Otakon 2007 Report (Yukie)

Seki Tomokazu's third appearance in the US.

Rady: Seki Tomokazu visted the United States for a 3rd time, this time on the east coast in Baltimore, Maryland, at Otakon 2007! Sachi and I were unable to attend Otakon, but here is a report written by my friend, Yukie (Jahannam Network), who was able to go see Seki! Thank you so much for typing this report up for us so that we can share it with the rest of the Seki Tomokazu fan community! Please read on for the full report by Yukie. ^_^

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--- Otakon 2007 (by Yukie) ---

When I go to a con, I usually try to check out different panels, wander around to look at all the costumes, and treasure hunt in the Dealer's Room. This year however, at Otakon, I spent less than 2 hour shopping, and almost had no group activities with friends. The reason was because I spent the majority of my weekend on lines, official and unofficial, for hours and hours to the point that I was chatting with random strangers (which I usually don't do). In the end though, having seen Seki Tomokazu in person made it all very worth it.

Seki Tomokazu had two panel events and two autograph sessions all together on Friday and Saturday, I was only able to make one of each due to the scheduling. First, I went to his Q&A panel on Friday afternoon. Since it was in the same room and directly following the Noto Mamiko panel, I sat in for that one too just so I can grab a good seat when Seki's panel started. Amusingly, at the end of the Noto Mamiko panel, there was a ruckus of chair shuffling because many others apparently thought the same. Still, I got my seat in the best possible spot =P Great start. I actually didn't see when Seki got there, he and his translator were like stealth ninjas, by the time I grabbed my new seat, they were on the stage already.

As the rest of the audience was coming in and getting seated, Seki decided that he was going to kill time by taking line requests. Among the ones I could remember were Sagara Sousuke from Full Metal Panic, Takahashi Keisuke from Initial D (obsessing about the 86~), "FUUUUUUUUUUMMMMA" from X/1999 (this was a specifically requested line), Yzak from Gundam SEED (obsessing about Strike), Chichiri from Fushigi Yuugi (...na no da!), and Gai from Nadesico. You could tell that Seki was a really fun guy just upon sight. He motivated the crowd a lot better than the Noto Mamiko panel which I thought was pretty dead except for a few lingering fanboys. He kept doing a muscle man pose (wtf XD) that drew a lot of laughter, and whenever the crowd cheered, he would say "thank you!" and "ok!" in his funny English. When he did the line for Yzak, he did the scene where Yzak's eye was injured and yelled "ITAI!!!! ITAIII YO!!!" accompanied by full acting and the covering his own face ^_^

Eventually when everyone was seated, those who had questions for him formed a line up front. Some of the people didn't *really* have questions, they just got up there to say how much they loved him. Certainly the gesture was appreciated but everyone in the room loved him, or else we wouldn't have been there! There was a consensual feeling that they should've stopped wasting our time; after all, we only had one hour with him!! Some of the actual questions though were well received, below are a few that I remember (in no particular order):

Q: Among your fellow seiyuus, if you were to have a man to man talk, or someone to rant to when you're depressed, who would it be?
A: Mmm, I have many friends that I talk to, ...but if I had to pick somebody, it would probably be Miki Shinichiro. *Insert loud cheer from the audience.* ...and Yamaguchi Kappei.

Q: Who do you think is the most talented seiyuu? (what an odd question...)
A: ...You mean... besides myself!? *laughs* It's really hard to say, there are so many people who are talented. I guess I would say the late Yamada Yasuo, who played Lupin in Lupin III. And as for female seiyuus, Noto Mamiko-san! *pause* And I'm not saying that just because she's here at Otakon too. (He soooo was!)

Q: Whatever happened to the ending of Weiss?
A: ...Saa... (Translation: I wonder about that too) Well, I guess Weiss is like a child that Koyasu-san, who wrote it himself, is very proud of, and he's probably sitting on it in order to come up the best ending for it.

Q: How has some of the roles you've played, like Toya in CCS, affect you personally?
A: Since I don't have any siblings myself, I was very touched to be able to play a role like Toya who is always there to care for a little sister.

Q: Is it embarrassing to be playing roles for BL or Yaoi, especially given that you're now married?
A: *Ponders* Yes. It is embarrassing. Though since now that I have a long term role on Doraemon as Suneo, I can't do any more Yaoi. (NUUUUUUUUUU, damn kiddies.)

Q: We know that you play a wide range of roles, what do you usually do to prepare for them?
A: Typically, I would need to see some of visuals for me to develop a voice for the characters, and when I do, it really just comes to me naturally. Although, on the rare occasions where I've been asked to come up with a voice without any visuals, I've always been told that it isn't really right.

Q: Obviously there are people who succeed at voice acting and those who don't. Being so successful yourself, what do you think is the quality that makes a seiyuu successful?
A: That's really a hard question to answer. Voice acting is different from TV acting in that your voice is all you have to work with, and therefore it really takes a lot of imagination to bring a character to life. When someone stands before a mic, that's when you know if they really have it in them. For those seiyuus who succeed, there is just this quality that you can tell about them, as for what that really is, I would honestly like to know myself.

Q: What is the best part you like about voice acting?
A: What I like the most is that you can play all sorts of characters as a seiyuu. As a drama actor, you can only portray characters who physically resembles yourself, but in voice acting, you can play anyone from a big guy to a little kid and I like all the choices I get to pick from.

Q: What did you think of the character Keisuke being left out of the Initial D movie, a character that you brought to life?
A: I believe his character has been merged with Nakazato or something. It is very regretable, but there are many things that factor into such a decision and they have their reasons. Things like this happens all the time in the anime world, so I've gotten used to it.

Q: Can you sing a song for us? (This is the point where you can pretty much see a sweatdrop forming on Seki's head)
A: *long pause* Uhh... do you have anything specifically in mind? The audience yells: SHOOT!!! SHOOOOOOOT!!! (Yzak's character song from Gundam SEED)
Q: *goes along* ...Shoot?
A: ... (an even bigger sweatdrop) ...how... about something from Weiss? ^^; (In the end, he sang a few lines for us from Weiss.)

Q: I know you already did a requested line from Nadesico, but I was just wondering if you can say that whole line by Gai. (Gai's full attack yelled at the top of his lungs.)
A: woah, I may just die from this. (He took a deep breath and acted out the line, with motion too, and then grabbed for water.) That really strained the throat. (A full round of applause.)

Q: When you took the role of Gai, did you know that he was going to die so soon?
A: Yes, when I took that role, the producers made it very clear that Gai was going to die after three episodes ^^; ...So I just decided that I would give my best performance for those three episodes.

Anyway, that's about everything I can think of at this point. The last request of the panel is from a girl cosplaying as Saber. This one lucky girl who I am burning with jealousy for requested Gilgamesh's line from Fate - stay/night "I am the King of Kings, and Saber, you are the King's property." Seki ended the panel with this line and directing it towards that girl: "Saber, omae wa ore no onna da!" (wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf!!)

At this point, the panel was officially over, but Seki kindly stayed behind another extra 15 minutes for all the people who rushed up to snap photos of him. He really liked to pose with the V sign~ One hour after this panel was his first autograph session but I didn't go to this one because there was no way there would still be any space on line. On the next day, he had another event in the Main Event Hall which was a huge auditorium. I skipped this event as well to wait on line for his second autograph session. I was glad to have gone to the Q&A instead because it was in a smaller room and you could get a more up close view of him. The lines for autographs are crazy as most of you con-goers would know, Seki's above all, were as crazy as it could get. The convention rule was that the line forms one hour prior to the event, so I along with many other obsessed fans have been standing around for hours waiting for the line to start. The moment a staff called for line, the whole area was in a stampede. Thirty seconds later, there was no more space. In the end, I didn't get to do much else this year at Otakon, but it was definitely the best experience I've ever had at a convention. I hope they get Miki Shinichiro next year.

~~~+++~~~ Written by Yukie (Jahannam Network).

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Rady: Before I write closing notes, I'll be very happy to inform that the Weiss song Seki sung at the panel was "Shindemo Ii" ^_^♥!!!! Thank you to lumicake on LJ for telling me that! Now... Once again, thank you so much for the report, Yukie!!! I'm delighted to see that so many fans in the United States were able to see Seki, maybe again for some people. Congratulations to Seki and we will continue to support your work! Much love from us fans, and that wraps up this report from Otakon 2007. Rady here, over and out!