The Aice5 controversy – but who’s at fault?
Starchild and Aice5 were in the line of fire from a lot of 2ch-ers due to a casting decision for yet-another-ero-game-to-anime-conversion (YAEGA – and yes I just made this up) show. The show in question is 「乙女はお姉さまに恋してる」 “Otome wa Boku-sama ni Koishiteru“.
The original author of the game had apparently lashed out against the sponsors for hiring the entire Aice5 team to replace the original cast in “Otome wa Boku-sama ni Koishiteru”. In his blog entry (now removed, but as usual, someone on the internet had already took a screen cap of it), he had detailed how he strongly fought for hiring the original cast of the ero-game to do the anime but was ignored. Claiming that he himself is also a dedicated seiyuu fan and that to himself really couldn’t imagine having a different seiyuu for his beloved characters, he goes on to stir up the beehive by making claims that any “seiyuu-mania could see that this is just the record company trying to promote their seiyuu unit” and that a certain “famous seiyuu in that unit has absolutely horrible acting skills.” And finally, closing with remarks such as “no one is going to be happy to see their lovely children (in this case, the characters he created) being publicly raped like this.”
Ouch. Talk about not taking this the right way.
But really, are we, as seiyuu fans, or even just anime fans, surprised by this at all? A complete change of cast for these YAEGA in general, especially those which are cleansed and transformed into bishoujo anime which are broadcastable on free-to-air TV, are common and almost always expected by everyone – from the original author, the production house, right down to the fans. The way the author lashed out at the decision on his personal, yet publicly viewable blog, seems unprofessional and naive to me, and all it managed to achieved are some good-ol interweb style BBS name calling and flame wars. However in the end, nothing had or will change - fans of the original game and cast continue to resort to name calling on the interweb while the seiyuu get caught in the middle and the sponsors still laugh all the way to the bank as merchandise is snapped up, most likely by both camps anyway.
So really, who is at fault here? I guess if you really want to point fingers, you can point it at capitalism.
September 12th, 2006 at 07:50
“Certain famous seiyuu?” I wonder who that is :3 :3
Do you happen to have the post saved? I tried looking for it briefly in the main Aice5 thread and the otoboku thread on 2ch but it seems like the most recent ones have discouraged discussion of the casting argument.
September 14th, 2006 at 23:55
>> “no one is going to be happy to see their lovely children [in this case, the characters he created] being publicly raped like this.”
Some translator you are!
>> YAEGA
“TEROGE adaptation” is my favorite word for it.
>> So really, who is at fault here?
I’m sympathetic with the “original creator.” Believe it or not I think he’s just orchestrating it as only a means to an end. It is the bad way to go about it, but hey, if you can blame it on capitalism then anything goes.
September 15th, 2006 at 10:21
> Some translator you are!
Believe it or not, I actually didn’t spice that sentence up at all. :p
September 16th, 2006 at 09:42
I can’t really agree with anyone’s side on this.
You have the original creator who’s upset that they ditched the cast he used in his game. However he obviously gave them the right to do that at some point, or they wouldn’t be able to. Then he goes on his site and has a temper tantrum.
On the other hand you have Star Child who is trying to make an anime and play off the popularity of a popular game, and due a tie in with their Seiyuu pop group. It seems like their going against their target audience though. Fans of the game, perticularly Seiyuu fans would most likely prefer the originals anyway.
October 18th, 2006 at 05:20
Question! Was one of the original seiyuu so busy with work? If the answer is yes, then Starchild did the right thing by using the entire group. If the answer is no, then I have to go with the original author.
Changes have always been double-edged swords to me over the years. I have always felt that changes should be conducted in a time of emergency, but even then, I generally don’t like changes. Then again, if profit is involved, so be it. What can you do? Nothing really. This sort of task is nothing new in entertainment overall.
January 22nd, 2007 at 18:42
Hello there, another closet Seiyuu fan.
I didn’t actually know of this until you guys posted it in here since I don’t check out 2-ch very often.
I was reading through the last issue of Seiyuu Animedia featuring Aice5 when I realised that the casting in “Otome wa Boku” had some interesting similarities with the names of the Seiyuus in Aice5. Probably just a mere coincidence when Miyanokoji Mizuho had her end name rhyme with Horie-san’s nickname and so on and so forth.
The casting decision may probably be a commercial one, as well as the interesting similarities in the names. Still, the series had ended long ago and I guess everyone enjoyed the show thoroughly.