I rarely pay any attention to the latest news in the worlds of seiyuu and Jpop (my knowledge of the language is too limited to appreciate the former and my musical tastes veer too far into the indie/alternative to appreciate the latter) but I felt that the announcement of Maaya Sakamoto recently marrying fellow VA Kenishi Suzumura deserves commenting on. I’m supposed to be working on another writing project ATM though, so I’ll have to keep this short.
Source: Alafista (click image for full article)
Maaya is one of the few VAs I’ve paid much attention to: after seeing her name crop up so frequently a while ago, I checked her ANN profile and realised how often I’d heard her voice, both as a singer and an actress. Similarly, Kenichi is another industry veteran and it turns out that they’ve often worked together and have known each other for some time. Compared to, say, the negative reaction to Aya Hirano making certain details of her private life public, the messages of goodwill from the fans at this piece of news are both heartwarming and completely justified.
This is an appropriate time I think to explain my opinion on why Maaya is one of my personal fave VAs, and why she’s so worthy of fans’ respect. Firstly there’s the range and diversity of her roles: getting her big break as a young fantasy heroine (Escaflowne), she’s worked in SF and mecha shows (Gundam Seed Destiny, RahXephon, Gunbuster 2), offbeat comedy (Arakawa Under the Bridge) and more serious and demanding series (Usagi Drop, Mushishi, Kara no Kyoukai). It’s also worth remembering that she has been able to consistently find work and do her job well in an industry that’s often fickle and rarely sees its stars spending long periods of time in the limelight.
She also has an impressive back catalogue as a music artist, working with the likes of Yoko Kanno and occasionally co-writing her own songs. Again, my scant knowledge of Japanese prevents me enjoying the vocal/lyrical content as much as I want to, but she has one of those pleasant and easy-on-the-ears voices with a wide range of pitch and expression. Everywhere is a good compilation of her work to date, but the studio LP Shounen Alice is my personal highlight and one I especially recommend.
Kenichi is a seiyuu who I must confess I’m not nearly as familiar with (I’m one of the few people who actually enjoyed the Tsukihime anime adaptation, so maybe that counts for something? ^_^), although he’s won a few awards and enjoyed some success as a music artist as well. Part of the reason I think why their pairing has put a smile on so many faces is that he and Maaya have been such a good match professionally: in hindsight, it explains why the on-screen chemistry between the two leads in KnK for instance felt so natural and convincing.
From the fans’ perspective then, this is probably one of those pairings that has many fictional parallels (life imitating art and vice-versa) but I’m now reaching a time of life when people my age seem to be getting hitched left, right and centre; stepping away from the otaku point of view it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling of “it couldn’t have happened to nicer people.”
In closing then, my sincere congratulations to them both and best wishes for a happy life together.