This interview was performed at Otakon 2024. Uchida Aya is a Japanese voice actor, well-known for enjoying the character Minami Kotori in Love Dwell! College Idol Challenge.
Lots of my questions shall be Love Dwell!–associated as a result of I’m a fan, however coincidentally, I used to be in Tokyo final December, and I visited the Love Dwell! cafe.
Uchida: Ahhh!
I simply occurred to take a seat at a desk you autographed.
Uchida: In Akihabara!
I used to be questioning, for my very own curiosity, do you bear in mind whenever you visited to signal the desk?
Uchida: I feel it was December!
Love Dwell! Is now a worldwide phenomenon; individuals realize it all over the place. However I do know it was a lot much less standard at first. How did you get began in Love Dwell!?
Earlier than I used to be on Love Dwell!, I obtained my first common function on an anime challenge, and the music director advised me that his subsequent challenge was one thing known as Love Dwell! That’s how I obtained into it.
What was it like whenever you first began, and at what level did you understand it was beginning to get large?
Uchida: Love Dwell! was a really new creation, so there was numerous motivation throughout the time. And personally, I like anime and in addition idols, and the truth that each these issues are core to this challenge made me very excited. This made me wish to actually wish to take the lead and produce it to the subsequent stage, and make this work much more enjoyable. Because it gained extra recognition amongst followers, and as I noticed an increasing number of individuals had been listening to the songs, it made me really feel very, very completely happy. However as a result of it began very small, I really feel like I grew with this challenge, and that makes it extra particular.
Talking of progress, that’s one thing I additionally observed. I first grew to become a fan of Love Dwell! by the anime, and after I regarded on the prior materials—all of the music performances and recordings and such—I observed that you simply and the opposite members of μ’s had grown quite a bit as performers. In what methods do you suppose your efficiency as Kotori, in performing but additionally singing and dancing, had advanced over time?
Uchida: I’m not so positive about my abilities enhancing…I used to be at all times aiming to turn out to be a voice actor and didn’t essentially wish to be an idol, standing in entrance of a crowd smiling and dancing. I didn’t have any intention of doing it professionally, and it was one thing I needed to get used to and was hesitant about within the very starting.
In some unspecified time in the future within the center, we began doing extra dwell performances, and it was a problem. However as a result of the opposite members had been there and we had been a workforce, we taught one another issues—dancing, working towards, and so on.,—and steadily, we acquired these abilities and obtained higher. I’m glad I had buddies in the identical boat with me who I might attempt with and enhance with collectively.
So that you’ve carried out many songs with the others, together with with Hanayo’s voice, Kubo Yurika. Certainly one of your songs, “Suki desu ga, Suki desu ka?” Did the ’70s really feel of the music change the way you two approached it?
Uchida: It’s been fairly some time, so give me a second! So it’s a music that includes our characters, Koizumi Hanayo and Minami Kotori, and it was a duet of a sort we had by no means completed earlier than, so it was very enjoyable. Hanayo-chan’s voice has a really “howaaah” fluffy and cute really feel, and Kotori is a really cute character herself. So I used to be assured it could be a cute music.
Thanks for this interview!
Postscript
Two days after I interviewed Uchida, I managed to get an autograph from her. As she signed my copy of Love Dwell! The College Idol Film, she truly acknowledged me from the interview. I level this out as a result of I’ve had circumstances the place the friends don’t acknowledge me regardless of having spoken to them, and it made me understand that Uchida is certainly a professional at this, be it by her expertise as Kotori or in her voice performing profession. I left with an much more constructive impression of her.
