Eroge Seiyuu who make the jump to Anime (and vice-versa?)
 

[Mod Note: This conversation originally started in the Yosuga no Sora anime thread, and I moved it here since it's really a broader topic that affects a lot more than this particular show.]

Well that's the case with lot's of seiyuu's who only seem to get work in eroge these days. Most of them are pretty good, but they can't seem to compete with the younger and more popular seiyuu for anime roles.
Oh well, atleast i will be hearing Taguchi Hiroko later in dracu-riot .

Well, some do make it from eroge to full-time in the anime industry, tho I have to say that's more of the exception than the norm...

I haven't seen many seiyuu who moved from the eroge industry to full time anime, so who do you mean?
Even the more known ones like Itou Shizuka, Goto Yuko and Mizuhashi Kaori hardly get new roles in animes.
The only few that i can think of now are Igarashi Hiromi and Fujimura Ayumi.

Isn't Rina Satou (who acted as Yuki Kusakabe from To Heart 2 PC version) still going strong with Amagami and To Aru Majutsu no Index/Kagaku no Railgun under her belt?

Yuu Asakawa's still respected, or else she wouldn't have been in Fate/Stay Night (she is certain to reprise her role as Rider if the Heaven's Feel arc ever gets animated), or been incorporated into the wildly popular Vocaloid project.

Also, does anyone know the name of the really nice flute and guitar track used for one of the first PVs for the series that aired, the one that included several unvoiced scenes from the first episode, including Kazuha approaching Akira with sunscreen, and Kozue running into the twins on a bicycle, along with the voiced scene of Sora and Haruka on the train? And does anyone know which real-life location in Japan that the setting of the anime is based on? I remember there being a post somewhere on this thread comparing photos with CGs from the original game, and the resemblance was uncanny.

Rina Satou didn't have any eroge roles for last 7 years (if we ignore that she had a role in Majikoi S, which came out this year but i haven't played it to confirm if it's really her). Also she only has 5 eroge roles according to certain sites, so you can't exactly say that she was an eroge seiyuu.

edit: she also had an eroge role in 2009, but that still does not change the fact that there was a huge time gap between them.
She had no eroge roles from To heart 2 in 2005 to Natsu no Ame in 2009. And now after 3 years , she also has a role in Majikoi S.



Asawkawa Yuu is also an example of a seiyuu (Just like Shimizu Ai and Kadowaki Mai, who both have roles in Hatsuyuki Sakura) who used to have a decent amount of normal animes while not getting too many new roles these days. Respected or not, these days she is more active in eroge

edit2:
The only other seiyuu that i also know who seem to get a fair amount of anime roles now, while also having quite some eroge roles is Fukuen Misato besides Igarashi Hiromi (who did an excellent job as Ayane in Hareten) and Fujimura Ayumi

I take it the "huge time gap" was due to Rina Satou's newfound success in TAMNI? Before that she wasn't the most successful of seiyuus--I still have a copy of Xenosaga 3 and am surprised that a seiyuu of her caliber did a minor character in that game back then, Mai Magus. Of course, Rie Kugimiya played Mary Godwin and Kouichi Yamadera also played Albedo Piazzolla in that series, but they were recurring throughout all three episodes, and Yamadera's character was one of the series' principal villains.

I was under the impression that the fans practiced the "one-drop" rule for famous female seiyuu; if you're seen with a boyfriend, or if you start doing 18+ rated works you're no longer "pure" (and I doubt you can be marketed as a pure idol in any case once you've worked for 18+ productions). By the way, what sites are you consulting? The only seiyuu roles listing website I can find in English isn't very up-to-date, and I'd like to find out what eroge roles people like Mai Kadowaki, or Ai Shimizu, or Ayumi Fujimura, or Misato Fukuen are doing.

I think part of the reason as to why some of these seiyuus are now more active in eroge are because of these factors:

1. The global economic recession, coupled with the "never-ending lost decade" in Japan, has made financing, producing, and promoting mainstream anime series a riskier venture than ever.
   
2. The piracy rate of anime series and games is off the charts in Japan and the rest of East Asia, so the majority of your viewers aren't paying for your product. This only reduces your margins even further.
   
3. Eroges, by contrast, are much easier to make, finance, produce, and promote, with much less start-up capital necessary and thus less financial risk to undertake. In addition, the base programs are relatively easy to use and write code for, and there are many up-and-coming CG artists who would love to work for fairly cheap, just to get their work out there and possibly become famous in the bargain (like Noiji Itou and Hiro Suzuhira, whose artworks are in bestselling light novels and anime series, but who both got their start illustrating eroges). So it could be that eroges are all that's paying regularly now.

At least seiyuus like Shizuka Itou, Yuu Asakawa, and Yuuko Gotou have an established fanbase (that could provide employment in the future) to fall back on right now.

• Itou has Hinagiku Katsura from Hayate no Gotoku!, Hisa Takei from Saki, Kaori Kanzaki from TAMNI (who was so popular she got her own side series), and the ever-popular "man-killing phenomenal queen" Haruka Morishima from Amagami or Tamaki Kousaka from To Heart 2.
  
• Asakawa has Rider from Fate/Stay Night (especially the future Heaven's Feel arc), Megurine Luka from Vocaloid, and Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh.
  
• Gotou has Mikuru Asahina from the various Haruhi Suzumiya series, Kaede Fuyou from Shuffle!, and Anya Alstreim from Code Geass.

I can't say the same for other eroge voice actors, such as Hitomi Nabatame (who's now Margery Daw in Shakugan no Shana III, and will have a starring role in the MuvLuv Total Eclipse anime . . . and what else in mainstream anime?), or Harumi Sakurai (Angel Beats! seems to be the only starring role in a mainstream anime series she'll get for a long time, which is a pity given how versatile I've already mentioned she is), or Ryoko Tanaka (a real tragedy--she's pretty much eroge exclusive, but if you listen to her as Hinata Kagura in H2O: Footprints in the Sand and then as Yahiro Ifukube in Yosuga no Sora you'd never guess that both roles were by her).

I suspect that the focus right now is to entice the fans with younger and fresher meat (like the K-On! cast, or Haruka Tomatsu, or Ami Koshimizu, or Kana Hanazawa, etc.), which is a real pity because older female seiyuu like Miki Itou, Kotono Mitsuishi (the "Queen of 90s anime," and how could she not be when she portrayed both Sailor Moon and Misato Katsuragi?), Emi Shinohara, and Atsuko Tanaka didn't get where they are now by resting on their laurels, and thus still have a lot of kick to their voices. I suppose otaku are somewhat ageist after all.

But seriously, how bad is the prejudice against seiyuu who have a large proportion of eroge in their CVs? I suppose such a prejudice might be the reason why you don't see eroge regulars like the cast of Yosuga no Sora, or Mai Gotou, Kei Mizusawa, Emiko Hagiwara, Minami Hokuto/Hitomi, or Oma Ichimura getting a lot of mainstream anime work. Then again, I don't see anyone ragging against Akira Ishida, and he's been in plenty of eroges and mainstream anime.

It's always been common for seiyuu to just do whatever work they can get. Starting out in ero stuff is the norm because it has a seemingly high turnover rate (ie people use it just to break in to the industry, but don't stay) however you also have to remember many use pseudonyms or aliases so as not to link one side of their work with another facet, though anyone with a decent ear can pick up the voices in most cases.

I don't see why people demean a person for the work they do; ero content is in demand, so obviously somebody has to do it. Why mock them for it. Seiyuu otaku are scary folk.

Sakurai also appeared in another mainstream anime called Seikon no Qwaser, in which she plays as Miyuki Seta.

This discussion ended up getting it's own topic :0

I think that her role as Negi in the 2005 Negima anime that started to make her more popular (same year that To Heart 2 came out), so she didn't need to do voices in eroge.
Personally I think Satou Rina is more a regular seiyuu who sometimes does a voice in eroge due to a lack of work . Which is quite the opposite of the orignal discussion of Eroge seiyuu making the jump to anime.


Which is not always the case. The Im@s seiyuu's are quite popular and all of them ( besides Kugimiya Rie, who got popular after Zero no Tsukaima) and the seiyuu's from Dearly Stars :Tomatsu Haruka, Hanazawa Kana and Sanpei Yuko , the psp games : Hara Yumi and Numukura Manami and the new Yukiho seiyuu : Asakura Azumi) have all done eroge roles.

Well i already gave my opinion on this on the Verbal Rubbish blog a few months ago when there was a discussion about eroge seiyuu and i still think that those seiyuu see those roles nithing more than as a job.

Also making eroge do have lots of risks, the market is quite saturated and those games are not that cheap to produce. Also due to the heavy competition by the more popular older eroge companies, not too many new/starting companies seem to survive after a few titles.

I also said in Verbal Rubbish that the seiyuu business is a cutthroat industry .
Most of the eroge seiyuu were either not succesfull at having a carreer in the normal anime or are seiyuus who were pretty much replaced by the newer/younger and more popular seiyuu and ended having to take roles in eroge (thy have to earn the money somewhere) or quit being a seiyuu and find something else to do (which is not always feasable at their age).

As for Akira Ishida and lots of other male seiyuus (even "younger ones" like Nakamura Yuuichi and Tomikazu Sugita or veterans like Fujiwara Keiji), it's not that much of a problem when they get such roles. Eventhough they also use a pseudonym, it's not like that they have to voice H-scenes unlike female seiyuus :p

Personally i don't think Seikon no Qwaser is that mainstream. TAMNI is much more mainstream, eventhough Sakurai Harumi's role was pretty small.
I also would call her role as Lisana in Fairy Tail (in which another eroge seiyuu: Ono Ryoko also appears as Mirajane) more mainstream than in Seikon no Qwaser.

The seiyuu-ota condemn seiyuu who have eroge roles? I mean, I know they can do many unbelievably stupid things sometimes, but this? Aren't they supposed to be otakus? Well, I guess there are a lot of types of people even among otakus. I know someone who's a fanatic Kazane lover he hunted every eroge with her in it that he could find :heh:, though I don't know if Kazane ever got an anime role.

Which we can see by the rate new eroges are coming out: monthly! and in abundance each time! :heh:

Though I do believe that the more accomplished seiyuu would be far more expensive to hire, thus they only occasionally appear in these games. Majikoi was a fangasm which I heard spent some hundred million yen in the making :heh:

Kazane is one of Sakurai Harumi's pseudonyms >_>

Uhm...who's Sakurai Hiromi again? What was her past roles? Sorry, I'm not too knowledgable regarding seiyuus. :p
I can usually recognize a few seiyuu's voice, but I rarely remember their names. except of course the more famous ones.

Speaking of which, do you know if that seiyuu who voiced Rain in baldr sky (I can't remember her name:heh:) have had an anime role?

Sakurai Harumi is probably the most known for Yurippe in Angel Beats as an anime role.

Anyway Rain's seiyuu is Hagiwara Emiko, who only seem to get eroge adaptions like Koihime Musou, 11eyes and Oretsuba being her last few roles.

Surprised no one mentioned Midorikawa Hikaru


He voiced Master Therion in Demonbane and has plenty of anime roles, most recent being F/Z's Lancer....







I find eroge seiyuu much better than many in the anime industry though.....even if others look down on them for it

Your acquaintance/friend will get along well with me :p Though I don't have the time to play every single one of them :heh:
Yurippe in Angel Beats is Kazane. :p Proud to say that I knew it was her since episode 1 even before I wiki-ed it.


To be fair, their lines can be read alone and an NG is not as stressful as that of an anime. Even if it's timed, it should be more lenient since there's no AV sync.

How about Ryouko Tanaka?

I already mentioned her, but I'll give a few more examples of her extreme versatility.

If you go to the Innocent Grey homepage and listen to the voice samples for Kara No Shoujo, pay close attention to the voice samples for Natsume and Yukiko Miyama. They were both done by Ryouko Tanaka. For more, go to the Cartagra section of Innocent Grey's homepage and listen to Nana Takashiro's voice samples (the younger version of Natsume from Kara no Shoujo)--she was also voiced by Ryouko Tanaka. Then go watch a few episodes of H2O: Footprints in the Sand and listen to the character of Hinata Kagura speak, and you'll understand why I think it's criminal how Ryouko Tanaka isn't getting more mainstream anime work, or why I think it's a tragedy her role as Yahiro Ifukube from Yosuga no Sora isn't getting an animated route specifically for her.

For the record, I think Mio Yasuda, another eroge-centric seiyuu, is also being criminally ignored (she hasn't even had the luxury of being in several eroge-to-anime adaptations). To see how versatile she is, go listen to her cheerful and genki voice samples as Kazuna Kouzuki on Innocent Grey's Cartagra webpage, then listen to Yasuda's work as Yura Kouzuki (Kazuna's identical twin sister) in this mini-drama recording, then listen to her role as Yui Tabata in H2O: Footprints in the Sand. The seiyuu industry is anything but fair, I'm afraid.

Well, you can start with Angel Beats!, her sole starring role thus far. And I take it your friend got copies of Mashiroiro Symphony, Beat Blades Haruka, To Heart 2: Another Days, and Ashita no Kimi to Au Tame ni/Ashita no Nanami to Au Tame ni, since she acted in those titles too? She also played a minor role in Majikoi as Ami Itagaki, who is "winnable" in the Majikoi S fandisc as well.

As a bonus, you can check out an interview Sakurai did for the Mashiroiro Symphony anime, or her recording on the infamous "Oshikari CD," or her interview on the drama CD of Ashita no Kimi to Au Tame ni (skip to 1:12). I guess your friend can count him/herself lucky that s/he understands Japanese.

A fangasm that I hope gets Minatosoft every deserved yen, because of the immense piracy rate.

Dude, you have just got to share your links as to where your seiyuu role databases are; I'd never have imagined that those seiyuus worked in that arena.

I also bet that eroges with Kana Hanazawa must be very popular; after all, her showing as Nadeko Sengoku in Bakemonogatari got her many fans who like that kind of character (for whatever reason), though frankly I prefer her roles as a deadly and competent combatant, such as Sophie from Tales of Graces or Tenshi from Angel Beats.

What about otome games? :D And I prefer the term "(censored) noises" anyway.

I take it that this is the reason as to (this incident is still unverified) why an embarrassed Shizuka Itou ran out of the recording booth into Yuu Asakawa's arms and cried when she recorded the "kneepit kissing scene" from Amagami Episode 3, since she had to record it in the presence of co-workers who might look down on her for that kind of work. Apparently that bunch of (censored) noises made a lot of the other seiyuu uncomfortable to the point that they left the room--maybe Rina Satou (who played Kaoru Tanamachi in that show) felt humiliated by her experiences by working in that arena and didn't want a reminder? I have to wonder if Yukana ever did so (apparently she was fascinated rather than dozing off as usual during this incident).

But was there a similar incident for Youko Hikasa when she recorded the episode 10 preview for Seikon no Qwaser, the content of which wouldn't be out of place in an eroge or H-OVA?

So, in general, video games and eroge are recorded alone, right? Are they not recorded with the relevant seiyuus together? I recently got a copy of Yakuza 4 which has scenes between Rikiya Koyama and Rie Kugimiya--if they were recorded with the two of them together rather than separately, I bet they would have reminisced over their time spent recording Utawarerumono together (Koyama was Hakuoro, Kugimiya was Kamyu). If Ryoka Yuzuki (who played Eruruu in Utawarerumono and is quite a fan of Koyama) had played Yasuko Saejima in that game, then that "work better because we're working together effect" would have been even greater, or if Kotono Mitsuishi played Yasuko Saejima instead (since Koichi Yamadera is also in that game and they could have played off each other's time spent recording Neon Genesis Evangelion as Misato Katsuragi and Ryoji Kaji, respectively).

I think you misunderstood me, every im@s seiyuu except the ones that i have listed on that post have done eroge roles.

Pardon me for misreading your post, then. But you should still share your sources so the rest of us can stop being uninformed.

Btw I'd like to ask...

Is Kadowaki Mai (Ilya in FATE) and Anzu Mitsu (Mare in Hoshimemo) the same person?