After the sudden ending of the P.S. genki radio show, I was just holding my breath til some big news came out. It was either going to be a sudden illness or a scandal, and frankly I'm relieved it turned out to be the latter.
Cheating is terrible, yes, but...it is happening everywhere. Don't be naive. Not just in "celebrity world" but yes, in our very own "real world." I can't count how many friends, relatives, coworkers, and their extended circles have been cheated on/the cheater. Did all of them get shamed publicly and lose their jobs over it? No, cuz it's part of their PERSONAL lives. They just kept going to work as usual while dealing with this very *personal* matter on their own *personal* time. This is not a case of murder, violence, r***, etc....it's fuckin cheating, guys. The parties involved will figure out how to proceed with their lives. It is their business. It will be okay.
Not saying I'm not annoyed that it was done rather...boldly, on the radio show or on their trips for the DVDs. I wasn't even a regular listener but the times I did tune in or watch their travels, I was kinda like...HMM this is unusual for a female staff to be so...forward...like, so present...? I remember on Hinocchi and Tachi's kunitori show, their female staff person was there, but she kindaaa kept as low profile as possible and just did her job or answered if they reached out to her. Anyways, it is annoying if the show was/became sort of a vehicle for this affair, but it still has nothing to do with how I feel about his work.
Oh and I'm not buying this, "she didn't know he was married" talk. PLEASE lol. If I dated someone for 10 years, I think it'd get suspicious if we could never go over to his place, or spend major holidays together, or meet his family with me as his significant other. Gimme a break y'all.
I feel a little rambly now but I guess what made me wanna write this was all the comments on Twitter and here on tumblr. A lot feel similarly as I do, but I also saw a lot of comments calling for his roles to be changed, or things on the lines of, "how can I listen to his voice again when it makes me think of what happened," etc....but it's like...CHILL. He's NOT *your* husband!! The one who should be feeling butt hurt enough to not be able to stand his voice is his wife or the mistress. If you don't wanna support people you don't like, then sure go ahead. But I know if I had to go through and check every actor, artist, etc to see if any of them have ever cheated (and let's not even get into more serious offenses like violence, drugs, etc!), then I'd probably have nothing left to watch or listen to.
Anyways. Let me try to bottom line this. I'm just annoyed hearing about people wanting to outcast and recast Sakurai. He is a talented seiyuu. He went through a scandal before in the 2000s, but that was actually related to his actual work, for which he left the spotlight, "repented", etc. Quietly. FOR YEARS. And now this happens in 2022 and here's all this social media to blow it up. I'm pretty annoyed at all the "cancelling" going on in general with other celebrities/personalities, but in this case, such love life issues have nothing to do with these seiyuu's work. Probably just on him as a husband, but that's something that has nothing to do with me or his fans. And it's happened with Noburin , Tattsun... and more I'm sure but these were the only blowups that I was paying attention to as they happened and...yeah it annoyed me. Anyways, it's crazy. Rant over.
One thing’s for sure. That is Sakurai’s 2nd major scandal that I know of. Honestly it’s not even that bad, all things considering. Other seiyuu have gotten away with worse, way worse. Not that I am defending him but I don’t see him losing his career over this personal issue. From what I can see he didn’t harass anyone, break any contract, infringe any copyright (unlike his first major scandal), he didn’t break NDA either.
The dude was never a paragon of virtue in the first place anyway. He was already very controversial like 10-15 years ago. Back then he had been sued and had to pay hefty damages for plagiarism. In fact, that scandal almost literally killed his career. He was cut off from much of his voice and acting jobs. The stakes for him were much much higher.
Moreover It has always been obvious that he was married no matter how much he kept everything under wraps. And that wasn’t anyone’s business even then, either.
This recent revelation is ultimately a matter of privacy. He had reasons for keeping his marriage and ofc his affair private, no matter how practical and fckd up they were. Plus he and his lover seemed to have already broken it off. Now his messed up marriage will be under more public scrutiny. His wife will be stalked as well. I think that’s the more yikes part.
Remember, Kenjiro Tsuda was forced to reveal his own marriage. Kamiyan was forced to reveal he had a family and then publicly apologize when tabloids snapped pictures of him with his kid. Mamo dealt with absurd levels of fan hate when he announced his wife giving birth. Asanuma Shintaro got flak for announcing that he was divorced. OnoKen and Hanazawa Kana were stalked outside the apartment that they secretly lived in together and were also pushed into public apology. Tattsun was relentlessly asked questions while on the street about his affair (tho that was bigger coz he broke NDA). NamiDai’s shtty scandal was found out by tabloids stalking him in love hotels too. NobuRin’s affair was revealed by tabloids in the same manner as well.
Those tabloids digging sht up on celebrities using invasive measures is big business and we're all still buying it.
The idol culture that surrounds seiyuus punishes them when they fall in love/get married/have children/get divorced. Yet it is because of this systemic secrecy that infidelity issues are allowed to run rampant as well. Ofc you'll get all sorts of actors that will take advantage of their reality in ways more than one. This recent scandal is another proof of their fckd up world.
I wish these actors were allowed to deal with their own private sht.
Many many happy returns of the day! It's the birthday of my most favorite seiyuu and my current obsession, Nobuhiko Okamoto ❤
I came to know him when I noticed that many of the anime characters I love share the same voice actor which is him! (Although is the other way around now lol, Nobu voicing a character is enough for me to like that character 😆)
When I started to watch seiyuu events & radio translations later, I saw some of his clips which made me love him as a person too!
He voiced many of my favorite characters like:
Mikorin
Bakugou
Obi
Nishinoya
Usui
Rin
Shin-Ah
Karma
And many more actually. (But Tumblr has its limits so..)
He is so sweet & cool and very hardworking. I can feel that he really cares about his fans & always tries his best to make them happy. His singing voice is also really cute ❤ And I have a feeling he is becoming more beautiful & charming day by day 😍
I love his voice so crazily to the extent that I keep squealing & gasping whenever I hear his voice & replaying if he says some cool lines. (I have a feeling I sound like a per...weirdo 😅) I even love his angry voice like Bakugou or silent & cutesy voice like Shin-Ah & his singing voice too!
I feel kinda terrible that I can't wish him directly. (I wish I could him a lot of chocolates as present!). But I wish him more success & happiness in the future! I will be supporting you always!