Working!!’s Weaker Izaya

I’m watching the first season of Working!! in preparation for the upcoming sequel, and as I look at the character Souma Hiroomi, I can’t help but think of Durarara!!’s Orihara Izaya. As a matter of fact, I’m wondering if Kamiya Hiroshi’s performance as that manipulative bastard landed him the role in Working (which started during Durarara’s second cour).

The primary similarity between these characters is that both have extensive information on everyone in the story and use this knowledge to their advantage, often by way of exploiting others’ misfortune. That’s a pretty definitive connection, considering that Souma is from a comedy wherein each character has just one or two defining traits. Not to mention they’re both voiced by Kamiya Hiroshi (and both of their shows have two exclamation points, but that’s far less relevant here!!) (Aside: If they make a second season of Durarara, I’ll kill someone if they call it Durarara’!!)

2010 Acadime Awards: Best Actor in a Supporting Role

These days, there seems to be a lack of great male supporting characters in anime. The average series tends to feature far more girls than guys, and the men are usually either the main character or the main character’s sidekick. The only shows that have a significant number of male characters and actors tend to be aimed at women, such as Hetalia or Kuroshitsuji (neither of which I watched, by the way). Still, there was at least one excellent anime of 2010 that brought forward a slew of great male supporting roles.

(There were originally more nominees for this category, but the only ones I ended up writing about were the ones from Durarara!!)

The Bakemonogatari/Durarara Kamiya Sister Phenomenon

Just a quick post on another funny seiyuu connection I noticed.

Kamiya Hiroshi plays the voices of Araragi Koyomi in Bakemonogatari and Orihara Izaya in Durarara!!

Araragi Karen

Throughout Bakemonogatari, Araragi’s two middle-school sisters make several appearances, though they don’t end up doing much (being major characters in the later novels).

Araragi Tsukihi

The new Durarara!! OVA introduced Izaya’s twin younger sisters who likewise haven’t had much screentime yet, but are also major characters later in the novels.

Orihara Mairu

I thought it was interesting that both Kamiya Hiroshi characters had two younger sisters. Doesn’t seem like a strong connection? In both shows, the more energetic sister is played by Kitamura Eri and wears a hooded yellow jacket, while the younger/introverted sister wears green.

Orihara Kururi

More Info On the Acadime Awards (And the Preliminary Award for Best Magnificent Douchebag)

The response to my Acadime Awards announcement has been overwhelmingly positive, and a number of volunteers have already come forth. I’m excited to see how this’ll turn out, however, I think there’s been some confusion as to how this all works and what part you can do to help, so I decided to present a preliminary award to show what it’ll be like.

Art by 0123456789 http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=0123456789

Digiboy's Character Database of Love – 1. Orihara Izaya & 2. Kuhouin Murasaki

Twice in the past, I’ve blogged extensive lists of my top 100 favorite anime characters, and I’ve regretted the decision to set that 100 limit for a while; partly because a favorite character list is bound to transform every time I finish a show, and also because I love a lot more than 100 characters.

For eight months now, I’ve seen Chii of Oishii Anime run her ‘365 Days of Anime Characters‘ series, which is very admirable, even if I wouldn’t personally want to talk about characters that I dislike alongside those I love. I’ve also been jealous of Glothelegend’s character page on Eye Sedso, wherein he selects his favorite character from every anime that he’s watched and talks about them.

I can’t do what either of them have done, because I only want to talk about my favorite characters, and I want to do more than one per show. Of course, a post series like this would get boring if I didn’t liven it up and innovate somehow, so I hope you’ll enjoy the formula I’ve come up with for these posts. I’m setting them to go up once a week, indefinitely.

Each post will contain two characters selected randomly off the top of my head. The numbers are just for archiving purposes. If you don’t know the character, you can click on their names to get some basic information.

1. Orihara Izaya – Durarara!!