Last time I talked about the impact of anime and music in Japan and how the two have merged together to promote one another. I also brought up the disaster of Pink Lady and their failed shot at stardom in the United States. This time out we are talking about voice actors and actresses more commonly referred to by the Japanese word “Seiyuu”. With the advent of wide spread anime popularity in Japan during the 70’s and the availability of anime soundtracks, a new type of song began cropping up on anime records. These new songs were classified as “Image Songs”. An image song is a song that is usually a song that appears on a soundtrack that made neither an appearance in a show as background music or as sung material. Thus these songs were usually about specific characters in a show or events that took place during a story arc. To sweeten the deal many Seiyuu sang their own image songs, leading to many record companies taking notice of potential singers to turn into pop idols.

The Seiyuu/Pop Idol phenomenon even got itself parodied in 1982 when Big West and Tatsunoko Productions unleashed “Cho Jiku Yosai Macross” better known to U.S. fans as “Super Dimensional Fortress Macross”. A space opera at heart it unfortunately led to the evil in anime known as Lynn Minmei. Yes, the plucky teenager from “Macross” who only wanted to be a singer led to Mari Iijima (Minmei’s own Seiyuu) becoming a huge star in Japan and later, a well respected singer in the States as well. Iijima became the exact thing that Macross was parodying, an Idol Singer.

Iijima left Japan and moved to Los Angeles. After Minmei she never did voice work again, concentrating on her singing career instead. Iijima didn’t leave anime bitter or trapped by her success as Minmei. The same cannot be said for Kinuko Oomori. Oomori was a J-Pop singer with some minor success, scoring a few hits on the Japanese charts. Then Studio AIC recruited to be the voice of the original Priss Asagiri in “Bubblegum Crisis”. The character of Priss was that of a struggling singer who, to make ends meet, hunts rogue androids with a group known as the Knight Sabers. Oomori sang around 90% of the music that was woven into the 8 part OVA series. “Bubblegum Crisis” was huge hit and helped Oomori and her band Silk attain superstar status. But Oomori got frustrated with fans always wanting her to return to the role of Priss. When “Bubblegum Crisis” spawned a 3-part sequel titled “Bubblegum Crash”, Oomori turned down the chance to return to the role that made her a hot property with the fans. She and Silk continued chugging along till 1992 when she retired from recording. Oomori had a great voice; the music to “Bubblegum Crisis” is fantastic especially on such tracks as “Konya Wa Hurricane” (There’s A Hurricane Tonight), “Victory” and “Rock Me”. Oomori and Silk also provided the awesome opening track to the 1991 mecha show “Zettai! Muteki! Raijin-Oh” (Absolutely Unbeatable! Raijin-Oh).

Oomori’s problem lay in the fact that she was a singer who broke into the voice-acting field. In the 1990’s that formula was flipped around and as more and more Seiyuu turned to music. The best and brightest example of Seiyuu turned pop star is that of Uber-Seiyuu Megumi Hayashibara. Megu-chan was a young and eager nursing student who took on voice acting to earn some extra cash while attending school. The problem there was that she was a fantastic voice actress and ended up providing the voices for some of anime's best loved characters including Ranma-chan from “Ranma ½”, Lina Inverse from “Slayers” and Tira Misu from “Bakuretsu Hunters”. She cut her teeth musically with the “Ranma ½” female Seiyuu group “Doco” before moving onto releasing her first solo project “Half & Half” in 1991. As well as her own material she sang the opening tracks for all 3 “Slayers” TV Series (“Slayers”, “Slayers Next” and “Slayers TRY”), 3 “Slayers” movies, the opening theme for “Blue Seed 9”, the opening and closing to “Bakuretsu Hunters”, the opening and closing for “Saber Marionette J” and a list of other shows that would take me at least a page and a half to list. Of course Megu-chan gained praise for changing her voice acting style to take on the roles of Faye Valentine for “Cowboy Bebop” and Rei Ayanami for “Shin Seiki Evangelion”.

Megumi set a pace that many of her contemporaries are trying to follow including Kikuo Inoue (voice of Belldandy for “Ah! Who provided the voices for Belldandy in "Ah! Megami-sama” and Tendo Kasumi for “Ranma ½”) and Minami Takayama (provided the voices of Relena Peacecraft in “Kido Seiki Gundam W” and Tendo Nabiki in “Ranma ½”). Takayama is part of the techno/rock duo known as TWO-MIX, one of the most popular bands in Japan and among J-Pop/Anime fans. The field is expanding as male Seiyuu including veteran Akira Kamiya and Kappei Yamaguchi have put out several records.

With more and more Seiyuu taking up the music trade it is a wonder how there are any voice actors left to actually voice act. Still the cross-pollination does wonders for both the anime industry and the music industry. As long as artists like Hayashibara and Masami Okui keep selling records the more fans will watch the shows their songs appear in. Not a bad trade-off at all

Next: DVDAR Returns To Reviewing Anime! The Rise And Fall Of The Knight Sabers! The History Of Bubblegum Crisis!