The TV anime " Ace of Diamond Ace actII -Second Season-," based on Yuji Terajima's popular baseball manga "Ace of Diamond Ace," is currently airing on TV Tokyo and other networks. This sequel comes approximately six years after the previous series, which aired from April 2019 to March 2020, and depicts the summer of the second year for the protagonist, Eijun Sawamura, who wears the ace number for the Seidou High School baseball team. We spoke with Ryota Osaka , the voice actor who has played Eijun Sawamura since the first season of " Ace of Diamond " which started in 2013, about his thoughts on the series.
◇ "I was confident I could continue" - "Sawamura's muscles" revived through rehabilitation
" Ace of Diamond" began serialization in "Weekly Shonen Magazine" (Kodansha) in 2006, and its sequel, "Ace of Diamond actII," was serialized in the same magazine from 2015 to 2022. The story follows the protagonist, Eijun Sawamura, as he enrolls in Seidou High School, a prestigious high school baseball team, and aims for the top of the national high school baseball championship with Kazuya Kazuya Miyuki, Satoru Furuya, Haruichi Kominato, and others in the baseball club. The first season of the TV anime aired from October 2013 to March 2015, the second season from April 2015 to March 2016, and "actII" aired from April 2019 to March 2020.
This long-awaited sequel comes six years after the previous installment. Osaki himself seemed deeply moved, saying, "It's finally here."
"However, I was confident that I could make a sequel to this work, so all I had to do was wait for the right time. I never thought that I might not be able to make a sequel, and that period ended up being six years."
The production of the sequel anime was announced as a surprise at a streaming event in May 2024, and he recalls, "I was really happy. It was a complete surprise to us, so I was truly shocked. I remember somehow managing to hold back my tears."
Eijun Sawamura, played by Osaki, is a second-year high school student and left-handed pitcher who was entrusted with the ace number from the summer tournament onwards. He is characterized by his fierce fighting spirit and passionate mentality, and is the mood maker of the Seido baseball team. He also has a particularly loud voice compared to the other members. For Osaki, this is "the character I have played the longest," and he has a deep attachment to the role.
When asked how he felt about recording after a long break, he revealed, "It was a personal issue. I was worried about whether my voice would hold up. That was the only thing."
"Honestly, in the first and second episodes, I felt like I hadn't quite gotten the hang of my voice yet. I got the OK, but I remember thinking, 'I should be able to do more,' and 'This isn't it.' In the first episode, I had a long monologue, but it came out really well during the test. I thought, 'I don't need any more rehabilitation,' but then my voice cracked terribly during the actual recording. I thought, 'Oh no, I'm getting old after all.' In the second episode, there wasn't such a long monologue, so I was able to speak more comfortably, but in the third episode, I suddenly thought, 'Ah, this is it,' and I was finally able to use the parts of my voice I had been using all along. So, in the third episode, my rehabilitation was finally over. The first and second episodes were frustrating for me."
When he grasped something in the third episode, he also felt, "Ah, he's not withered yet." Sawamura has many scenes where he shouts, and since the character requires him to use his voice a lot, he said that in the past, when there was a gap between recordings, he would "rehabilitate by shouting unnecessarily loudly in the car on the way home from work." This time too, rehabilitation was necessary to revive the "Sawamura muscles" in his throat.
"Compared to my other roles, Sawamura's screams are different. There are times when I scream similarly, but not all of them are like that, so it's unique even to me."
◇Playing Sawamura is "all fun"
Osaki stated that playing Sawamura is "fun in every way," adding, "I'm so happy and excited to be able to play Sawamura, and I really feel that joy when I get to play him again." What he has valued most in playing Sawamura since the first season of "Ace of Diamond" is his "straightforwardness."
"He's not the type to overthink things. He's a character who says what he thinks, so I value that. I try not to overthink things and just take what he says at face value and respond accordingly. Of course, there are some differences between what he thinks internally and what he expresses outwardly, so I do consider that, but basically, he's very straightforward and honest about his feelings. I myself have tried to honestly accept that and express it in a straightforward way."
He says that "nothing has changed in my acting style" even in the sequel.
"My way of expressing myself may have changed. I've accumulated experience and different ways of expressing myself through various works, so I think I might incorporate ways of expression that I wouldn't have thought of back then. My feelings haven't changed, but there might be some subtle changes in my phrasing and things like that."
◇It felt great to be back for recording after a long break! Everyone gave their all in this passionate recording session.
The anime series "Ace of Diamond " is Hiro Shimono for its star-studded voice cast, including Osaka, Nobunaga Shimazaki as Akira Furuya, Takahiro Sakurai Kazuya Miyuki Miyuki, Natsuki Hanae Hanae as Haruichi Kominato Kominato, and Hiro Shimono as Kenji Kawakami. Osaka smiled and said, "It felt great to be recording with all the voice actors together again after so long!"
"It's like nothing has changed since then. Some of the cast members who were in the original series have come back, so I was surprised and happy about that. In many ways, it brought back memories of the past, so it was easy to come back. Everyone brings the same feeling they had back then, plus what they've experienced since then, so it's really fun to work with them."
He said that the recording of background chatter was particularly memorable.
"In this show, there are a lot of background chatter during the matches. Sometimes I think they could just reuse it, but they record new background chatter to match the situation each time. And what's more, they don't record it after all the recording is done, but after Part A is finished. That means there's Part B to record next, so you'd think they'd want to slack off a bit, right? But everyone, including myself, gives it their all. They're all shouting really loudly. During the last recording, Mr. Kato (Ryo), who plays Coach Tahara of Ichidai Sanko, shouted so loudly during the background chatter that his voice was hoarse by the time of the actual recording for Part B. It made me really happy to see how much effort they were putting into it. I was reminded once again that there's nothing happier than being the lead in such a production."
Osaki says that the appeal of Seidou High School's baseball team lies in their "teamwork." It seems that the recording studio for "Ace of Diamond" is also a passionate environment where everyone gives their all.
The highly anticipated sequel is said to feature visuals that evoke both nostalgia and a sense of freshness.
"When I saw the pre-production footage, I could really feel the atmosphere of that time, and I could also see the significant changes in animation expression. Some people will feel nostalgic, while others will think, 'I've never seen this kind of expression before.' I hope those who have been watching the series up until now will continue to enjoy it, and I think it's a work that even those who haven't seen the previous series can enjoy. For those starting from here, it's available for streaming, so you can go back and catch up little by little. I hope everyone can enjoy it at their own pace."
I want to enjoy the passionate summer battles of Eijun Sawamura and the Seidou High School baseball team. (Shiroinu/MANTANWEB)
*The character "崎" in Nobunaga Shimazaki's name is correctly written with the "tatsu" radical.
