Happy 40th birthday Shimono-san! copied from my copy of the dvd, subbed by me this is compilation clip from "Hadaka no Jikan" DVD (2014) 下野紘 Shimono Hiro
I have a new appreciation now for Shimono-san. Although he is one of the big names now in the seiyuu industry, he remains humble and down to earth. He's also very passionate about his work and I truly appreciate how he continued as a seiyuu despite his earlier doubts. I'm really glad it worked out for him cause he gave us memorable anime characters throughout the years.
Happy Birthday forever golden boy ☀️ Can’t believe he’s already 40 (honestly still looks like in his 30s lol) and still a bachelor!! Thank you for subbing this!!
Happy 40th birthday Shimono! Mai Nakahara has a strong point though. Female seiyuu get fewer jobs when they get older while for male seiyuu they will become more popular when they older. Mai Nakahara and Hiro Shimono had a joint interview on this where Nakahara admits now she barely get any jobs while she was flooded with jobs when she was younger. Shimono meanwhile barely able to sustain himself in his younger days but now he’s extremely busy and popular. When female seiyuu about to reach their 30s, the jobs will start to dry up for them because the production committee preferred to hire younger and cheaper female seiyuu for the main roles. (according to someone on Reddit) But for me, it kind of sucks. I'm a fan of both male and female voice actors since they do equal roles, but it's hard realizing that the female seiyuu you like will probably not get as many main character jobs after they hit 30 whereas the male seiyuu keep a steady stream of roles going.
I also think that's because there are less female anime characters and a lot of them have kinda the same personality. This means they don't need a big variaty of voices like with the male counterparts T___T
There's probably some truth and its a sad sign of the industry that it goes on that trajectory. There are a couple of exceptions like Romi Park and the ones mentioned above (I think a few do dubbing roles too as there's longevity in that such as Atsuko Tanaka and Mie Sonozaki). You've also got the likes of Mayumi Tanaka, Ikue Otani, Akemi Okamura and Yuriko Yamaguchi who do the voices for some of the main crew members in One Piece (this is the exception though rather than the rule). Another who came to mind is Nana Mizuki. She's a great singer together with being a popular seiyū so they compliment each other quite well.
There's also a thing with fan events. Recently, seiyuus are also acting as idols and doing lots of ridiculous fan service stuff and event. I don't remember the old seiyuus (akira ishida, kazuya nakai, junko takeuchi, etc.) do these before 2000s (when anime was still a niche market worldwide and limited to children and otakus in Japan). The more anime became mainstream, the more fan service stuff they make seiyuu do. I even think that they're turning away from having women voice action shounen MCs in newer adaptations (instead, they hire men who have a natural high voice, i.e. Ayumu Murase and Tsubasa Yonaga) just so they can hold these fan service events.
Man that convo at the end got me thinking, like I don't want to say Shimono's ideals are dated because I also feel people should be influenced by anime if they want to be a seiyuu and also this was 6 years ago, but, man, as a consumer I feel like recently there's just so much content that's come out in the second half of the last decade. There's so many idol/band/music-based projects and more gacha appli-games that's come out and it feels like alot of them use the fresh young seiyuu, male and female, especially the idol-esque ones. So, like, in a way the recent format is for seiyuu to be able to act, sing, and perform and become seiyuu-idol if they can. I'm not complaining though, it's just an observation from being so into this world for a while. I always discover some new project to get into and then find myself loving all the seiyuu behind the characters. It's kind of tough being a sei-ota sometimes.
Then you have some older female seiyuu like Nana Mizuki, Maaya Sakamoto, Miyuki Sawashiro still got many seiyuu work today. Seiyuu world is kinda cruel actually
Ohhh you were talking about this interview! I remember this, I loved seeing his serious side and getting to know him. Thanks for the subs. Happy Birthday Shimonnu!
This was amazing!! Really nice to see them reflect on their profession :) funny to think that he had been married for years at that point though in restrospect lol thanks a lot!
Thank goodness I'm not the only one who finds glasses unexplainably attractive. As he said, I'm not even sure why but something about a girl in glasses improves her attractiveness immediately.
![[engsub] Shimono's past, service scenes, and drunk talk w Nakahara Mai](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
