#SHOHEI IS SO RELATABLE I HAVE NO REGRETS

[patriciaselina]

Step-up Talk for Nizista - Komatsu Shohei (2/2)

I like karaoke, but I don’t particularly like being alone, so right now, I’d like to have friends (lol)

T/N: This is the second half of the interview Nizista did with voice actor Komatsu Shohei. The first part of this interview could be found here - both translations are posted today because May 14 is the birthday of the character he made his debut with, Idolm@ster Side M’s Kizaki Ren. お疲れ様でした！

This entire interview is crossposted onto Wordpress for my own archiving purposes, but can also be found under the cut!

Komatsu Shohei interview (last half) – “I was blessed with really good productions, I could really feel the connections with people.”

This is an interview with Komatsu Shohei, who is part of the currently-airing TV anime DAYS (as Sato Hideki) and in Idolm@ster Side M (as Kizaki Ren). This time, we’ll be talking about his feelings at the actual site [of the recording] and about his time with his senpai.

I want to show people the acting I can do because of my previous experiences with action.

As a member of HIROZ, since Komatsu-san was mainly in charge of action performances and MC, he went to Ken Productions in order to focus on his voice. And how did he actually start his work and study?

How was being a voice actor like?

Komatsu Shohei (Komatsu, for short): I had quite a lot of confidence, and I felt that I wouldn’t lose to anyone, because I used to do plays, but...’acting’ using only one’s voice is completely different, so from the beginning my confidence had been crushed completely (lol) But since I’d decided on doing it, I thought I had to focus on studying, so I went to our company’s training school. Every time I wasn’t recording, I was studying.

Your first [named] roles are from DAYS and Idolm@ster Side M. Since DAYS is a TV anime, how was it after recording?

Komatsu: Yoshinaga Takuto-san, who plays the lead character, is a rookie, but he’s [just as] awesome as the entire main cast. Every time I studied, I got to be part of dozens of workshop class lessons. I think that I really was blessed with a really good company.

Who was impressive to you, in particular?

Komatsu: I think Matsuoka Yoshitsugu-san is amazing. He plays Kazama Jin [in DAYS], a cool character, but [in real life] he’s a more passionate man than one might think, and every time he acts I feel like he’s the very embodiment of passion. And then there’s Seki Tomokazu-san, who is good at using different voices according to the scene. Anime is all about “how much of this can you imagine?” What kind of voice would you make, if you’re the one taking the place of the character on-screen? I thought it was amazing to be able to put myself in that position.

Because it really is amazing.

Komatsu: There’s also something else that makes me happy [about being a seiyuu]. Terashima Junta-san and Hamano Daiki-san are in the same unit as me as part of Idolm@ster Side M, and we’re also all part of DAYS as well. Even up to now, after recording would end, we’d all go out to eat together. In the midst of such great senpai, I’m grateful that I got to meet them.

It really seems like a good encounter.

Komatsu: The three of us are always talking to each other. It’d be nice if we all became well-known together, and meet in other productions again.

Recently, the opportunities for you to sing have increased, so how are you with singing?

Komatsu: In anime there are character songs, there are also songs within games, and there are seiyuu who go beyond their work and end up doing lives. I thought that it’d be nice if I was someone who could sing after all, so I studied voice acting and singing at the same time. And that’s also why I ended up making a band again [at the time] (lol)

What were you in charge of in the band?

Komatsu: I used to play the guitar a bit, but at that time I was solely the vocal. But since we broke up shortly before I joined Ken Productions, it felt as if I was just practicing singing normally (lol)

Aside from songs, seiyuu also have a wide range of activities such as radio shows and events.

Komatsu: I agree. Since I’d often talked and sung in front of people, I appreciate being able to make use of my past experiences. And that is also why I do not want to miss out on other skills I might have as a seiyuu. I have a few other things I’m a part of that are not just about recording, and I know I shouldn’t be content with just that.

By the way, what kinds of roles are you good at?

Komatsu: Considering how I use the experiences with what I used to be doing, I think I can characterize myself by not thinking of myself as just “a seiyuu who can do action [stunts]” but rather as someone who can figure out “what kind of voice should one do in action scenes?” For example, what kind of breathing would one make when they’re punching someone out, what kind of voice would one make when they’re on the receiving end of a blow? I’ve actually experienced these myself, so by all means I wanna get into more anime about fighting games or action stuff. Even if there’s no one else good at action [stunts] to [work off of], I can pretend to be someone punched out just fine (lol)

If [someone who was listening to Komatsu] was to close their eyes, they’d understand completely where you’d have been hit.

Komatsu: I also do work for drama CDS, and I think would like to be a seiyuu who can express when he has been beaten, what kind of movements he has been doing, even without video. In those kinds of situations, you can’t fight with anything but your own capabilities as weapons. There are lots of young seiyuu, after all.

Do you ever feel restless?

Komatsu: Because I’m someone who hates losing, I feel frustrated each and every day. If I see other people on Twitter saying “I’ll be part of this work,” I end up saying “damnit!” And whenever I see young seiyuu appearing in anime, I end up saying “GODDAMNITTTTTT!!!”

So that also becomes your motivation.

Komatsu: That’s true. In the face of that, it’s easy to say “I’m hopeless” or feel like “I have lost.” Whenever I see young seiyuu act in anime, I end up thinking stuff like “If I were in that role, I would do it this way,” “That’s good but if they did it a little bit like this, would it be better,” and I end up actually trying that voice out loud. It’s free training, yanno (lol)

When I’m just at home I usually just do stupid stuff, solo karaoke

Now knowing his past and his attitude towards work, lastly I asked Komatsu-san what kind of person he is normally, and he answered me from his heart.

You really are a person who hates losing, but can you talk about other facets of your personality?

Komatsu: I’ve also been called “too damned earnest” (lol) When I’m working there are times when I get too serious and there are times when I end up being boring, so I think I gotta study when to “let myself loose”. The way I’m thinking of going about this may be way too serious too, though (lol)

Let’s let go of work for a bit; what kind of person are you at home?

Komatsu: I keep talking about action this and action that, but on my off days I’m ridiculously the indoors type (lol) Because I didn’t wanna go outside at all, one time I bought all my food the day before, and decided “I am not gonna take even one step out of this house”, and just do stupid stuff. I watched TV and played games.

What kind of anime or games do you like?

Komatsu: I like stuff with robots in them. I’m rather good at the game “Super Robot Battle”. After I became a seiyuu, I think I’d like to do a role where I go and ride a robot.

By the way, what kinds of robots do you like?

Komatsu: The real kinds of robots, like those in Gundam. The super robots from way back are also cool, but I like those sharper kinds of robots.

Aside from that, what kind of ‘stupid stuff’ do you do?

Komatsu: Stuff so stupid that I don’t like other people knowing about it (lol)

Are you the kind of person who’s too loud in his room?

Komatsu: I’m insanely messy, and I end up looking very sloppy (lol) But since karaoke is my hobby, sometimes I’ll go out and go to the nearest karaoke place (lol) I’ll sing alone for around five to six hours.

What kind of songs do you sing?

Komatsu: Lots of kinds. I started playing guitar in high school through BUMP OF CHICKEN songs, but I also sing Visual Kei songs, songs from Johnny’s idols, female artists. I think of it as seiyuu practice, too.

Do you go out to eat with friends?

Komatsu: Fukuoka is my hometown, so I don’t have much friends living in Tokyo (lol) I didn’t go to college, and since most of the people I did the action group with are in Kagawa prefecture, I don’t have the opportunity to go out to eat with friends much. So I guess, if I get more friends through work who are as close to me as Terashima-san or Hamano-san, I’d be happy (lol)

So your wish right now is “I want friends”, isn’t it!

Komatsu: I like karaoke, but I don’t particularly like being alone, so right now, I’d like to have friends (lol) I think I’d get more friends as I get more work, though, so I’d like to have more work first! (lol)

Lastly, please tell us about your goals and what you look forward to in the future.

Komatsu: I’d realized that as I became a voice actor, my prior experience with doing action [stunts] onstage is my weapon, and I can use it to my advantage. There are also seiyuu who also take part in stage plays like Ono Kensho-san and Aoi Shouta-san, so I think it’d be nice if I were able to do that as well too, someday. But of course, first of all, I will focus on studying my voice, and as an active seiyuu, I’ll do my best to let my name be known.

My intent was just to ‘do whatever’, but it was only after my first loss that I realized I was taking it seriously...

It almost sounds like lyrics from a song, but unbelievably, these are his real words. Komatsu-san said that he is the kind of person who hates losing in any way. But, when I’d actually talked to him, the gap between the passionate heart of his that hates losing and his ever-smiling face that talks about ‘doing stupid things’ is also charming.

I think that whether it be in DAYS or Idolm@ster Side M, he had been blessed with good productions and good companions. And I look forward to his rapid growth, to him being part of series and stage performances making good use of his action [stunts], as well as roles that are far from the ones Komatsu-san are taking now; I look forward to see what kind of figure he’ll end up showing.

Article: Chiba Kenichi Photographer: Takenaka Tomoya Hair/Makeup: Nagaki Mizuho

my translation index

breathe if you think chiba-san was charmed by shohei by the end of this interview,

please do not redistribute this translation anywhere without permission and credit!

thanks for reading!

[patriciaselina]

Step-up Talk for Nizista - Komatsu Shohei (1/2)

I thought that “if I want to take my voice seriously, I should decide on it properly and stop going about this half-baked.”

First half of a series of interviews Komatsu Shohei did for Nizista! This was a long-running project of mine already, but I decided to at least post this first half today - May 14 is the birthday of the character he made his debut with, Idolm@ster Side M’s Kizaki Ren. お疲れ様でした！

The rest of this interview is also cross-posted on Wordpress for archiving purposes, but can also be seen under the cut!

Komatsu Shohei interview (first half) “Occasionally I’d think ‘whatever is fine’, but even then, I’ll end up taking it ‘seriously’.”

This time we’ll be talking to Komatsu Shohei, who had first appeared on the currently-airing TV anime DAYS (as Sato Hideki) and in Idolm@ster Side M (as Kizaki Ren). Komatsu-san was also active in the group HIROZ, which used to do action performances.

The tears I shed when I lost made me realize how serious I was.

From doing activities with HIROZ, Komatsu-san entered Ken Production and started taking the path of a voice actor. First off, I asked him what he was aiming for by entering this world.

Komatsu-san, you were previously a part of HIROZ. Weren’t you originally an aspiring actor and not an aspiring voice actor?

Komatsu Shohei (Komatsu, for short): It was really vague, but all I thought was “I would like to feed [myself] through my acting”. In high school I was in the theatre club, and when I went to Tokyo, I went to a theatre company to audition, but I didn’t get accepted...and that’s when I got [the opening for HIROZ]. Actually, I’d only found out our main point was to be the action after I got accepted (lol)

So you didn’t intend to get into action-related things at the beginning, were you. Well then, what made you want to be part of plays?

Komatsu: I entered my high school’s theater club thinking “[doing] whatever is fine” (lol). Up until then, I was doing karate and kendo, but I thought that come high school, I wanted to do something different. I saw the theater club’s performance at the entrance ceremony’s welcoming party, got interested, and joined it. Also, I was a props man at first. And then I got told “there are few male actors, so we’ll let you be an actor”, so I somehow got to be an actor, and somehow it was fun so I kept on with that. Before I knew it, [the theatre club’s] actors began increasing (lol)

As part of the theatre club, I went to a prefectural convention as my last high school competition, and even though I’d thought I could finish second place in the Kyushu tournament, I lost by around third or fourth place... As I was going back home, I couldn’t stop crying. I was crying until morning came. That’s when I first started thinking “so I was taking this seriously, wasn’t I,” “So I wanted to be in plays, after all!” After that, it became impossible for me to think about them as *just* plays.

So this being said, you weren’t aiming to be an actor since you were little.

Komatsu: That’s right. I didn’t watch anime much, and while I found plays fun, I never really longed [to be in] them. But then, when I lost in that competition, I thought that I wanted to do more, so I thought of being in plays as a profession.

Plays aside, what kind of child were you?

Komatsu: In a word I’d guess I’d say I “didn’t like losing”. I’ll do stuff this way ‘cuz I knew I’d regret it if I lost. But I think it was only with plays when I ended up being seriously regretful. Because when I lost in karate or in kendo tournaments, I was never regretful enough about losing to end up crying.

What was your hobby as a kid?

Komatsu: If we’re talking about hobbies, I tried out lots of them. When I was little everyone was into Pokemon, and since elementary I had been doing nothing but karate. In middle school, somehow I started doing kendo, and there was a time when I was playing guitar as part of a band. I did various stuff, but there’s not really something I got hooked on.

And then in the middle of all that, you got hooked on the play you saw in high school.

Komatsu: I found something I could take seriously, so I thought “this is it!”

You said you were surprised that HIROZ’s main focus was action, didn’t you?

Komatsu: I was surprised. But I got to make use of the karate I used to do, and I took advantage of my history doing kendo to somehow wield swords.

What made you end up thinking you should quit?

Komatsu: For the first one, two months, I’d thought I should have quit. But in those months I got to be part of a play, and got to be the main MC of the new parade in Kagawa named “NEW LEOMA WORLD” pretty quickly. We got to be gourmet reporters for RSK (Sanyo Broadcasting), and step by step, it felt rewarding.

No matter who chose it, I was always chosen for my “voice”. In that group whose main point was action, I was the “one in charge of having a good voice”, the “one responsible for MC”. From then on, I felt that “if it’s regarding voices, I could hold my own in battle.” But because I thought “if I want to take my voice seriously, I should decide on it properly and stop going about this half-baked,” I ended up quitting HIROZ so that I could study to be a voice actor.

I didn’t think I’d be needing my experience with action that quickly.

Even though he quit HIROZ to do battle with his voice, he was not able to join the world of voice acting immediately after. What kind of study did he do in order to be part of his current company?

Since you quit HIROZ and made the big decision to be a voice actor, did you have any difficulties?

Komatsu: I didn’t have the foundation of studying at a vocational school, and since I was around 23 years old when I quit HIROZ, to be honest I didn’t have the time to start school just then. I thought that there had to be a way for me to get into the scene earlier somehow, so I went into auditions.

And that audition was?

Komatsu: The Seiyuu Awards’ “Newcomer Discovery Audition”. If I passed that annual audition, depending on the company [that took me] I’d be able to be part of the school immediately, going into the training center as a special student, so I thought I’d like to go through that kind of shortcut.

The applications for that were such that if you didn’t have a recommendation, you’d go through general entry, right?

Komatsu: In the first year I tried, I applied through general entry and failed. Looking it up I found out that vocational schools and stuff gave out recommendations, too. Very few people get chosen through general entry. So, because the site called Koebu’s Internet-based voice actor school “MANAVO!” also gave out recommendations, I participated in its workshop, and through my results I got a recommendation.

Using previous knowledge, huh. What was the results of your audition?

Komatsu: Thankfully, I’d gotten a lot of offers from offices, and, after thinking it over, I decided to join Ken Production.

Taking the shortest possible route by your own power.

Komatsu: That ‘shortest route’ took me two years, though (lol) But I’d already done action in front of the public [as part of HIROZ], so I have courage that I could not lose to anyone when it came to public performances.

For that sake, you had to take roles that could appeal to your strengths, didn’t you.

Komatsu: That’s true. Since I had been in the public eye for three years, I was pretty good at appealing to people with my action [stunts].

So from that alone we already know you’re good with action, but how about dancing?

Komatsu: I was doing dances since I entered HIROZ. In that group, the frequency with which we did stages was amazing. We were doing around five stage performances a day, for all days of the year. Everyday from morning ‘til night, including a hero show and other things, we got to move our bodies a lot, so our quality as an action group was surprisingly high, as far as public performances were concerned.

It was a pretty packed schedule, wasn’t it?

Komatsu: I know around two to three years is a relatively short period, but I think the number of stage performances I’d been in was tremendous, because I’d been on stage every day.

That’s also how your life is now, though.

Komatsu: That’s right. Honestly, I didn’t expect to dance and do action [stunts] again after being a voice actor (lol)

Recently, more people have been wanting to become voice actors, after seeing those kind of performances.

Komatsu: That’s right, too. I didn’t watch anime much when I was a kid, and I don’t know much about the world of voice actors. I used action [stunts] as my self-appeal point, but I didn’t think I would be able to use it on stage that quickly.

In the second half, I asked him about what he felt about being at the actual scene [of voice actor work], and about his senpais. Also, the gaps in his everyday life are also revealed!

Article: Chiba Kenichi Photographer: Takenaka Tomoya Hair/Makeup: Nagaki Mizuho

The second part of this interview could be found here!

my translation index

one single tiny note: every time he says “action”, he means doing stunts and the like! i put the word “stunts” in brackets sometimes but prolly missed the other times he said it so here’s your blanket disclaimer lol

please do not redistribute this translation anywhere without permission and credit!

thanks for reading!