• Report version 0.9 by Hitoshi Doi, 1994.05.06
• Report version 1.0 by Hitoshi Doi, 1994.05.12

In commemoration of her first CD "Kaze no Youni" (風のように), Touma Yumi had a signing event at Animate Hachioji on 1994.05.04. In order to get in, one had to reserve her CD (which goes on sale 05.25, 2500 yen). They allowed around 100 people into the event hall (the third floor of the store). I was number 89, so I had to stand in the back. They only had around 50 or so seats.

[Cameras were not allowed.]

One of the Animate people acted as the emcee, and the event started at 15:00. Touma Yumi came out, and everyone clapped.

They had a simple "talk session" before the signing session.

First, they talked about the CD. The theme of the CD was nature, and Touma Yumi picked wind herself. ["Kaze no Youni" = "Like the Wind"] This was her first signing event that she had done alone, and she was worried that nobody would come.

She talked about some other work that she was doing now, such as narration on TV and radio.

Recently she had been doing a lot of "tough" girl roles, and she wants to do some kinder, weaker roles. When she debuted, she had lots of those roles, but she said that she wanted to do different roles, so now she gets a lot of those tough, strong girl roles.

Then there was a question and answer session. (just some of them are listed below)

Q: How do you feel about seiyuu doing voices in games and releasing solo albums recently?
A: It means that the job of a seiyuu has gotten broader than just voices. I think it's good that one can challenge many things.

Q: How do you feel about animal roles other than cats?
A: I like all animals, even the non-earthly ones. When I saw the dragon in Lodoss, I wanted to do it. I asked how that was going to be done, but I was told that it was SE (sound effects). I was pretty sad. I think the larger animals are beyond the range for female seiyuu.

Q: Do you have any advice for us wanting to be a seiyuu?
A: If you really like working with your voice, I will tell you to go for it. But if you want to be a seiyuu to do anime and movies, it will be very difficult. There are lots of other work with voices that have to be done, and it is not all glamorous like anime voices, for example narration, study materials, train announcements. I even had to wear a rabbit costume (Mimi-chan) at a show in the Kourakuen amusement park. It was very windy one day and I almost fell over.

Q: Would you like to put out an illustration booklet?
A: If it's only 3 or 4 pages. (^_^) It would take forever if it's 30 or 40 pages. But there will be some illustrations in the CD. Also Fujishima Kousuke had done a special drawing for the CD.

After this session, they had a janken for 3 Urd telephone cards. One of the people requested that they do the Banpei-kun RX song (refer to CD#4 of the Megami-sama Kami no Karaoke CD set). So everyone sang out Banpei-kun RX and did the janken. The 3 winners got the telephone cards signed by Touma Yumi. [of course I lost in the first round again.. ;_;]

Then they went to the signing session. They had prepared the signature boards in advance with Touma Yumi's signature. So she just wrote everyone's names on them one by one.

[I had her write "Doi Hitoshi" (in kanji) on it.. but now that I think about it I should have picked something more fun, like "Toshi 1/2".]

There were two people who dressed up in cow costumes. (^_^) [Touma Yumi had worn a cow costume and danced around in the Aa Megami-sama event last year.]

The whole event took around one hour.

There will be similar(?) signing events at Animate Ikebukuro and Animate Kawagoe later this month.

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event reports