Koukaku Kidoutai after recording

The major voice actors are as follows.

Tanaka Atsuko

Atsuko is doing the role of Kusanagi Motoko.

Ohtsuka Akio

Akio is doing the role of Batou.

Kayumi Iemasa

Iemasa is doing the role of the puppet master.

Ohki Tamio

Tamio is doing the role of Aramaki.

Nakano Yutaka

Yutaka is doing the role of Ishikawa.

Yamadera Kouichi, who does the role of Togusa, wasn't there at that time. Most of these voice actors are those who mainly do dubs of foreign movies instead of animation.

Question

Was there any difficulty for the casting for this movie?

Oshii

I want new voices for my main characters. But I also want veterans to make the movie good. I listened to many voices including those of non-seiyuu, but I quickly decided on Tanaka Atsuko. This is the first time I've worked with her. The hardest decision was the puppet master's voice. Since the puppest master doesn't have a body, his voice must have existence. It also must have the voice of a god, and a devil. This is the first time I've worked with Kayumi Iemasa too.

Question

Any comments going into the recording?

Tanaka

It has been over half a year since the audition. I had built up an image of the character, and I saw the anime pictures for the first time yesterday. I also talked to the director about the character. It was very different from what I had imagined.

Kayumi

I thought this year was going to be a simple year doing my regular work. Then this thing pops up. My character is like a god-devil. There is no body. This is hard to do! I had no idea what to do. I came to the studio and talked to various people, and I'm getting it now. I'm feeling a lot of pressure.

Ohtsuka

This isn't going to be for others. This is a challenge for me to see how I can get myself into the Oshii world.

Ohki

I just saw my character moving once, so I have to study the script and the tape some more. But it is matching the image that I had. I think I can do it.

Nakano

This is the first time that I am doing animation. I have done lots of movies and stage plays. I received the sketches and the script. I read the script and it was very difficult. I saw the pictures today and I finally understand what I have to do.

Question

This anime is aimed at the world-wide market instead of just Japan. Is there anything different that you have to do?

Oshii

With the characters and story, we are not doing anything different. When the dialogue becomes English, I'm worried about losing nuances. But I'll work with the English director and try to make it as good as possible. For the other parts, I'm not doing anything different because it is a world-wide release.
There is going to be an English mix, so in that sense we are working twice as much. The voices will be taken here, and we will send it over. We want them to do it as close as possible to the voices here.

Question

There is a lot of digital processing being used in this movie. Can you tell us about it?

Oshii

This is not an after recording studio. It's a music studio. More than half of the conversation is not normal. It takes place inside the body, and such. We are doing hard disk recording and digitizing the sounds as it is being taken. I think it's the first time this is being used in animation.

Question (to Kayumi Iemasa)

Do you have to act any differently knowing that there will be a lot of high technology processing done to your voice?

Kayumi

They may do a lot of processing, but I don't think they will change the voice so much that it will be too different. In any case, with so much mecha and sound effects involved, we will have to do the voice as well as possible so our voices don't get lost. So I am not thinking about those parts that much. I just want to do it in the usual way.

Oshii

We will do a lot of processing, but it will not be like filters and such to change the voices. Right now I'm thinking about adding the effects that will be heard when listening with headphones.