I posted a summary of the talk contents some time back, and you can read it here. :)

The cast! I like the place they filmed the cast talk at – it has the old building kind of feel, which I think fits the VK theme. :) Hino-sensei was at there during the filming as well.

The cast talk came in the form of a quiz – “Who is the best vampire!?” with Hocchan (Horie Yui) as the MC. As mentioned earlier, you can read about the quiz here. The cast were split into 2 teams:

Love <3 Susumu Team

The team comprised of (left to right) Chiba Susumu, Fukuyama Jun and Miyano Mamoru. The “Love” part refers to FukuJun and Mamo, and the Susumu part naturally refers to Chiba-san. :)

Tooth . Weird . Beautiful Team

The team comprised of (left to right) Kishio Daisuke, Suwabe Junichi and Hoshi Souichirou. If you read the team name in Japanese, it sounds high Hi-vision. Their team name came about because both Kishio-san and Suwabe-san belong to Tokyo Actor’s Consumer’s Cooperative Society/東京俳優生活協同組合 （abbreviated as Haikyou/俳協）, while Hoshi-san belongs to Arts Vision.

Since there’s nothing really interesting to screencap, let’s just look at close-ups of the seiyuus instead. XD I’ve also added a short introduction for each of them.

Horie Yui (voice of Cross Yuuki)

Horie-san, also affectionately known as Hocchan (ほっちゃん),was the first seiyuu whose name I knew. She’s been cast in many of the anime that I’ve watched, and her memorable roles include: Honda Tohru (Fruits Basket), Tsukimiya Ayu (Kanon), Sawachika Eri (School Rumble) and Kusieda Minori (Toradora!). Hocchan is also a singer, and in addition to her own songs, has done quite a number of anime OPs and EDs. These include Scramble (School Rumble OP), Love Destiny (Sister Princess OP) and Vanilla Salt (Toradora! ED). She also covered For Fruits Basket, which was the OP for the Fruits Basket anime.

Miyano Mamoru (voice of Kiryuu Zero)

Miyano-san is also known as Mamo to his fans, and I’ve heard other seiyuus call him Mamo-chan as well. He is one of the top young seiyuus. He’s probably best known for his roles as Yagami Light (Death Note), Suoh Tamaki (Ouran High School Host Club), Rikuson Hakugen (Koutetsu Sangokushi) and Setsuna F Seiei (Mobile Suit Gundam 00). He won the best lead actor award in the 2nd Annual Seiyuu Awards in 2008 for the role of Setsuna F Seiei.

Mamo is also a singer, and some of the anime-related songs he has done include Kanau Nara (Suoh Tamaki character song , Ouran High School Host Club), Kuon (Koutetsu Sangokushi ED) and Tip-top shape (Kaji Aoi character song, La Corda D’Oro). He has also released his own album. Mamo sounds really nice when he sings slower songs, and Kanau Nara is my favourite song of his.

Kishio Daisuke (voice of Kuran Kaname)

Kishio-san is popular amongst females, and you’ve might have also heard him as Van Flyheight (ZOIDS), Yunoki Azuma (La Corda d’Oro) or Aono Tsukune (Rosario + Vampire). He was nominated for the award of “Best Actor in a Leading role” for his portrayal of Kuran Kaname in the 2nd Annual Seiyuu Awards in 2008 (the award eventually went to Mamo). Kishio-san is also a member of several seiyuu units, and you can hear him singing in Sweet Secret (Yunoki Azuma character song, La Corda D’Oro).

Chiba Susumu (voice of Ichijou Takuma)

Chiba-san is a graduate of the Economics department of Nihon University. His notable roles include Fujiwara-no-Sai (Hikaru no Go), Isao Kondou (Gin Tama) and Manager Muranishi (Kirarin Revolution). His roles tend to be that of handsome men or bishounen. Hear him singing in Kou no Tsuki (Fujiwara-no-Sai character song, Hikaru no Go).

Fukuyama Jun (voice of Aidou Hanabusa)

Also known as FukuJun or JunJun, he has taken on lead roles such as Lelouch Lamperouge (Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion), Shimizu Keiichi (Kin’iro no Corda) and Takishima Kei (Special A). He won the best lead actor award for playing Lelouch Lamperouge in the 1st Annual Seiyuu Awards in 2007, and the overseas fan award in the 3rd Annual Seiyuu Awards this year. You can watch him voice some characters in this clip.

FukuJun is not known for his singing, but you can hear him in Gorgeous 4U (Kei version, Special A OP).

Suwabe Junichi (voice of Kain Akatsuki)

Wikipedia doesn’t have much information about him, but his breakthrough arguably came from his role as Atobe Keigo from The Prince of Tennis. Suwabe-san has also voiced the leading roles such as Greed (Fullmetal Alchemist), Bonten (Amatsuki), and Maitake Kuniumi (Lovely Complex). He is also a member of various seiyuu groups. Listen to his singing in Moment (Suteki Tantei Labyrinth character song) and Crystallize (Monochrome Factor character song).

Hoshi Souichirou (voice of Shiki Senri)

Hoshi-san is definitely one of the popular male seiyuus out there, having been ranked highly in a number of seiyuu popularity polls. I’m not too familiar with Hoshi-san and his roles, but some of the lead roles he’s been cast in include Kira Yamato (Gundam Seed), Hanabishi Kaoru (Ai Yori Aoshi) and Oogami Makoto (Ghost Hound). He likes to greet people with “Pappi!” (he does it in the video and in track 2 of the Double Premia CD), and is thus sometimes referred to as Pappi-san to his fans. He’s sometimes represented by the star symbol [☆] when referred to on message boards, since hoshi means star in Japanese. You can hear him singing in Shining Tears (Shining Tears X Wind OP).

Enough of the seiyuus for now; To end off, here’s a cap of what I thought was the best answer for the quiz:

Q: The flawless Kaname-sama… if he had a weakness, what would it be?
A: A decayed tooth. (from Chiba-san)
I wonder what Hino-sensei thought of that. XD

OP (download; 55 caps total)

ED (download; 20 caps total)

You can download the special here. Screencaps continue below the cut (click to enlarge).

• http://fruits.rubberslug.com/gallery/master_query.asp?SeriesID=34593&Page=1
• http://kathpatty.rubberslug.com/gallery/master_query.asp?SeriesID=35597
• http://obsessed.rubberslug.com/gallery/master_query.asp?SeriesID=36376
• http://jenn.rubberslug.com/gallery/master_query.asp?SeriesID=36061

Ryko21 and Snoopy007 of JimakuHikaku have made caps of the subs released by different groups, and posted a comparison on their site.

Comparisons: VK, VK Guilty

I guess most people already have a particular group that they’re following, but maybe this will be helpful to those who want to check out the releases from other groups. For VK, I followed Shoku-dan’s subs, but for Guilty, I’m keeping the Shinsen-subs’ ones as I like their translations. I’ve seen a couple of episodes from Yuurisan, and they look pretty good to me as well. Shoku-dan hasn’t released new episodes in quite a while, but now that their old translator is back, I believe that the releases should continue soon. If I’m not mistaken, the first 2 or 3 episodes were translated by someone else, and not the person who translated for their first season releases. Has anyone watched subs from the other groups? How are those?