Becoming Two Hikarus with Voice Actor Shūichirō Umeda

Known for smash hits like Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead and Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines!, we at ANN are no strangers to Shūichirō Umeda's prolific body of work over these past few years. Now that Umeda has scored another big hit with The Summer Hikaru Died, we sat down with the seiyuu to talk about his experience voice acting for the anime.

What was the vibe going into The Summer Hikaru Died? How'd you land the role, and what did you think when you started?

Going into the audition for The Summer Hikaru Died, I read the manga, and reading it, I got the sense that it did a really good job at depicting a summer specific to Japan. It was very specific in its details. But something still seemed off about it, so that made me feel suspicious about things, as if it was something I shouldn't be seeing, so that was a very interesting charm to the manga.

Another thing about the anime. I was thinking about how Hikaru's not a human, but he's inside a human body. How would the acting be if that's not the case? I also played the role of Hikaru before he died, so that was something I thought about too.

Is there a difference in how you approach voicing the original Hikaru versus the monster Hikaru?

Obviously, since they have the same body, the voice is the same. However, we humans tend to change how we speak depending on who we are speaking to. The original Hikaru knows how to talk gently to certain people and knows the distance to keep from others. The difference between the Hikaru now and the Hikaru then is that the Hikaru then knows Yoshiki, and what Yoshiki likes and dislikes. He knows how to keep the distance. The Hikaru now is very different in the sense that he doesn't want to be disliked by Yoshiki, and it creates a big rift between the two. The Hikaru is now a bit more timid in a sense.

The Summer Hikaru Died is a horror anime that's very slow-moving and more reliant on atmosphere than action. Did the story's tone present any interesting challenges or opportunities for you when performing the role?

As you know, Hikaru is not a human, so the first thing is that even though Hikaru is not a human, I'm still a human, and acting as a non-human is a difficult task. And then there's the director's vision of how he would want to present the story. I want to perform both well, so balancing between the two is a challenging task for me.

The anime takes on the tone of a horror movie—I know that Director Takeshita-san said that he loved Aliens, and I see the monstrous Other that takes the form of Hikaru like something you'd see in The Thing. Did you watch any horror movies or horror anime to prepare for the role of Hikaru?

I watched a lot of horror movies before taking on the role, so I didn't need to watch a lot of them specifically to prepare. Instead, a lot of the movies I've seen previously may have seeped into what I used in this role. I think the essence of what makes Japanese horror interesting is not the jump scares, but rather the slow, terrifying feeling that seeps into the story. I think specifically of From the Depths of the Dark Waters, which has some scenes that make you shiver. Like, for example, turning on the tap and you see hair coming down from it. The feeling I got from scenes like that may have influenced me.

How'd you feel about doing the "chicken" scene? What was the mindset going in, and how'd you pull it off?

I'm amazed that this scene is very popular in the U.S. because I thought it'd be more of a Japanese thing. It's a very fragile scene. Because this is anime, we have to voice over this scene, and if the voice is too sensual, then it doesn't really fit the tone. But if it's nontonal and at the other end of the spectrum, then it doesn't make sense either. It was a difficult thing to do.

What was your favorite moment working on The Summer Hikaru Died?

In terms of this anime, acting out the “before” Hikaru and the current Hikaru seamlessly. When I'm doing Hikaru, it is fun to act as a different character seamlessly. In the sense of working with other people on the same team, I thought that there are heavy themes and hard topics introduced in some scenes, which makes you feel a certain way. But when breaktime comes, everybody would be more cheerful, like during recess at school. It was a very fun team to work with.

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The Summer Hikaru Died anime series is streaming on Netflix. The manga series is available in English from Yen Press.