Tomokazu Seki, the Voice Actor of Yzak Joule, Visited GUNDAM Café TOKYO! A Report of the Special Talk Program Held on November 1st

A special talk program was held on Sunday, November 1st, at the experience-based entertainment restaurant GUNDAM Café TOKYO BRAND CORE (GUNDAM Café TOKYO).

In the talk show segment of the special program, MC Yuma Aoki and Tomokazu Seki, voice actor of Yzak Joule from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED appeared as guests.
It was Seki’s first visit to the newly renovated GUNDAM Café TOKYO, and he explained that the new cafe was full of hidden possibilities after experiencing the goods corner in Zeon’s Diner. Also, after taking part in the interactive dinner show, he commented that it was “ground-breaking”, and “not just a regular dinner show”. Yuma Aoki proceeded to ask the question “What about a program in which Yzak cooks a meal?”, Seki answered, “Oh, Yzak always cooks. He’s not the type to eat out”, which cracked the audience up.

The next topic was the Mobile Suit Gundam SEED anime series.
When Seki took on the role of Yzak, the director told him “He’s the worst of the worst, but you should do your best”. Seki did do his best to play an evil character, but as the series progressed, he started to think “Is Yzak really as bad as they say he is…?”.
Seki also gave us an inside story on the finale of SEED DESTINY. He had heard that Yzak was initially meant to die, but his voice acting had gained popularity and thanks to that, he was able to make it to the very end. He solemnly added, “I’m glad Yzak was able to survive, but that means I wasn’t able to portray him as I had originally intended. To me, that was something I had to reflect on, and not something I have a lot of pride in telling.”

Next was the segment “Hearing Yzak’s Voice!”. Yzak fans were over the moon as Seki said a few phrases, which were met with a huge round of applause.
The intonation of “k” sounds in Yzak’s dialogue is talked about among his fans, to which Seki replied, “Urakami, the sound director at the time was very particular about acting, so maintaining realism was something that I really focused on. That’s why I might not have considered how I was pronouncing certain words.”
Not only that, the quote “Kawashita!? ("He avoided that!?" in the Japanese version of Gundam SEED)” came up. Seki admitted, “I rewatched episode 11 over and over again but I definitely said it properly at the time of recording”, and the audience erupted with laughter.

Lastly was the Q&A segment where the audience has the opportunity to ask questions. One of them was “What would Yzak cook as his first meal?” to which Seki answered, “I think he’d boil a pack of noodles in milk and make carbonara noodles. He would then have Dearka taste test it and make Athrun eat it”. It was an answer nobody was expecting, and with that, the talk show came to a close.