The Seiyuu Connection

Many new time anime fans wonder, what exactly is the point of following the voice cast of a particular show? Well, most of the time, there isn’t one, except for the whole hearing people talk thing maybe, but if you stick it out and start paying attention to particularly prominent seiyuu across several different shows, you start to notice patterns — hilarious patterns, ironic patterns, and patterns that can only be described as karmic retribution.

Surely, the voice acting industry in Japan is huge compared to in North America, how many connections could a single voice actor have? A ridiculously large amount, that’s how many. The seiyuu world is a surprisingly small place, and the most hilarious facts about a show are sometimes those that are squarely in the casting.

In all my experience as an anime fan, no other Seiyuu has managed to spring so many of these phenomena in such as short time as the rising star seiyuu with the ultra adorable voice, Kana Hanazawa. Ignoring the fact that I’m a huge fan of hers and decidedly incredibly bias towards any show she stars in, let’s get the ball rolling:

Note: When in doubt, Kana Hanakawa is the one playing the adorable little sister with the flat chest, well, except for in Kannagi. That’s just an adorable little sister with a really dynamic chest.



*huff* *puff* Phew, I haven’t even gotten around to Getsuman to Heiki Mina, Blassreiter or Shina Dark connections yet ^_^.

Outside of that though, there couldn’t possibly be more connections than that, right… right?! Well, looking at the anime line up for 2009, let’s put it this way, you know you’ve broken into the seiyuu industry when you play the youngest of four sisters and all of your older sisters are voiced by people who have a seiyuu history of trying to kill your character at one point or another. ^_^