On the final day of C3HK 2017, Iida Riho and Endō Yurika from the web anime short series Kaiju Girls made an appearance on stage performing the ED to Kaiju Girls, followed by a back stage interview. Here’s how it went.
Q1. Have the two of you watched any of the Ultraman series before? What do you feel about the characters you portray?
Iida: Having only sisters at home, I only watched Magical (mahou tsukai) animes. However, after growing up and especially for the Kaiju Girls project, I went to watch a live show and was thoroughly moved, I discovered that Ultraman live shows can be so intriguing. Whether you’re an adult or a child you’ll still be able to enjoy, if in the future I have kids of my own, I would want to bring them out to enjoy the shows too.
Iida: Agira appears to be a cold character who shows little emotions, expressions and aspirations. It is difficult to portray a character with so little feelings, but as the story progresses and Agira grows, I wish to continue guiding and portraying this character to audiences.
Endō: Ultraman Tiga was on air when I young. The trend back then was specialized stores that sold bishoujo anime shoes for girls, but as a kid I would always as pester my mother for Ultraman Tiga shoes. Since I was still young at that age, it was particularly significant to me, I only remember liking its passionate story.
Nowadays Iida and I go to Ultraman live shows together, it really feels as if adults too can immerse and enjoy the Ultraman universe. Additionally, I’ve also started watching Ultraman Orb, since I feel that I share some sort of fate with Ultraman, I will start exploring other Ultraman works.
Endō: I portray the character Windom who is usually seen as a serious megane girl, but is actually a a fujoshi and a hikkikomori. She’s the type of character that gets flustered when talking about the fujoshi part of her life, like many otakus. It has been a pleasure voicing a character with so many different perspective.
Q2: Did the two of you make any special preparations for C3HK 2017?
Iida: Although we sang the OP and ED of Kaiju Girls, we have yet to perform the songs live in public in Japan. This first performance means a lot to us, so we prepared a lot in order to perform the song live for the first time in Hong Kong along with choreographed dances.
Endō:It is the same for me, performing live in Hong Kong a song that hasn’t been performed live in Japan yet is very nerve wrecking already. Also, I’ve never been in a situation where I had to dance and sing before, to get prepared the dance for Kaiju Girl, we rewatched the anime many many times.
Q3: Following up on the previous question, how much time did the two of you spend rehearsing?
Iida: We pretty much haven’t rehearsed together on stage, but we have practiced in our own time, before the event we also spent a lot of time rehearsing. After some time it became a huge rehearsal including the supervising animator, managers and other staffs.
Reporter: How do you feel about HK Fan’s passion?
Iida: Because the ED was only released in Japan, (I) wasn’t sure sure how Hong Kong audiences will react, but after realizing today that many people know the song has lifted my worries. The atmosphere was great event, it didn’t feel like the first live performance of the song.
Endō: Everyone was really good at the wotagei as well!
Iida: It was really moving, (I) feel like there could be more of these events in the future.
Q4: Just now at the stage event, some fans even brought their children, has this happened before?
Both: I don’t think so
Iida: At normal voice actor events, no one brings children with them, maybe because this time there is Kaiju Girls and Ultraman shows, parents bring children along with them.
Endō: This is what makes Kaiju Girls so special.
Iida: I will work hard so that parents will bring their children to normal voice actor events.
Q5: Last night you both shared on Twitter pictures of the two of you in Mong Kong, did you try anything special?
Endō: We had juice.
Reporter: What kind of juice did you get?
Iida: We went to a place with the word 山 in it (許留山 – Hui Lau Shan)
Reporter: What flavors did you get?
Endō: I got a mango and coconut juice with jelly in it.
Iida: I got an aloe mango juice.
Reporter: Did the two of you run in to anything interesting?
Endō: A lot, there were a lot of people performing on the street, very different from Japan..
Iida: It was like a festival.
▼11th February, Iida Riho and Endō Yurika in Mong Kok
Q6: Were there any interesting incidents during the recording for the Kaiju Girls?
Both: Interesting Incidents…
Iida: All 12 episodes for the show was recording in one go, because all the characters are girls, the studio was filled with girls.
Endō: The studio was like a girls club, it was incredibly lively. Also since each episode is only 5 minutes, there are a lot of jump cuts, so during the recording every one was following the rhythm of the scene, I felt that recording with everyone in such a rhythm was incredibly fun.
Q7: The Kaiju Girl ED is originally performed by three, was there any changes made for just 2 performing the song?
Endō: Because Suzuki Aina isn’t here, we both shared her parts of the song.
Iida: Since this is the first time the song is performed the dance part only incorporates us two, so we are looking forward to how others feel about it.