Aino Minako-chan

It's gotten very busy at work lately, and I was working pretty late until I shifted my schedule a bit so that I've been coming in early instead. This works much better for me since A) I'm a morning person anyway, B) the morning commute is much nicer, and C) it gives me more time in the evenings to leisurely cook and watch TV. So I got home in time to watch Trivia no Izumi, and they had the BEST SEGMENT EVER.

For those who don't quite understand what's going on or why this made my day, you might want to look at the quickie reference information under the LJ cuts.

( LJ Cut the First: On Minako-chan's Seiyuu Obsession )

( LJ Cut the Second: On Japan's Mascot Obsession )

( LJ Cut the Third: On Trivia no Izumi )

So anyway, someone wrote to Trivia no Izumi complaining about the construction near his house. As near most construction sights, there was a sign with a cartoon construction guy bowing, and basically saying, "Sorry for the inconvenience! Mind the mess!" The person said that this sign didn't make him feel better about the construction at all, but he thought maybe he'd feel a little less spiteful if the character was apologizing for the mess with the right type of voice. So he asked, "What type of voice would professional anime casters give this character?" And so, Trivia no Izumi asked three professional anime sound directors to cast a voice for the official Japanese construction mascot "Anzen Mamoru" (安全 守). (FYI, according to the official profile, Mr. Anzen Mamoru is 32 years old, and enjoys playing golf. Yes, of course they gave the construction mascot a name and full profile. This is Japan.)

Anyway, this is where my little seiyuu-loving heart rejoiced. The three sound directors narrowed down a list of their top 25 choices, and then auditioned all of the voices. (Minako-chan is proud to say that she didn't squeal too loudly.) They had a wide variety of choices for Anzen Mamoru, and I'm talking wide: the choices ranged from Matsuno Taiki and Yuuki Hiro, to Inoue Kazuhiko and Kusao Takeshi, to Chafurin and Ogata Kenichi. They even auditioned some women (Nozawa Masako and Tanaka Mayumi). They filmed all of the auditions but didn't show all 25; they didn't even show everyone's face (Furukawa Toshio and Yara Yuusaku were filmed from behind). But they showed the more famous voices and a montage of the other auditioners (I recognized Hiyama Nobuyuki and Narita Ken). In the end, who did the sound directors pick as Anzen Mamoru? Horiuchi Kenyuu. All three of the directors were really impressed with Horiuchi-san's version of Anzen Mamoru. I was also impressed, although my personal appreciation was less "sit up straight and nod emphatically" and more "melt into a pile of happy goo and slide off of my chair". No matter what the reasoning, I totally agree that if Horiuchi-san apologized to me for the construction, I honestly wouldn't mind the mess at all.