What an anime voice actor taught me about visibility, boldness, & becoming

I recently went down a myanimelist.net rabbit hole. The link is active, so if you’re curious, you can see for yourself, but in short, it’s a site where users track their anime watchlists, and, for that day’s particular rabbit hole plunge, serves like a voice actor’s IMDb, just on a weeaboo site.

So I’m sitting there, bbq sauce on my titties, when I stumble across Haikyuu. A volleyball sports anime, and, side note, I do recommend you watch. 8/10. The only thing missing is the 2 main characters kissing, which is why I docked the 2 points, but I digress.

The main character, Hinata Shouyou, is voiced by Murase, Ayumu. Ok, nothing crazy here. Just a voice actor. Cool.

I took a look at his bio on the site: DOB, December 14th. And if you know this anime and astrology, a Sagittarius voice acting Hinata’s character just makes sense.

My eyes keep scanning the info, when all of a sudden, “Oh, they can list their own personal websites. That’s cool.”

In hindsight, that makes sense. I expected to see home headshots, maybe his agent’s contact information, some film credits listed.

WELL, GUESS WHAT ELSE WE GOT? A pure treasure trove of his sexy voice. Voice samples of his work outside of the context of my friend’s Crunchyroll subscription that he lets me use. His voice, and his voice alone.

Are you fucking me right now?

Majestic. Hot. Didn’t know I needed it. Like Lexapro.

There’s the stark contrast of his voice going from young adult male to a seductive… WOMAN? AGAIN, he’s a voice actor, so this isn’t a shock to me. But at that moment, I hacked the mainframe. I was discovering something untouched by humanity, and I was placing the government of Michala’s flag right in the middle of this golden planet.

I’m randomly clicking voice titles of kanji and hiragana, because I can’t read a lick of this, but that didn’t stop my aggressive clicks because it feels like I just found something I shouldn’t have had.

And after my internal fanfare, I felt a moment of vulnerability. I thought, “This is accessible to anyone. ANYONE can just listen to this, right now.”

I’ve worked with photographers and creatives where it’s customary to send over work with a custom password. Or, at the very least, a private URL, that’s invite-only. But 歩’s (Ayumu’s) website isn’t just accessible to prospective clients, but the entire world. Even a non-native overseas. Which is the concept of the World Wide Web… I get it. Let me revel in my moment.

This made me do a double take. Yes, I have creatives who have their portfolio websites public. So, this isn’t new knowledge to me. But something about this was different.

Dr. Joe Dispenza says we see things not as THEY are, but as WE are. I have various sayings swirling through my brain at any given time, and this is one of them. So what could this moment be teaching me?

Fortune favors the bold is a saying we’ve all heard. But to expand on that, maybe fortune doesn’t favor just the BOLD, but the repetition of it, and its presentation. Thus the formula becomes:

Fortune/Success = Repetition + Boldness + Presentation

This is what advertisers understand fundamentally. The more often you see something, the more we equate that to trust.

During a speech course during college, my professor at the time mentioned that if you have the power to give a speech with any amount of control, perhaps as to determine the location of the speech to a familiar spot, or even checking out the location of the speech beforehand, do so, to lessen any anxiety’s chokehold.

Even though logically, we know that McDonald’s is NOT healthy, we’re more likely to trust McDonald’s than another, perhaps equally standing, fast food joint that we’ve never heard of. The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t, as the saying goes.

I understand boldness to be without remorse, a force that is fierce, loud. Like making an unwavering claim. Without deciding, you cannot be bold, because no choice has been made. At best, you’re ambiguous. What brand do you know that hasn’t made clear choices? You don’t. Not one that’s still around, anyway. Because in a world perceived to be chaotic and messy, people seek clarity, certainty, choice.

And lastly, presentation. Simply to mean that without visibility, you cannot be rewarded, or harmed. But in the case of developing a name for yourself, bad publicity is good publicity. And no publicity? Well, fortune cannot favor the dead. Your brand is alive based upon the love of the audience, and the presence of the brand’s star: you.

(Unless you’re one of the assholes who benefit from an artist’s death over their life, in which case, get some help, and we aren’t talking about you.)

I guess I’m chewing on my own contemplations, as you are, too, hopefully, more often than not. And hopefully you’re the needle moving the thread in said instance, rather than merely being a material prodded and pocked.

To be seen is… I was going to say, a tricky subject. But maybe it’s not. What if it’s easier than I think? What if the THINKING of it is tricky, but the actualization of it is easy? What if the thoughts that preclude you to [insert new thing here] are the tricky thing, and the thing itself is easy! And come to find out, the thoughts are false advertisements. But you see that ad over and over again, and it builds trust. It becomes you.

And I’ve had instances like this, tried and true. Where I dreaded an event, an obligation, a job. Then I show up… and it’s literally chill. What is that mechanism?

We’ve learned that the victor writes the history books. And that truth applies elsewhere. To you. The narrator of your life (the victor) writes your story. Your story is none other than a transcript of your life. A daily annotation of microactions.

Simply put… whatever mechanism you allow to WIN, will directly correlate to the life you live. And whether you love your life, hate your life, or numb in the grayscale in between, is directly dependent on who YOU crowned, king or queen.

I mean come on, it’s in the word. HIStory. His-story. HER-story. And no, I’m not referring to Michael Jackson’s album.

YOUR-story is told by the essence of the spirit you crowned.

I said earlier that coming across 歩’s (Ayumu’s) voiceovers felt like stumbling across something, “I shouldn’t have had,” because to be seen… whew, well, comes with a lot of responsibility. Which, I don’t think many people would associate that-to-that.

To me, being seen means you need to do your best. You put your best foot forward, not for show, but because that’s who you are. You dress your best not for admiration’s sake, but because you never know WHO you will inspire. You embody yourself authentically so that you may give authorization for others to live audaciously in accordance to who they are.

See, you’re not always going to be inspiring to others because they want to be in the same profession as you, or because they want the same aesthetic you demonstrate in your style, but because the passion of authentic alignment to who The Creator crafted in excellence is something that is felt, but the conscious mind may falsely attribute this fervor to something it can only witness in the physical. Kinda like when we fall in love, the conscious mind gives reason to believe it’s because of the other person, or because that person was [insert character trait here], but no. We were in love with love itself.

So, tying this back to sexy 歩’s (Ayumu’s) voice. There was something in that kernel moment that gave way to excitement, and it’s because he was embodied. Could it also be because I’m an artist, and he is an artist, that there was a fellowship there, certainly.

But beyond the recognized, there’s an essence of truth here. I can hear it in the voice. And though he jumped from various voices, the truth that stirs remains consistent, even if the pitch changes.

If within the fortune formula requires more than boldness, to me this moment encapsulates the essence of presentation. To be seen as all that you can be.

And for newcomers in any field, if you don’t show up to be seen because you aren’t sure of who you are, you won’t know who you may be. If you don’t show up because you aren’t yet fully crafted, you must believe then, that a baby is a failure, for they take nearly a year plus to even walk, much less speak basic phrases.

Don’t let a liar be crowned your victor. He writes faulty checks! Perfectionism is a fucking liar. Divorce him! Now!

It takes years to become. Or maybe days, or weeks, the time isn’t so much the point. Instead, show up SO THAT you may become. Without knowing yourself yet, you will know who you are when you arrive.