Ryoko Shiraishi Goes Camping

As a voice actor for male characters, female characters, and everyone in between, Ryōko Shiraishi has a uniquely flexible vocal range. But during her Otakon panel, the veteran entertainer spoke about broadening her horizons outside of her career. Befitting Otakon's 2025 camping theme, Shiraishi revealed she'd recently taken up camping in Japan after some of her drinking buddies brought up the idea during a get-together earlier this year.

“I love beer, and I was with a bunch of friends out drinking, when someone brought up the idea, 'Why don't we go camping?' I wasn't drunk when I agreed, I promise!” Shiraishi said through a translator, garnering plenty of laughs from the audience.

Over the course of her expansive career, Shiraishi has become famous for her roles as Hayate (Hayate the Combat Butler), Asuka Kazama (Tekken), and Himeko (Sket Dance), but as she shared stories from her camping trips, she demonstrated that she can play as hard as she works. Here are some of the highlights of her laid-back camping panel.

On being underprepared for her first camping trip: “I was a complete noob. I had no tent, no sleeping bag, not even any cooking gear. But I said, 'Eh, there's always a first time for everything!” I thought it'd be easy-peasy, but it turned out to be really hard.”

How her first camping trip ended: “We made a campfire, looked at the stars, and said our goodnights. And then it started raining… It rained pretty much all night. It was still raining in the morning. We had to pack up in the rain, and I got all muddy. But because that was my first time camping, I thought, 'I'm not scared of anything anymore. I can handle everything now.'”

On preparing for her second camping trip: “When it came time to camp again, my friends said, 'You should at least get your own sleeping bag this time.' In July, I was really getting tent-envy for my friend's tent. Now I think I had really gotten bitten by the camping bug, and decided to get my own full set of gear. But for those of you who are campers out there, you know this: once you start buying camping goods, it starts adding up in terms of the damage to your wallet. Also, you have to find space to store it all when you're not camping, and my place isn't that big. So I thought, 'Hmm, where am I going to put all of this stuff? Maybe I need to move.'”

On campfires: “In July, four of us went on the trip together, and we all like campfires. We happened to be at a camp site that was run by a logging company. Once you pay the fee, you can use as much wood as you want. We were only four people, but we built four different personal campfires, one for each of us. [Audience laughs.] Is that actually that amusing to you? I guess in America, you have the image of one central campfire.”

On bugs: “I love building tents. I love sleeping out in nature. I don't even mind being rained on! But bugs, man, bugs. I brought a giant bucket of katori senko (Japanese bug repellent coils). I don't think we ever had a second where there wasn't one burning.”

On fireflies: “I hear that you can see fireflies in the US often. But I've only gotten to see fireflies a few times in my whole life and during my second camping trip was one of them. We saw hordes of them! To me it was a very special experience.”

On American s'mores: “[While looking at a picture of a graham cracker, marshmallow, and chocolate s'more.] I've had s'mores while camping but they've never looked like this. What I did was roast a marshmallow on a stick. Once it got melty, I dipped it in cereal.”

On American hot dogs: “[Looking at a picture of a hot dog being roasted on a stick.] So you call this a hot dog as well? I thought you could only call it a hot dog if it was inside a bun. Does it work the same way for hamburgers? Is the meat called a hamburger even if it's not in a bun?”

A unique type of camping: “I went to a camp site in the Tokyo area that was all-you-can-drink until 8 PM. Do they have all-you-can-drink campsites in the US?”

Her favorite beer: “I tend to drink Japanese beers like Kirin, Asahi, Ebisu, Sapporo. Nothing too dark or deep in flavor. I tend to like lagers because I feel like they go down easier. I also drink bottled Corona as well—always with lime. Maybe we should have done a beer panel.”

On camping anime: “I feel bad that I didn't start watching it until I started camping, but I recently began watching Laid-Back Camp. I fell in love with it! I'm going to binge the whole series.”

On her next camping trip: “I know the US is a big country, but where would you recommend I go camping in the US? Please message me your ideas on X [formerly Twitter]!”