Megumi Hayashibara

"Because of the fast pace of the industry, it’s common to fill voice actors’ schedules with as much work as possible, get them up on stage, and build up all the buzz you can. That’ll make you feel like you’re an absolutely essential individual, but in just three years all that could change. I don’t want companies to go chasing after small yet quick and easy profits, but they don’t really have any intention of developing voice actors long-term."

"Anime in the ‘90s was overflowing with ambition…Anime [today] which are trying to be similar to previous hits can never be better than the originals. Going forward, I want to be part of projects that aren’t trying to be ‘like’ something that came before."

"Rather than to make a living, hmmm. Whether I could become a voice actress or not, is was too uncertain, and I thought the possibility that I could become a voice actress was very small. I was familiar with the work of nurses from my childhood because of my family business, so I decided to become a nurse. But I happened to find a magazine Debut, and from that moment all of the things worked well and I thought perhaps I really could become a voice actress."

"Eventually, the success of our job depends on fans' support, and I want them to take a long time before they evaluate our performances. I think fans will feel our enthusiasm and I want to live up to their expectations."

"As far as I'm concerned, I don't really care much about it. Then what's the best performance? I think I should just do 120% of what I can do now and I believe that what needs to be done will come when it needs to be done. In other words, I think, " Now, eight years later, there must be a point to doing this." In the first place, the work itself is like a twisted time and space, like there is no time at all. And since we are voice actors, we only need to use our mental faculties and a little bit of our physical voice. It's not good to be too proud, but I tried not to think about the eight years."

"Maybe I’m just dense, but I didn’t even realize that a boom was happening. I might have felt like it was a boom if it was as natural as how you’d see certain products every time you stopped by the convenience store – not seeing watermelons only in the summer, but something that would always be on the shelves throughout the seasons. Discounting the anime shops, you’d rarely get to see anime songs on display in HMV or Tower Records. It felt like [anime was] being given the cold shoulder. Anime songs are too much of a niche genre which means that the CDs are in the same way, only sold in niche retailers. People who liked me were embarrassed about it, telling me that “I can’t openly admit that I like you” – with that kind of situation, I couldn’t really feel that there was a boom at all."

"It may have brought positivity in terms of the effect on the economy, but for every boom there will be a bust. However, nobody expects the bust to happen. Before it does go bust though, another boom will come along. Booms are only good when you observe them from afar. You’ll only be hurt if you get caught in its midst."