Since Chainsaw Man’s anime debut final month, the parents behind the hotly anticipated adaptation have greater than delivered on the anime group’s boast of it being “peak fiction” with its bombastic motion, attractive story, and exquisite animation. Talking to Kotaku over Zoom, Ryan Colt Levy, Chainsaw Man’s English voice actor for important character Denji, revealed that the function got here naturally to him due to the similarities between his lived experiences and Denji’s struggles to seek out success and dwell comfortably.
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Chainsaw Man is a pulp-fiction-esque manga by Tatsuki Fujimoto. The story follows Denji, down-and-out and residing in poverty, who survives by taking odd jobs from the native yakuza to kill devils alongside his lovable half-dog, half-chainsaw companion, Pochita. After a near-death incident, Denji and Pochita fuse, reworking Denji into the highly effective Chainsaw Man. Whereas Denji’s preliminary motivation is actually solely eager to “contact some boobs,” his simplistic aspirations step by step develop as he navigates by way of the bonkers world as Chainsaw Man.
Levy discovered Chainsaw Man’s story so particular all these years in the past as a result of he associated to Denji a lot. A part of what made Denji so emotionally resonant to Levy was that he additionally struggled whereas working shitty jobs he didn’t get pleasure from. For the final 4 years, throughout which he tried to seek out work as a voiceover actor, Levy described his residing scenario as a “survival shack.”
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“I used to be like, ‘I simply have to discover a place the place I can dwell and afford to dwell cheaply and try to determine this out.’ I discovered this little storage unit that was like a makeshift studio that didn’t also have a actual kitchen,” Levy mentioned.
Levy’s “survival shack” would usually flood and for 3 years, he had to commute to his job via bike after someone destroyed his car. To make issues worse, Levy’s longtime screamo band additionally cut up up throughout this time, and he’d been laid off from his job as an operations private assistant at a cease movement studio. Regardless of the Denji-like hardships, Levy mentioned he feels most related to the character due to their shared, steadfast optimism that higher days are at all times forward.
“I believe that I perceive his easy needs simply as a lot as his advanced ones. Lots of people sort of write him off as a easy character, and I believe he’s extremely layered,” Levy mentioned. “The truth that he comes from really nothing makes him so fascinatingly totally different from the normal shonen protagonist and I believe it’s why I like him a lot. He’s an outsider.”
“The factor that Denji is that lots of people perhaps don’t consider immediately is he’s very tender, he’s very loving, and that he has a fantastic depth to him that’s nice. He simply doesn’t know tips on how to categorical it as a result of he doesn’t have the schooling and the lexicon of language,” Levy mentioned. It doesn’t imply he’s not deep, it simply means he doesn’t know tips on how to let it out. And I believe it’s proven essentially the most in his moments with Pochita.”
This revelation influenced Levy’s “dangerous” resolution to play his audition extra sensitively as a substitute of sounding cool and brash. The audition scene was from the primary episode of Chainsaw Man, the place Denji provides his physique to the satan if he ought to meet his premature demise. On the coronary heart of it, Denji was having a heart-to-heart together with his pup, and Levy acknowledged this. Come September of final yr, Levy received the function.
Learn Extra: Anime Voice Appearing Whereas Black: Overcoming Hate Whereas Residing The Dream
Denji’s life as an outsider inside CSM’s world pertains to Levy’s personal expertise as an individual of colour within the anime voice-over business. Once I interviewed him for My Hero Academia: World Heroes Mission final yr, Levy mentioned portraying Rody Soul was essential to him not simply because it was a distinguished function in one in all right now’s hottest shonen anime, however as a result of it allowed him to characterize his heritage as an Iraqi-American actor.
“To have the ability to characterize an underrepresented heritage on this manner is so cool. I hope that it’s going to open up extra doorways for thus many gifted individuals who deserve an opportunity and have one thing to say and share and I hope this business is prepared to pay attention extra,” Levy mentioned.
The anime business is a notoriously powerful area for individuals of colour. Black voice actors like MHA’s Zeno Robinson and Anairis Quiñones handled on-line harassment after being forged in distinguished roles. That harassment could be attributed to a number of causes: the business’s custom of casting white actors in distinguished roles whereas individuals of colour are allotted to facet characters, and the misguided mindset from followers that solely white actors can play fairer-skinned anime characters–as if whiteness is the liberating absence of race whereas all others are restricted and outlined by theirs.
Fortunately, the overwhelmingly optimistic reception and assist to the English CSM voice forged on Twitter helps Levy keep a optimistic outlook on the business at massive. On days when it’s tougher to be on-line, particularly on Twitter, Levy mentioned it’s essential that he and different voice actors attempting to navigate the business keep in mind that social media “isn’t essentially the actual world.”
“I try to maintain my coronary heart protected by reminding myself that that is the leisure business. And, as a lot as we wish it to be this idyllic place the place we are able to simply be artists and all hug one another, I put that [positive] vitality out as a result of I would like that to be the vitality we domesticate,” Levy mentioned. “However I do know that it’s additionally not what everyone needs or is attempting to take action try to preserve a few of it for my very own soul as effectively.”