Chiaki Kobayashi takes on many roles that are beloved by anime fans, such as Mash in Mashle: Magic and Muscles and Gabimaru in Hell’s Paradise. At this year’s Anime Expo, Anime Trending had the great opportunity to interview the voice actor for the main role of Ragna in the Ragna Crimson anime starting September 30. Here’s what he had to say about acting and the experience mine.
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Thank you for today’s interview. You will be voicing Ragna from Ragna Crimson, a new anime coming out this fall. Can you introduce us to your character?
Chiaki Kobayashi: Ragna is a character who at first doesn’t have much confidence in himself. He has a kind of weak personality. He follows a female character named Leonica.
But one day, something happened and he got this ultimate power. Before he got the power, he wasn’t sure who could kill the dragon. And he wasn’t very confident in doing that. But when he got the power to do that, he found his mission and he truly changed from a boy who couldn’t kill dragons into an extremely powerful character who went everywhere and Destroy all types of dragons.
I would be delighted to see that on screen. You’ve had a busy year voicing many different characters in many different anime. How does Ragna stand out from all your other roles?
I think Ragna stands out from the rest because I think a lot of anime titles try to portray more of a gradual change. So a character will be trained or taught something or they learn different unique skills and techniques, then they become stronger and we [thấy] gradual change step by step. But that is not the case with Ragna.
But Ragna was a weak man, and then suddenly, in a split second, he gained ultimate power. He’s like the strongest person. So that’s one thing that sets Ragna apart. However, we see similar themes in isekai and the like. But I think the other thing that makes him unique is that even though he has this ultimate power, he still can’t have everything in the world that he wants. Some dragons were very, very strong so he couldn’t completely overpower them. He’s in trouble. And the other part is that he’s the main character but he doesn’t always seem very heroic.
The name of the anime is Ragna Crimson. Crimson is another character that resembles a partner [với Ragna]. They are really close friends and the story is about them fighting dragons. But in the end, he needed to kill Crimson. So that’s one thing that really sets them apart from other characters I’ve voiced before.
What was challenging when you voiced Ragna? What do you like most about him?
Ragna is a very difficult character to make because he has powers that come from the future. There are a lot of scenes where he has memories of things, but he never experienced those things. And so trying to channel that emotional energy into that experience was very difficult and challenging for me and it was something that I had obviously never experienced before, so I had nothing to draw from. go out.
And there is a character named Ultimatia. She is voiced by Reina Ueda and she is like a boss character. When I did scenes with her, there was a lot of screaming involved, so my body was under a lot of pressure. But there’s one thing I like about Ragna, and I know this sounds a bit stereotypical, but he fights to protect people, and he has that very genuine heroic side. That’s what I like about Ragna.
Thanks for your hard work. Can you describe the process from auditioning for the role of Ragna to knowing that you got the role?
So during the audition, I had the opportunity to actually go back to the manga, the source material, and I read some of it and had a lot of inspiration on how to approach the character. Things like the contrast between my weak self and my strong future self and trying to go back and forth between those two modes is something I’ve challenged myself and paid attention to and focused on.
We had a secondary audition where they brought us into the studio, and at first they said we were going to go over the audition material that we did initially. However, on that day, they changed everything for me and said, “Okay, here. We’ll do this instead.” It’s material that I’m not familiar with at all, but I think I can do everything naturally.
After I was lucky enough to get the role and arrived on set to record, we all worked passionately together trying to create the performance and how we wanted the character to sound. So it was a team effort. That’s how you do it.
Ragna
Ayumu Murase and Inori Minase are part of the cast announcement for Ragna Crimson. Have you worked with them before? What was it like working with them on this special series?
As for Minase-san, we have worked together many times before in various anime series.
Minase-san has portrayed many mature characters before, but the director’s request was to portray the contrast within the character, by starting from a childish tone, then switching to an adult tone. become when fighting. That’s something that’s really unique and that’s what Minase-san said is very unique in this anime.
For Murase-san, this was actually the first time we worked together. We’ve been in anime and voice acting together, but this was actually the first time we were in the booth together. We play together very, very well. We became very good friends after that. Let’s go drink coffee and talk. We talk about Ragna Crimson a lot. Even on our days off.
I think he is perfect for the role of Crimson because he has said that Crimson is a character where he has difficulty controlling what he wants to do vocally. And it’s almost like the character himself has taken over his personality, and it’s just how they do their thing and it happens automatically. Murase-san actually said that this was only the third time in his entire career – and he’s a much more experienced voice actor than I am – that he’s experienced something like position. “I can’t really control what I want to do,” he said. It just appears because of the character [Crimson] has taken root in my soul and has taken over my spirit.” I felt the same way when I watched him perform, so in that sense, I really think Crimson is a perfect role for Murase-san.
Thank you for that understanding. It’s really interesting and gratifying to know that you and Murase-san have also become good friends.
Crimson
What’s the best part about voicing Ragna?
This is similar to what I mentioned about Murase-san’s role in Crimson, where he felt like he really couldn’t control himself. Ragna is a character who receives many orders from Crimson. But there weren’t many times when he could actually carry out those orders, and he couldn’t really follow them. He was just carried away by his own desire to kill dragons and the like.
I felt the same way when performing Ragna, where I was also swept away by that kind of emotional energy, and I really lost control and got carried away like that. And that’s a really interesting thing, you know. Crimson is a control freak. They really like to control things. But Ragna is probably one of the only characters that can break that and fight that. Maybe Crimson might not like it, but that’s part of what I think makes Ragna such a unique character. That’s the part of the performance that I really like.
What do you want fans to look forward to the most when the anime comes out?
I think our fans can look forward to fight scenes. The anime has a lot of fight scenes. Very, very intense. Also, the art is so gorgeous. The art is very, very detailed and very strong and intense.
Additionally, the voice acting is also very, very intense. It will take a lot of effort. Even with the air conditioning on, we were still drenched in sweat during some of these sessions. There is a lot of passion and energy behind voice acting.
There’s also the writing staff, the sound design and everything, all those aspects. There is a lot of passion and a lot of strong energy being applied to this project. So I think, overall, you can enjoy all of that and I think that’s what fans can look forward to.
Ragna Crimson will air in the fall of 2023. Thanks to Chiaki Kobayashi and the entire production team for the opportunity.
