In a first for AbemaTV, the internet TV station is now streaming an original serial drama. It tells a story about aspiring voice actors, with a new episode released every Monday.
"#Koe dake Tenshi" (Angels only in voice) is set at a voice actor training course at a vocational school. There, Kenzo (played by Yuki Kameda) fails an audition for a voice role after being told his looks are subpar. The ridiculous reason angers him, and, together with four other hopefuls, he starts a free service to promote their voices -- they say whatever users request and stream the phrases online.
Kenzo develops a crush on Sakura (Sawa Nimura), a university student who makes a request to use his voice, although a dark cloud in her mind makes her reluctant to love.
With their relationship at the center, the drama depicts the lives of contemporary young men and women.
The drama is written by Kensuke Yokouchi, who presides over the Tobiraza theater company. He is also known for having directed and written the script for "Super Kabuki II: One Piece," in which Ichikawa Ennosuke starred. Yokouchi's inspiration for the drama came from the true stories he heard from young actors at his company's training school.
As a talented director, Yokouchi usually faces a crowded schedule, but he decided to work on the drama after Susumu Fujita, the president of AbemaTV, told him: "I want to do things you can't do on TV."
"He let me write the script before the lead actors and the director were fixed," he said. "Coming from the theater scene, I knew instinctively that this was pretty extraordinary. There was no way I would say 'No.'"
Yokouchi says the drama has an architecture to it similar to that of a fairy tale.
"I've used a big word like 'architecture,' but what I mean is an old, big story with which anyone can empathize," he said. "This time, it's basically 'Sleeping Beauty,' in which a princess falls asleep under a spell, and a prince wakes her up. If I can keep to that basic storyline, I think it will develop into a standard drama, regardless of whether it will be a hit or not."
The drama features various contemporary subjects, such as voice actors and young people infatuated with anime or video games. However, Yokouchi thinks it is no different from his university days, when he and his friends immersed themselves in literature and films. If seen from that perspective, he believes his drama "can resonate with anyone, regardless of generation."
AbemaTV, which began in April 2016, is spending a production cost of more than 300 million yen on the new drama, a cost on par with those on the main TV stations.
The members of the cast, including Kameda and Nimura, are mostly unknowns. They won the roles in auditions, which were not based on the actors' levels of fame. In doing so, the production team could cut down on the cost for the cast and put the money saved toward art and large props, thereby raising the show's quality. The drama includes scenes from existing anime works and plastic models, which are all used with permission, reflecting how committed Yokouchi is to taking a realistic approach.
Yokouchi says he is happy that ideas he put in the script have all been visualized in the drama.
"I've been fortunate with this work because the production pays respect to my identity as an author," he said. "I hope highly motivated creators will flock to AbemaTV."
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