Question and Answer
The nice thing is that they arranged two chances of Q&A with Shimamoto san and Shuzilow HA. I went to the first one on Friday, sitting about 10 meters away (!) from Shimamoto san. She looked surprisingly young, I'd believe it if people say that she was only in her 30's. Shuzilow san certainly didn't look like his picture (http://animeboston.com/guests/japanese.shtml), but was an amiable bearded uncle-looking guy. Since they started the whole thing by showing SoltyRei's US debut, I got it that they here for that purpose ^ ^; It is interesting though, to know that they prepared for eight years for SoltyRei, no wonder Faith chan likes it XDD Shuzilow san also mentioned that he asked Shimamoto san to do a role (a computer actually) eight years ago when he was at the concept stage, and when he came to her again, she had forgot all about it XDDD
It was clear who the audience favored; I think Shimamoto san got 70% of the questions and Shuzilow only got 30% or so. I myself asked 3 questions for Shimamoto san and one for Shuzilow san. Both of them are very interesting people :) When asked who's her favorite character, Shimamoto san answered, though it varies everyday, currently it is Naussica (as I expected, and Nausscia has always been my favorite character in Miyazaki's films). I then followed up asking if there was any day for Kyoko san from Maison Ikkoku, as that is her 2nd most influential role in my opinion. She then talked about the memories of Kyoko, how her first kid was born at the same time of Kyoko's, except she is not a widow :)
I also asked what was the most difficult situation for her to do character voices, was it when there are too few lines, or when the characters' personalities are opposite of hers. She smiled and said, instead of those situations I mentioned, it was when the animation lagged behind, and she had to voice-act on an empty face and a dialog box (she then drew 4 circles as an empty face and a dialog box on the white board), that was the hardest time for her ^_^ (Shuzilow san apoplogized: "Sorry~" XDDD)
My third question, which was also the last question of the event, was intended to ask her the opinions of current kohai voice actors/actresses in a circumvented way. Well, she couldn't think of anyone offhand, and then Shhuzilow san helped saying that it usually happens that other seiyuus would be really honored to work with Shimamoto san. I was a little disappointed, but oh well...I did ask a lot of questions ^ ^;;;
Actually I also answered one of her questions. It was in the middle of her answer to "How does anime bring US people and Japanese culture together" (something of that sort), she said the Japanese culture was not quite the same from the anime and have subtle differences (ahahaha~) in between. Then she took for example that someone in the audience dressed in kimono put the right side over the left side of the kimono (^ ^;;;), probably not knowing what it means. Then she asked the audience whether anyone knows the meaning of it ^_^ Of course that was a easy case for me, having watched Kannaduki no Miko episode 10 too many times XDDD
When someone asked what was most important for becoming a VA (voice actor/actress), she said "put your heart into it". That was all expected, but then she showed us her skill by picking up a cup of water in front of her, and voice-acted for the water, as if the water was alive! That was very engaging performance :)))
Although I had no knowledge about Shuzilow HA's work, it turned out that Anime Boston invited him first, and then as he was talking with Shimamoto san after SoltyRei was about done, he asked her if she would come to Anime Boston together with him. And that's how both appeared here :))) To my surprise, I saw Mai HiME's name in Shuzilow's list. Surprised that he actually did the character design for Mai HiME, I then asked him about what had he done. To my further surprise, he said, since there were so~~~~ many characters in Mai HiME that he could hardly remember them all, and kept mixing them up. That was why they replaced him after 1 or 2 episodes...OTL This guy is funny :P He also mentioned that he liked drawing things himself more, so when given a chance to choose in between being a producer or a character designer, he chose the latter, though he thought he'd have a much easier time as a producer ^_^ ps: His hobby is to sing karaoke songs from old anime ^ ^;
Besides those two, I had to praise the translator. I could understand most of Shimamoto's speech but not Shuzilow's; she spoke slowly and clearly, with adequate gestures. Her voice was very nice, also. But the Asian-looking translator was not only good at both languages, she also kept a straight face all the time ^ ^ So I laughed once listening to Shimamoto san's answers, and I had to laugh one more time listening to the English ***XDDD --Good job!
