A Requiem for Char: The Red Comet of My Youth is a memoir written by Shūchi Ikeda and published in 2007 in which he speaks about his time as a voice actor and how playing Char Aznable changed his life. It is not available in English and to my knowledge has no fan translation, so as a side project, I have been reading through the book myself and summarizing some of the interesting things I’ve come across.
All information is from the book, and therefore Ikeda himself. Any time I interject with additional information or my own thoughts is otherwise noted.
The following is a summary of Chapter 1 – Steps to Becoming an Actor
Shūichi Ikeda was born on December 2, 1949 in Numabukuro in Nakano Ward, Tokyo. Growing up in the years after World War II, Ikeda recalls that although the scars of the war still remained here and there, the entire country was filled with an upwards surging momentum that could be described as “hope after a long period of suffering”.
In 1958, he was invited by a friend to join Komadori Theater Company (劇団こまどり). Founded in 1948, it was a prestigious children’s theater company that later produced many famous actors, including familiar names like Maaya Sakamoto, Daisuke Namikawa, and Ikeda’s wife, Sakiko Tamagawa. He passed the entrance exam and started his career as an actor at only eight years old.
Along with movies, radio had a large presence in popular entertainment in those days. The first experience that Ikeda and the other child actors had was with radio dramas, broadcast on NHK radio. In elementary school, it was his daily routine to go to the NHK studio after school. There he co-starred with popular talents of the time.
In a funny side note, Ikeda recalls fond memories of the bento lunches they had at the studio. The rank of the bento changed depending on the rank of the actor with whom he was working. One particular instance he noted was how when the famous Musei Tokugawa starred in a lead role, lunch was eel bento, a rare delicacy back then.
As time went on, TV dramas became more popular, and Ikeda was offered his first role on television only three months after he joined Komadori. It was a simple role – a child crying in the corner in the background of a shot – but he remembers it fondly as a memorable first step into the world of acting.
In his junior high days, Ikeda starred in Gashintare (がしんたれ), a TV adaptation of the autobiography of playwright Kazuo Kikuta, and the movie Robō no Ishi (路傍の石, “Roadside Stone”), two works that made him seriously consider the job of “actor” for the first time.
In this chapter, Ikeda also talks about his relationship with famed Japanese film actor Yūjirō Ishihara. The two met as co-stars on the TV drama Shi no Hakubutsushi – Chīsaki Tatakai (死の博物誌 – 小さき闘い, The Natural History of Death – A Small Battle). Ikeda says he was immediately struck by his aura the moment he entered the rehearsal room.
Ikeda recalls how on set, Ishihara jokingly addressed him as “Shū-sensei”, as a nod to the fact Ikeda was much more experienced with TV dramas, despite being much younger.
“Shū-sensei, you’re a junior high school student, but you’re more senior than me as a TV actor, aren’t you?”
In response, Ikeda replied,
“Well then, I’ll call you Yu-sensei. On TV, I may be the sensei, but if I appear in a movie with you, please be the sensei.”
Ikeda fondly remembers him as a star that never faded no matter how much time had passed. Sadly, Ishihara passed away July 17th, 1985, and he never got the chance to film on a movie set with him.
Ikeda: “Even now, I keep in mind the way of life as an actor that Yujiro-san taught me. And I still call out to him…as Yu-sensei.”
In the spring of 1964, Ikeda began his role as the star of Jiro Monogatari (次郎物語), a TV drama based on the novel of the same name. The story depicts Japan in the early Shōwa period as seen from the perspective of Jiro Honda, a boy of a former samurai family.
The show was a hit among viewers of all ages, and ended up running as a nationally broadcast drama for two years. However, due to the popularity, from that point forward in his childhood acting career, Ikeda was typecast as a similar character – or as he refers to it, the image of “Jiro Shonen”, “a boy in a kasuri kimono”.
Ikeda was around 24 or 25 years old when Kohei Miyauchi asked him if he would be interested in doing voice-over work. The role was in a one-shot overseas drama for NHK about a group of three train robbers. Ikeda remembers struggling to adjust, thinking it might not be the best fit after all.
Soon after he was offered a role in André Cayatte’s Mourir d’aimer as the dub voice for Bruno Pradal. At first he was hesitant, but accepted after finding out he would be alongside Tomoko Naraoka (dubbing Annie Girardot), whom he had worked with earlier in his career during his time as a child actor.
Ikeda recalls how this experience helped change his perspective on voice over work.
Ikeda: Rather than trying to match the voice of the actor on the screen or strictly matching the actual lip-syncing, I felt how the actor and director put together the character, and translated that atmosphere into Japanese-style acting.
After appearing as a voice actor in other overseas dramas, a new opportunity arose. The person who approached him was Kazuya Tatekabe, of Doraemon fame. The two became friends and often went drinking with their fellow co-stars after work.
It was Tatekabe who introduced Ikeda to Noriyoshi Matsuura, who worked as an editor and sound director on various anime. Through some gentle persuading, he convinced Ikeda to give anime a try (while drunk, he admits), specifically the character Radik in Invincible Steel Man Daitarn 3.
However, Ikeda found the speed of the process and inability to preview the material beforehand (like he was used to with film voice overs) overwhelming. He remembers thinking, “this is my first and last anime”.
Despite this, Matsuura convinced him to give one more audition a try, with the promise they could go for drinks afterwards. Ikeda agreed, though wasn’t enthusiastic about it.
…That audition was for the role of Amuro Ray in the upcoming anime Mobile Suit Gundam.