Sakura Doujin

Reblogging from SutoraikuAnime:

I awoke this morning to a rather busy morning on twitter about some stuff concerning some seiyuus. So, I figured I do some digging around and happened to come about a certain story that involves a certain anime that is currently airing right now, Kokoro Connect. A lot of the information that I managed to gather was from twitter and 4Chan, so I apologize if some things may be wrong. But anyways, it turns out that they were having a Kokoro Connect recently and two seiyuus were MCs at this event, Terashima, Takuma (Aoki) and Kanemoto, Hisako (Yui). One part of the show involved a “special guest” to appear. That “special guest” was Ichiki, Mitsuhiro a not so well known seiyuu who hasn’t really had many roles in the industry. Well, the whole idea was to actually prank the poor guy in front of hundreds (maybe thousands) of people at the show or on Nico Nico Douga. Here how it went down, Mitsuhiro was invited to audition for a voice acting gig for the anime Kokoro Connect not knowing that his agency and SilverLink were in on a prank. So, the producers made him say some embarrassing lines while video taping him with a hidden camera. Well, during the show, Mitsuhiro was invited on stage in front of the audience and shown the video of him during the audition saying all of those weird lines. So, if I’m not mistaken, Terashima, Takuma (Aoki) was bashing him referring to him as the show’s janitor and Kanemoto, Hisako (Yui) was laughing along with it and also was laughing about it on her own talk show. So yeah, he thought he was finally going to make it big only to have those dreams stomped on.

The video below shows what happened at the show. It is kinda hard to watch as this guy is humiliated and being laughed at by everyone. The last part of the video has no picture, but you can hear Mitsuhiro sounding pretty down about the whole situation when he was a guest on Sugita Tomakazu’s radio show.

Terashima Sugita Tomakazu are pretty good friends, but Sugita has really taken this issue very seriously. I read that during his radio show, Terashima, Takuma was on there and Sugita would never acknowledge him at all when Terashima would ask him a question or anything.

Anime fans are especially taking this controversy to another level by boycotting Kokoro Connect and it’s Bluray releases and giving it bad reviews on Amazon and other retailer websites while taking back their preorders. As of right now, preorders are down to a couple hundred and are expected to go down even further as more information keeps getting leaked out. Fans were also infuriated at how Terashima, Takuma and Kanemoto, Hisako put the poor guy through this ordeal, that they seem to want both of them fired and to apologize to Ichiki, Mitsuhiro.

One thing is for sure, someone is gonna get the boot for this whole controversy to save what little this anime has left to make money for the companies who are hard at work at making the anime’s Bluray bundles or merchandise. As for Kanemoto and Terashima, they might have a hard time finding auditions after all this is said and done. There is no telling if Ichiki, Mitsuhiro will continue to try to look for more auditions or just quit the industry all together. So, this can really shake up the anime industry pretty heavily as we approach the next season and on.

I’ll try to keep you all updated as more news starts to roll in.

A big thanks to Cowboybibimbop for the information regarding this controversy.

Seiyuu bullying lesser-known seiyuu.
I feel really bad for the guy. And his agency was the one who put him through this prank as well, wtf?!

Even if this was really just a prank it’s been taken too far. What happens if he goes into depression and commits suicide? You’re gonna say “Hey, we just pulled a harmless prank on him, his fault for taking it seriously.”? Fuck that shit.

But even though it pains me, I will still watch the anime as well as support the release. Good anime shouldn’t be brought down just because of a few faggots that decide to prank a ‘kouhai’ in the industry just because it’s fun and lulzy.

Though, I still agree that both seiyuus involved in the prank should post public apologies to the victim as well as offer some sort of compensation. They didn’t just pull a simple prank, they took this guy’s hope, threw it to the ground and trampled all over it. It’s not easy in the showbiz business, but seriously this is taken way too far.

How do you view this ‘prank’? Let’s have some discussion going in the comments section. I need an outlet to release all this rage.

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From Admin point of view:

This prank is too much. I mean I know its a joke. But come to think about it, I don’t recall other seiyuu or agency ever pull off a prank. Anyway, give this guy a break. He is a freshman in the industry and humiliate him will cause his reputation to be ruined even before he start.

Personally, I think the seiyuu should apologized. But the one that call for the prank should really have their head chop off. At least apologized to this poor fella for what you did. Imagine if it was me who is on the stage been humiliated I would immediately resign. I wouldn’t want to work in a bully environment. Even though the fact that this is a joke, it simply went just too far. There are limits to jokes that you can prank you know..

This also tell us one thing about working in such a industry. The nature of entertainment industry is simple. Either you gain fame or you fall hard on the solid ground.

I didn’t know about this piece of news until I saw it on SutoraikuAnime. So all thanks to him.

Update 31/8/2012:

According to Hibiki Radio Station, Kokoro Connect radio podcast will be temporarily suspended due to some circumstances. They have apologized for their daily viewers for the inconvenience.

It is highly suspected that it could be related to the Seiyuu Controversy.

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