One dark fantasy anime determined the fate of a Chinese high school student.
"The protagonists go on a reckless journey. They never give up, continuing on their unpredictable trip," Seira Ryu said, explaining the story of the Japanese anime "Fullmetal Alchemist," while casting her mind back to when she was in the third year of high school. "The challenge they took on made me feel that my dream of becoming a voice actor in Japan as a foreigner seemed like such an easy task in comparison."
Several years later, her dream came true. In 2009, Ryu moved to Japan, and in 2011 she joined Aoni Production, one of Japan's top voice acting agencies, which represents such notable voice actors as the main cast of "Dragon Ball." At the agency, Ryu does voices for anime, films and games such as the battle game "Samurai Spirits," as well as narrations in Japanese and Chinese. What made her particularly popular was voicing the brother of the main character in "Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal" in 2014. She is currently in the new Japanese suspense anime "Pet," among other works.
"Time has passed so quickly. But looking back, I've done a lot," the Chinese voice actor said, speaking Japanese like a native.
Would you throw away 12 years?
When she was a child, Japanese anime and manga were everywhere in her home city of Beijing. She grew up with such shows as "Saint Seiya" and "Slam Dunk" and other anime that were just as popular as they were in Japan. But Ryu knew that in the latter years of elementary school most children in China are expected to stop indulging themselves in entertainment and prepare for college entrance exams -- a once-in-a-lifetime moment that is said to decide their future.
In China, going to a top university could mean a bright future, so it's common for students to apply to every department of a university, regardless of their actual interests, as long as the university is among the best. But Ryu chose schools based on whether they had a Japanese language department -- and then she applied only to that one department.
Her teacher tried to convince her not to "ruin the 12 years of her exam war [from elementary school]" by narrowing her options. But she refused to listen. What's more, her parents supported her by saying, "If you want to compete with Japanese people in Japan, you should aim for a school with the best Japanese language education." Ryu was accepted by the Beijing Foreign Studies University, one of the top universities in China, where she learned the basics of hiragana and katakana.
Literally starting from zero, she shut herself away, telling herself she had no time to do anything except study Japanese in order to become better than her future Japanese rivals. She said she gave up almost everything she liked, including drawing manga, and "recklessly" plunged herself into the language, despite "knowing nothing about Japan nor the voice-acting business."
Her move to Japan after graduating was aimed at further improving her skills. She enrolled at Nihon Kogakuin College in the voice acting department, where she refused to speak any Chinese and ceased contact with her friends in China. Her Japanese improved so much that people often found it difficult to guess only from her voice that she was not Japanese.
When Ryu was in the vocational school, she was asked to emcee an event organized by Tsinghua University, where her language and voice acting skills made a favorable impression on Aoni Production. Later, the agency recruited her.
Success followed by tough road
Ryu confessed that she hardly got any jobs when she first became a pro.
"There are almost 400 actors in my agency alone, so even Japanese actors may have wondered why they didn't get jobs," she said, stressing that it is such a competitive business regardless of the actors' nationality.
According to Ryu, actors can be picked for various reasons, maybe due to pure talent but sometimes just because of odd coincidences -- a character and a voice actor happen to have the same last name, for example.
"It's important my name comes to mind for selectors during casting calls," Ryu said. "What's peculiar about this business is that voice actors are asked to have a set character that stands out in the audience's memory. In my case, that would be a young boy or a Chinese person. But roles for those kinds of characters are very few."
On top of those struggles, her single-minded quest to be a voice actor alone -- which is her strength and the source of her power -- meant she had backed herself into a corner.
"Back then, I believed anything other than voice acting had no value and had decided to do nothing that wasn't related to my goal."
Striving for her goal, she was mimicking what Japanese do. But her senior colleague Kazuya Tatekabe, who is well known as the voice of "Doraemon" character Gian, advised Ryu not to act like a Japanese and instead be herself. The late veteran actor also suggested she not limit herself to voice acting -- but Ryu interpreted this advice as "forget about this career and move on."
Be free, be happy
It took years for Ryu to really understand Tatekabe's words.
"I'd received so many messages and hints, but I just couldn't digest them well," Ryu said. "Some people suggested 'You're good at drawing so why don't you start drawing manga?' But I was thinking: 'I don't have time for that. I don't even have any actual achievements as a voice actor yet.'"
However, about three years ago, Ryu began to look outside of her career and do what some had suggested: draw manga, a hobby that she devoted herself to when she was in high school.
"I came to think of making use of who I am and what I like to do," she said.
She began drawing comic essays to share the daily life of a bilingual voice actor. They were serialized online in Shueisha Inc.'s Funwari Jump under the title "Oshiete Ryu Roshi" (photo of book cover is seen above left). After online publication ceased, Ryu used crowdfunding to publish the paper edition. This actually connected her two professions, as those who read her manga showed interest in her voice acting work.
In December, Ryu self-produced an event involving a live concert, talk show and gyoza dumpling tasting, to give her fans a fun time. "I've decided not to wait for someone to produce my projects as I've waited for 10 years already," she said mischievously.
She also stated that back home, her country is saturated with voice acting jobs and people she knew when they were amateur actors who have become professionals now earn 10 or 20 times what she earns.
"Looking back on the past 10 years, I have wondered what I'm pursuing in life," and she has realized it's neither money nor fame.
"People are forgotten 100 years later ... What I want is to produce something, together with some good people. As long as I can do that, it doesn't matter whether I'm in Japan or abroad."
Her vocation will always be bilingual voice actor and mangaka, she said, but "in this current era, it's such a waste not to share anything. As long as someone shows interest in me, I should express myself in various ways."
Having gone on her own "reckless journey" for the past 10 years in Japan, Ryu has gained the flexibility to be herself in return for her single-minded efforts.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
