7 Kaiwai: The Diverse World of Voice Actor Casting｜Seven Neighborhoods

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🎙️ The Secret World of Voice Actor “Seven Neighborhoods(Kaiwai)” in 2024! 🌟

The word “界隈(Kaiwai)” was among the top ten new words and phrases for 2024, but did you know that “Kaiwai(Neighborhoods)” exists within the Seiyu industry? I did not understand it until a few years ago.
After about seven years of diving into the world of voice-over casting, I have learned from experience that there is a “Kaiwai(Neighborhoods)” within the voice-over industry.
That is, the voice acting industry is divided into “Kaiwai(Neighborhoods),” according to the faculties of the voice actors, and the structure is diverse and complex.
And while the “Kaiwai(Neighborhoods)” of Seiyu industry is in a state of flux, we have learned that there are people who are active in each of these fields as their main battleground.

In this article, we would like to divide the voice-over industry into 7 Kaiwai(Neighborhoods) and write about the various aspects of each field, the challenges that voice-over actors face, and the room for future development.
Join us on this journey through the intricate world of Japanese voice acting, where talent, passion, and industry dynamics intersect in fascinating ways.

1.Anime Kaiwai: Popular Voice Actors with Outstanding Name Recognition

Voice actors active in the animation industry are often regarded as top voice actors. Many of the voice actors whose names are probably mentioned by many voice-over fans have achieved high recognition among fans and established themselves in the industry by playing major characters in popular anime productions.

These voice actors have many opportunities to show their faces not only in animated films but also in TV programs and online programs. Recently, due to the popularity of the voice acting industry, there are also programs dedicated to voice actors on video distribution services such as ABEMA.
For example, special programs such as ” 28 Hours of Seiyu TV ” bring popular voice actors together for karaoke stages and talk shows, etc. The ” ABEMA Anime Festival ” held in September 2024 featured many popular voice actors, including Shugo Nakamura, Yu Hayashi , Takuya Sato, and Aya Uchida . These events provide an opportunity for voice actors to interact directly with fans and further increase their popularity.
In addition, variety shows featuring voice actors, such as ” Seiyu ni Marunage! is also on the rise. In these programs, popular voice actors such as Shota Aoi, Kaito Ishikawa, Nobuhiko Okamoto, and Shun Horie show their fullest efforts to have fun.
With the growth of video distribution services such as YouTube, Nico Nico Channel, and ABEMA, many such voice actor-specific programs have sprung up, serving to convey the personalities and appeal of these voice actors to a wider audience. This is how some voice actors have become celebrities.

It was only a few years ago that the TV industry began to pay attention to and cast voice actors in a big way as a result of this boom in the voice acting industry. My impression is that voice actor shows, which until then were mostly web-based, have also seen a dramatic increase in TV exposure since around 2019.

There has been the biggest increase in variety shows, and more and more voice actors have appeared in dramas, movies, and other activities.
Some of them have become well known even among viewers who are not fans of voice actors.
Some of them, such as Mamoru Miyano, Kenjiro Tsuda, Subaru Kimura, and Tomoko Kaneda, are recognized as artists, actors, or TV personalities without being known as voice actors to those who are not familiar with the voice acting industry.
The media presence of many voice actors has broadened the frontiers of recognition of the voice acting industry.

2.Gaiga Kaiwai(In the foreign film industry): dubbing for foreign films and working in consumer games

There are also voice actors active in fields other than animation. One of them is the “Gaiga Kaiwai”.
Voice actors with high acting ability and expressiveness play an important role in dubbing for foreign films (movies from countries other than Japan) and as voice actors for consumer games. In these fields, experienced and technically skilled voice actors are valued because they must be able to appropriately express the emotions and situations of the characters.
However, with humans dubbing humans and playing more human-like characters, the phenomenon of overlapping the personalities of characters and voice actors seems to be less common than in the animation field.
There are also those who focus on voice acting and do not engage in media exposure.
This is not to say that they are completely differentiated from the anime world, as I mentioned earlier.
Those who became fans of voice actors through anime should definitely pay attention to the works of voice actors in this field as well.
Conversely, if the approach is taken incorrectly,