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I've watched most of Tonari no Seki-kun, and all I can hear from his voice
actor are grunts and groans, and a few other occasional sounds of panic or
excitement.

Why does this _require_ a voice actor at all?

I mention this because, in Non Non Biyori, the only male character didn't have
any sounds associated with him.

Am I perhaps conflating the two character types together (one with an obvious
role, and another with an obvious non-role)?


CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-04-28T03:11:34.677
9150
2014-05-03T03:06:28.963
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question
voice-acting tonari-no-seki-kun
Why does Seki-kun need a voice actor?


Well, _somebody_ has to do the grunting.

It may sound like I'm joking, but I'm really not. I don't know if canned
grunts or grunt SFX packages exist, but I don't think the producers would want
to use them - Seki has to grunt in a number of different ways and in a number
of different contexts, and when you get down to it, Seki's grunts can really
be quite emotive.

You could, in principle, have Seki be completely soundless, but that would be
unrealistic - unlike the dude from Non Non Biyori, he does interact with the
other characters to a substantive degree, and if he didn't make a single
noise, it would be kind of weird.

For illustrative purposes, I have compiled a collection of Seki grunts and
related noises from episodes 1 and 2 (<http://vocaroo.com/i/s0PuflktAAbw>; do
forgive the shoddy editing). I hope you will agree that this stunning
performance on Shimono Hiro's part is reason enough to have a voice actor for
Seki. For an even better illustration, watch episode 16 from roughly 4:20
until the ending credits (the part where Yokoi is messing with him) - he
vocalizes a _lot_ there.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-04-28T03:48:45.687
9151
2014-05-03T03:06:28.963
2014-05-03T03:06:28.963
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answer