the men's names, and he's right, it is hard; that's partly why I have a hard time telling Toshihiko Seki and Tomokazu Seki apart. Anyway, someone immediately responded and filled in the men's names. Number one was Takehito Koyasu. ^_^

I had an uneasy dream the other night that forced me to confront an issue that I had been skirting for some time, namely, the fact that, as a matter of principle, I think idol groups are stupid as hell. I think Weiss is pretty neat as an audio drama/anime (although the fact that their cover is working in a flower shop has a rather high "HUH?" factor), and I don't mind if they do a radio talk show, and I kind of like all those glossy photos of them standing around brooding (except for the suits that appear to have been made from bad homepage backgrounds, but I guess it's only fair that Japanese male entertainers wear outfits as strange as those the women do). It's only when they do live concerts that they cross the line into NKOTB territory and I start to cringe. --Do I wish them success? Yes. --Would I go to a "live" if I had the chance? Yes (if I had someone to go with, see above). But all the same, I really wish they wouldn't.

Return to Koyasu Takehito-san ga Daisuki!