Hourou Musuko is the story of a boy who wishes he were a girl and a girl who wishes she were a boy and the cascade of drama and gender confusion surrounding themselves and their friends. It’s safe to say that I’ve never seen a gender-bender nearly as good, nor as effective and in many ways relatable. Knowing all that, this should’ve been obvious.
Horie Yui...?!
When I first saw the cast for Hourou Musuko, I thought “Nakai Kazuya? Fujiwara Keiji? What’re they doing here?” I then pondered something similar about Horie Yui and Toyosaki Aki, whom I know best as cutely-voiced and energetic characters that wouldn’t feel right in what I consider a very mellow story.
I should’ve realized how this fits the theme of going against type. Nakai Kazuya is best known for his deep, growling, badass voice given to the likes of Roronoa Zoro and Date Masamune. Here, he voices a cheerful and friendly homeroom teacher in a pitch that sounds like he might be holding his nose to achieve. Fujiwara Keiji—whose tendency to play very similar roles I’ve pointed out before—has gone against type a little more often than Nakai with his frequent inclusion in kids’ shows. He’s doing it here as well, playing a cool and relaxed guy who’s normal and not a ridiculous badass.
Toyosaki Aki...?!
Horie and Toyosaki—neither of whom I would’ve recognized without the aid of MAL—are even more deliberately against type. Horie plays Suehiro Anna, a somewhat dark, silent, and deeply-voiced friend of Maho’s. Toyosaki is Shirai Momoko, who’s the type that never really seems to be in a good mood, trying to keep up with her overly bombastic friend.
I don’t know enough about any of the other seiyuu in the show to determine whether the trend continues to all of them, but with these examples, I think it’s rather clear that those seiyuu are fitting the theme of the show by playing unusual characters.
My Sword Is Unbelievably Dull 
Really, Toyosaki Aki? That IS surprising.
On the other hand, Chiba Saeko as Sarashina is downright typical.
I looked at her roles and it seemed like they were too all over the place for me to say either way. But maybe the joke is that she’s this crazy cross-dressing/under-dressing girl, when in the past she’s played A. A guy who has to pretend to be a girl in Shugo Chara, and B. A woman who shares her body with a man’s soul in Birdy the Mighty Decode (just covering the two I’ve seen).
And Sakamoto Mio in Strike Witches 1, can’t forget that. HA! HA! HA!
Eh?! Her voice changed between seasons?! Wry?!
Simple scheduling conflict, I think… Seto Saori did a fantastic job for s2, and it was her first starring role too, so I don’t mind.
It’d been too long since I saw S1, so I didn’t notice.
Actually, nevermind that it had been a long time since watching it and at that time I didn’t “hear” Japanese—I watched the whole show with music playing over it (show sound still on, but music playing over, since I’d felt bad about having Kanokon with no sound at all). God I failed in my early days…
If you hear his natural voice, he had a tone of genkiness and high pitch :)
It’d be difficult to say whether the rest of the cast goes against type since most of them are either getting their first role, their first big role, or only have a handful of roles to compare. Nitori and Tatsuki both have completely new, somewhat younger (Nitori’s is 14; Tatsuki’s is 17) seiyuu. Makoto’s seiyuu has also only had bit roles. I don’t know enough about Sasa and Chiba’s other roles but I know they both are awesome singers. Nanjou Yoshino who plays Sasa is the lead singer of fripside from the Railgun OPs. Also she played Oosawa Maria in Canaan and Akechi Kokoro in Milky Holmes, the latter of which is definitely not Sasa’s type. Nanri Yuuka as Chiba is my favorite character but unfortunately I don’t know many of her roles to compare and I don’t remember what Ichijou from School Rumble or Shishidou Nami from SoreKake Girl sounded like.
Chib, Sasa, and Anna are my favorite characters. They should form a singing group. Never mind that Yuuka is in a league of her own.
Thanks for the tips~ I’ve only seen the first 2 eps of Sora Kake Girl but what I recall of that character is surprisingly similar to Chiba. Very hard-ass young girl.
She also played Henrietta in Gunslinger Girl, who’s neither similar nor entirely dissimilar.