Welcome to the Anime Casting Couch
by Joanne Pham
"I tolerated it so I would get accepted," said the girl. Her application to Arts Vision was eventually rejected.
Now days removed from the scandal that could have rocked the voice acting profession with former Arts Vision/I’m Enterprise president, Sakumi Matsuda, arrested for sexually assaulting a 16 year old female applicant. The 2ch crowd, among others, have demanded for an end to "sexual harassment, power harassment, and 'pillow business'" in the industry*. The company websites involved have all shut down momentarily with the much obliged apology letters. Names have been dropped among anti-fans as “nikubenki” (indirectly a sex object term) seiyuu, though the companies make a point of noting that this incident does not concern other parties. Matsuda has resigned; new managing directors will act in his place and mention how they will work to "raise all employees' consciousness about following laws and regulations."
A lot of smoke screen for an incident that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone if taken to account that no matter the country or the culture, one of the age-old dark sides of the entertainment industry known as the “casting couch” still has its presence. If there is any solace to this situation, awareness has been brought to attention. Yurika Ochiai, who recently bailed out of Arts Vision for, at the time, rather ‘ambiguous’ reasons, is known to provide a deeper insight than the average representative. Her brief message, “I’m very, very lucky,” is quite indicative of the probable predicaments that upcoming seiyuu might go through just to move up the ranks, in spite of being grossly underpaid.
Perhaps it is at the cost for many fans to have doubt on their ‘innocent’ infatuations towards their favorite seiyuu, but for what it is worth, Japan’s reputation towards handling such situations until the point where it can no longer be ignored does bring forth these concern: Is it just this one sole incident? (Obviously not likely) Is this the icebreaker, towards possible previous unreported incidents? Would it be perceivable that producers or various sects of management have had their ways pretty much assuring the seiyuu their role for that particular show? Case in point, the shifting of casts to present a better appeal for otherwise average-at-best harem/dating-sim based anime shows.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves and take this incident as is for now. Whatever happens for this industry’s future, they will have to live with the fact that the infamous practice known as the “casting couch” is now known as a part of their entertainment trade. They will also have to live with dealing with an irate mob of otaku—and not just in Japan— should any future incidents expose themselves. The realization is that change is imminent should studios and agencies want to avoid blurring the lines between those cute characters and the counterparts that are responsible for voicing them. I don’t think too many fans would want to think of Ai Yori Aoshi’s, Aoi Sakuraba being voiced by some sort vixen (which is not likely given Ayako Kawasumi’s line of work). If you insist on having a more lecherous imagination, keep it to your H-dojinshi please.
Sources and for further reading:
- http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost.php?p=978240&postcount=229
- Pillow fight protest in front of Arts Vision Building