The Festival “TSUBURAYA CONVENTION 2019” by Tsuburaya Productions was held at Tokyo Dome City on Dec. 14-15, 2020. In the first day the voice actors Kimura Ryouhei, Morohoshi Sumire, and Tsuda Kenjirou went on a special stage of the anime “ULTRAMAN”, talking about their memories of the most famous scenes from Season 1 distributed on Netflix.
“ULTRAMAN” is originally a manga of the same name by SHIMIZU Eiichi and Shimoguchi Tomohiro. All 13 episodes were streamed on Netflix from Apr. 2019, and a TV broadcast is scheduled to be released from Apr. 2020.
Amongst the enthusiasm from the mass of fans, three members of the cast made their appearance. Kimura (voice of Hayata Shinjirou) smiled saying “It is an important work as it originated from Motion Comic, so I am very glad to be part of the anime adaptation, TV broadcast, and its future developments”.
Regarding an episode at the dubbing site, Morohoshi (voice of Sayama Rena) said she recorded alone most of the time due to her academic studies, also commenting with a smile “The only time I was able to join the others was at the Rena live, where the other cast members played their role with great enthusiasm and passion, and often chattered in the back. It was like doing a real live”.
During the production, the release of “Hoshi no Kakera (Star Fragment)” was also announced, adding her comment “It was really fun to sing, I think it's a great song! Please listen to it!”.
Tsuda (voice of Adad) made everyone laugh saying “I played my role in only two episodes, so I was so surprised when they called me in for the event…”, and then he commented about his character Adad; “To be honest, I thought he was a clownish character, that is hard to understand. But then I was able to play him however I want, and I really enjoyed it”.
During the production of the famous scene of ULTRAMAN and SEVEN, Tsuda commented on the action scene of Adad; “I like when Adad avoids every attack by jumping, it was really cool”. Kimura replied to that saying “I see! Looks like the useless actions are the most necessary!”.
Regarding Shinjirou and Rena's last bittersweet scene, Kimura said “When Rena called me “Hayata-kun”, I realized once again that my father was Hayata Shin”. After a moment of hesitation, Morohoshi in the role of Rena showed a perfect combination calling him “Hayata-kun”.
During the quiz session of the production, when Kimura mentioned the name of a great fan of Ultraman series Han Megumi (voice of Hokuto Seiji/ACE), replying to a fans' question “About the live-action, I would like to hear the opinion of “Fan Megumi”, the voice actress made a surprise appearance from the audience.
She was joining the event as a spectator since the opening ceremony, but surprisingly she went on stage as a guest. While apologizing “I'm sorry for being a huge fan…”, she accomplished her role of giving accurate answers to the quiz.
The staff who was not able to join the event received a video letter. Some members of the OLDCODEX, the rock band in charge of making the theme song for the next installment on Netflix and TV broadcast, gave their comments about the musical composition; “Since I felt like the production was a big challenge in an international environment, I thought our music, as Japan anime's theme song, should be on top of it” (by Ta_2); “I tried to be calm and relaxed, but after all I love Ultraman so much ever since I was a child… Keep up your high expectations for this great movie!” (by YORKE.).
Eguchi Takuya, the voice of Moroboshi Dan, gave his comment as well. Enjoying the news of the original live-action short PV and the production of the SEVEN suit, he expressed great expectations and desire of wearing it; “Ryouhei-san is wearing the ULTRAMAN suit, isn't he? I wonder how I'd look like with my suit!”.
During the media photo session, ULTRAMAN and SEVEN suits made their unexpected appearance. Loud enthusiastic shouts came from the audience, while Kimura on the stage and Han who was returning to her seat among the fans, took out their phones, paying no heed to their public figure.
Finally, the event ended with the regular Call and Response “We are Ultraman!”.
After the event, a farewell party was held where the fans, eyes glimmering with shine, gave high-fives and touched the ULTRAMAN and SEVEN suits.
