A translation of the “@Voice” section of the June 2000 issue of Animedia, including an interview with Digimon Adventure 02 voice actors Reiko Kiuchi (Daisuke Motomiya), Rio Natsuki (Miyako Inoue), Megumi Urawa (Iori Hida), Taisuke Yamamoto (Takeru Takaishi), Kae Araki (Hikari Yagami), and Romi Park (Digimon Kaiser).
The interview also contains quick comments from voice actors Junko Noda (V-mon), Miwa Matsumoto (Patamon), Kouichi Tohchika (Hawkmon), Megumi Urawa (Armadimon), and Yuka Tokumitsu (Tailmon) regarding the character song “Definitely All Right ~Digimental Up!~”, along with longer extra comments from Toshiko Fujita (Taichi Yagami) and Yuuto Kazama (Yamato Ishida).
Digimon Adventure 02 Cast Group Talk: Wormmon is popular at the post-recording site! Seeing the Armor Evolutions on screen makes them emotional
Digimon Adventure 02, which began broadcast in April, is already in the midst of enjoying great popularity. We’ve gathered the “Chosen Children” here to talk about the highlights of this series. Some older cast members have also sent in some messages!
Editorial Department: Firstly, please tell us what you think is different about this series, compared to the previous one.
Araki: Hikari’s gotten quite a bit more mischievous and playful, I think that part’s very different. Also, Takeru’s gotten so much manlier. His voice changed too (laughs).
Editorial Department: Now that you mention it, people have been saying Takeru’s gotten to be somewhat of an accidental playboy, but he himself doesn’t realize it…
Araki: Well, because he’s nice to anyone and everyone (laughs).
Natsuki: He’s the kind of person who’ll just hold a girl’s hands and say “let’s keep working hard!”, isn’t he? (laughs)
Yamamoto: Ah, he probably shouldn’t be doing that, huh (laughs).
Editorial Department: The Digimon Kaiser is pretty good-looking, too, so he seems to be the popular type.
Park: Of course, he’s got to be (laughs).
Kiuchi: Oh, also, another thing that’s different is that they go home every day this time, so there’s a cozier feel to it. Like how Miyako’s family has the convenience store.
Natsuki: Ah, yeah, that’s right.
Kiuchi: So you get a sense of the kids’ daily lives, and I wonder if they’ll ever get any time to really enjoy the Digital World…
Araki: Spoken like a real protagonist, see, you get it (laughs).
Editorial Department: Incidentally, Urawa-san actually plays two roles, both Iori and Armadimon. How did you feel about that?
Urawa: When I got picked for both roles, I hadn’t anticipated they’d be each other’s partners. So it was like having to do a two-sided comedy act with myself1 (laughs).
Park: But you know, we’ve already started forgetting that Urawa-san’s doing two roles by herself.
Araki: Right. So whenever Armadimon’s about to talk, we keep instinctively clearing extra space in front of the microphone (laughs).
Urawa: Well, everyone wants to try out doing a Digimon role, so it’s only natural, I imagine.
Natsuki: Personally, whenever I see the Armor Evolution sequences, I suddenly get all teary-eyed for some reason.
Park: But Wormmon can’t do that (laughs).
Editorial Department: It sounds like you’re all having a lot of fun at the studio. Is there anything particularly interesting that goes on during post-recording?
Natsuki: We all love Wormmon. Even when he doesn’t have any lines, whenever we see his face…
Kiuchi: He’s super popular.
Urawa: We all love it when Wormmon talks (laughs).
Urawa2: Also, Hirata-san3 is the narrator, but he has a ton of other roles too, to the point it feels like he’s putting his life on the line for so many of them (laughs). No matter what he does, it’s always fun to watch.
Editorial Department: They’re also planning to release a movie4 in July…
Urawa: They revealed the Digimon in it back during the spring, and they’re super cool. So it’s gonna be full of more friendship than ever before!
Natsuki: And adventures!
Urawa: And coolness!
Yamamoto: And emotional passion!
Kiuchi: And courage!
Araki: Let’s work hard and fight for all of it!
Kiuchi/Natsuki/Urawa/Yamamoto/Araki: Yeah!!
Park: Ah, but the Digimon Kaiser can’t join them (laughs).
Editorial Department: Then, please leave a message for our readers.
Kiuchi: I hope the kids can see the kids on screen and relate to them through their daily lives, and that the adults can see how they grow and be reminded of their own childhoods.
Natsuki: This is a series that’s made me cry in ways I hadn’t in a really long time. I think it’s a series that can really bring people back to their childhoods, so I hope people can spend each block of thirty minutes with pure hearts as they watch.
Urawa: When you’re with your friends, you can do things you couldn’t do alone. I really hope everyone will feel its message about how important it is to have friends, and the incredible power that comes from it.
Yamamoto: For this series, the Digital World has become something familiar to these kids’ lives, but I think everyone will have places around them where they can play around and have their own adventures. I want to continue having this adventure with Takeru-kun, so I hope everyone else will be able to push forward on their own adventures without fear. I’m going to keep pushing forward, too!
Araki: This series teaches you that even when there are things you can’t do, you can do it if you don’t give up, and so I want everyone to be able to push forward without giving up, alongside the kids and their Digimon. But I also want them to enjoy it as they watch.
Park: I think this really is a series that you can watch with a pure heart. Please enjoy watching this series with everything in your heart cleared away.
Editorial Department: Thank you very much. Digimon Adventure 02 airs every week at 9 AM on Sundays, on Fuji TV and other channels. In July, its movie will also be screened with a more Western-style flair. If you haven’t checked it out yet, be sure to do so!
The Digimon partners also get to stand out and sing!
In the previous series, the Digimon partners sang a song under the group name of “Digimon Evolvers”, titled “Evolve with Guts!”, but for this series, the five Digimon partners are named the “Armor Evolvers” and have sung a song titled “Absolutely All Right ~Digimental Up!~”. We’ve received comments from the five voice actors involved.
“I had V-mon sing with such a refreshing air (laughs). Please enjoy Hawkmon and the others getting in battle after that!” (Junko Noda, playing V-mon)
“I’m doing this after having already been involved with the Digimon Evolvers, but we actually got involved in battle this time, but I got to really go wild this time (laughs). Armadimon and Hawkmon and Patamon get involved in battle, so please listen for it!” (Miwa Matsumoto, playing Patamon)
“I’m really glad I got to sing for this, to the point I hope they put it in karaoke machines. Please listen to it and hear how good the five of us are at teamwork (laughs). (Kouichi Tohchika, playing Hawkmon)
“He just goes ahead with energy and coolness, so I sang it hoping that the kids would admire him. Please listen for their transformation calls and special attacks! (Megumi Urawa, playing Armadimon)
“I’m so thankful they let me change to spoken lines midway through (laughs). Please be sure to listen to that part, and how her friends respond to her.” (Yuka Tokumitsu, playing Tailmon)
Messages of support
Toshiko Fujita (Taichi Yagami)
Thanks to everyone’s support, the last series did well enough to make it to the final episode, and the movies were a huge hit too!! As the person who played Taichi, I couldn’t possibly be happier. To all of you who supported Digimon Adventure, truly, thank you so much. Thanks to everyone’s warm support, Digimon Adventure 02 was also able to make its own start.
In this series, Taichi is now a middle school student, so I didn’t have to do anything in particular to prepare for the role, but now that he’s become a mentor to so many juniors, I focused on making him a bit more like a more mature older brother.
At the studio, the new cast members were already so straightforward and open-hearted from the very beginning, and, along with everyone from the last series, we brought together a fun and lively atmosphere as we recorded. What’s going to happen in the story from here?…I’m reading from the scripts with excitement every time.
Please give your regards to the new cast members of Digimon Adventure 02 from here on out. And, of course, please continue to watch over the older Taichi as well.
Yuuto Kazama (Yamato Ishida)
After we’d recorded for the final episode (of the last series), Producer Seki-san5 personally presented bouquets of flowers to everyone in the cast, and that was when I truly felt “ah, man, it really is over.” Digimon Adventure goes beyond just being my job, or a TV show, or a role, and has become a part of my own self by this point. That’s how I feel about it.
At the recording site, I had to do not only my own role but also a ton of other side roles, and there were times when they hadn’t even assigned them to me in advance. So whenever that happened, I’d have to scramble around in circles to get it done (laughs). In particular, Hiroaki Hirata-san and Masami Kikuchi-san6 had a ton of enthusiasm about it. Ah, well, I guess I did too (laughs).
Anyway, Yamato is in 02, too, but the real focus of the story is, naturally, on the new Chosen Children and their Digimon. So I hope everyone will go forward and blow the story to pieces in the best way, pulling it along with power!
Finally, thank you to everyone who supported us, from the bottom of my heart. It really gave me a ton of energy to keep pushing forward. Thank you for that one year! And please continue to cheer us on!
Translator's notes
- Urawa compares her double casting to performing in rakugo, a traditional form of Japanese stage comedy in which the performer will tell a story, often having to juggle dialogue lines from multiple characters talking to each other. [↩]
- The article prints Urawa’s name twice here, so since I don’t know if this is a typo or not, I’m reproducing it here. [↩]
- “Hirata-san” = Referring to Hiroaki Hirata, voice of the Adventure and Adventure 02 narrator, along with many other roles. [↩]
- The “movie” referred to in this article is Adventure 02‘s first movie, Digimon Hurricane Touchdown!!/Transcendent Evolution! The Golden Digimentals. [↩]
- “Producer Seki-san” = Referring to Adventure and Adventure 02 producer Hiromi Seki. [↩]
- “Masami Kikuchi-san” = Voice of Jou Kido in Adventure and Adventure 02. [↩]