KagenamiQ (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} jttr) wrote,@ 2006-08-16 14:55:00 |
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| Current mood: |  sad |
| Current music: | "Senshi No Uta" (GOD MARS) |
Blue, Blue Rain...
Back from the Comiket craziness (and will write on that after some sleep)! First, with the assistance of Stephen Colbert (and http://www.shipbrook.com/onnotice -- thanks for the scoop, avalonjones!), the following are now On Notice:
Not that this will be news for Belgium, Great Mazinger, or that Dunbine baddie with the abundantly abusable name; they've been on my list for years. ;^) But Ichijinsha earns its spot for postponing the Summer WARD from August 16 to August 18. Today is the last day of Obon vacation, and I'd planned for weeks to spend today Doing Things with that issue. Instead, it's now coming out when I'll be working all day and then running like hell to catch the night bus to Osaka for this weekend's Super Comic City In Kansai doujinshi event. Mannn...!
So, with WARD waylaid, spent the time remembering Hirotaka Suzuoki, who passed away on August 6 at age 56 after battling lung cancer. Had gotten the news the first day of Comiket when I visited a circle with a Daitan 3 'zine; Suzuoki had voiced its hero, Haran Banjo, and the circle members turned out to be fellow Suzuoki fans. It was numbingly surreal, going from the joy of "Oh boy! Suzuoki fans!" one moment, to learning in the next that he had passed away.
Hirotaka Suzuoki was my favorite ever since watching God Mars in 1983--the first seiyuu whose voice I could recognize in various series; the first all-kanji-named voice actor whose name I learned to read and write. His debut as Haran Banjo in '78 had been a little before my time, but not long before voicing Naoto Ijuuin in God Mars he'd begun his longtime role as Gundam's Bright Noah and had a main-hero turn as Go Shogun's Shingo Hojo. He'd go on to voice Mospeada's Yellow Belmont, Saint Seiya's Dragon Shiryuu, Galvion's Maya, Captain Tsubasa rival Koutarou, Olson in Orguss, and so many others; among today's fans outside Japan he might be best remembered for Rurouni Kenshin's Hajime Saitou (and had that show been done 10 years earlier, I'm convinced Suzuoki-san would have been cast as Sanosuke).
He rarely voiced the main character, but his sub-characters resonated...with me, and with at least a good few Japanese fans whose blogs I wandered through today. Many of those fans seem to consider the characters to have died with him, and muse about them being reunited with related characters voiced by two other major seiyuu who died way too young, Kaneto Shiozawa (2000, age 46) and You Inoue (2003, age 56)...but even now, that thought still makes me cry. How can Naoto be gone? Or Bright? Shiryuu? Yellow? Can there be a world without Haran Banjo?
After a day of watching episodes, listening to soundtracks and reading fans' tributes, though, I think something of those characters will always remain, tucked away in minds and memories all over the world. But it's sad that the future will be without Suzuoki-san himself. I'm grateful for all the enjoyment he brought, and for the fannish fire he lit.
