"Please, let me be a Seiyuu!" E-Book

Olivia D. Knight

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Samuel Johnathan Evans. A grand-sounding name, right? Nevertheless, the boy behind the name isn’t all that spectacular. In truth, Sam is a nerd, but not just any nerd. While his siblings are busy watching the latest episode of School Rumble, he’s imagining bigger things for himself. Instead of just watching anime, he wants to be in anime, and the only way he’s going to do that is to get accepted into Newberry Fine Arts Academy. Sam may want to fulfill his dream, but he soon finds out that ‘easy’ will never describe his journey. Battling amnesia, mending a broken girl’s heart, and dealing with personal problems are only the start. That, and controlling his fake American accent. From recruiters and teachers, to rivals and meddling family members, Sam just keeps repeating his desperate plea: “Please, let me be a Seiyuu!”

Leseprobe

Olivia D. Knight

"Please, let me be a Seiyuu!"

For my older brother; stay classyBookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Preface

This story, or rather, this first volume of a larger, more elaborate story, was the result of my insane ramblings. Inane as that sounds, it is the truth.

Because, if you analyze the specific tropes included within this work, you might stumble across the vague realization that this, is in fact, a satire. Throughout this so-called story, it should become apparent that this is an affectionate parody of not only otaku, but anime and moé subculture as a whole.

I have found, from being an otaku of many subjects and interests, that as a whole we are a scorned people. Regarded as creepy, unsociable, and mentally unstable, we have become social pariahs that are continually afraid to show our true nature to the world around us. Some of my friends, including myself, are closet otaku who wish to be free of the stigma that comes with the title.

For, as I have noticed, once someone becomes affiliated with liking anime, we are shuffled into three distinct categories: The first, and most hated, are the weeaboos; whose incessant assertions about Japan and improper use of their dignified language have stained the image of American otaku as a whole. The second are the fujoshi/fudanshi.

Their love of yuri and/or yaoi have somewhat distanced many from anime, due to their nonstop promotion of certain pairings. That is not to say we should stop them, for they are free to do whatever they will. It simply is that not everyone’s interests coincide with theirs, and after a while, their actions mimic that of the weeaboo, if they aren’t careful.

The last group, and the most infuriating to deal with if someone claims to be a part of it, are the “Hardcore Otaku”. What is most striking about this group is their somewhat elitist mindset. That, as a whole, “subs are always better than dubs” and that no one loves anime/manga as much as they do. The only difference between them and the weeaboo class are that they actually are very knowledgeable about Japan and its culture.

That being said, what of the others? The otaku who, despite being pigeonholed into these three categories, just want to enjoy anime and manga, and forget politics?

They are left in despair.

Ever since we began labeling people as “hardcore otaku” and “weeaboos”, we have become the people we hated the most. For the most part these days, in America we wear the word “otaku” with a little pride. Yet, we forget the original connotation, don’t we?

That is why I wrote this book: to prove a point.

At first it seems like out main characters’ unusual amount of fortune is the result of poor writing/plot. But it is entirely intentional. By the second volume I hope to clarify the missing incidents I decided not to include in this book.

If, by the end, you have learned the lesson, then I will be satisfied with that thought alone.

 .butterflies

In his mind there were two voices, and they always opposed each other no matter what. For every decision he made, both voices would go through what he called ‘a masochist’s pas de deux[1]’, where one would build him up emotionally just to tear him down.

He could hear the opposing criticisms go through their mirrored steps, each unravelling this point and that point, merely leaving him, the poor, misguided listener, in an unusually paralyzing despair. Because of this fact, amongst many others, Samuel Johnathan Evans should have been renamed Samuel ‘indecisive’ Evans.

The young man never liked his middle name, anyway, but the point was that it would take him ages to try and choose a new one if he could. It always was an agonizing wait to stand behind him in the lunch line, if anything. When he was in ninth grade, someone even tried to punch his face in for taking too long to decide on a snack from the lunchroom vending machine. That was only one of the many instances his wavering heart caused him trouble.      

Nevertheless, if we were discussing the Samuel from three years previously, he was not like that in the least.

Sam looked up at the sky. His ears were filled with the tolling of several bell towers. Filtering through the ringing he could make out the wailing of sirens as it tried to push past the muffled shouts and screams of confusion.

He remembered running into the crosswalk, the man in white had been flashing on the signal across the street. Several other people passed him, but the only person he could see in the sparse crowd was his father chasing after him, a smirk on his face.

It was only a few seconds of safety within the 2-dimentional ladder of bars on the street, but that time was cut in half by a high-pitched squeak.

‘That sound…’

It sliced through the air; everyone was frozen by it where they stood, either from shock or from fear. Some were quick enough to move out of the way, but right in the middle of them, one person was still frozen, still immobile.

“Sam!”

He had heard the voice of his father gurgle through the hazy, ringing audio of the slow-mo cutscene happening around them. Except, this was not the cutscene of a video game, despite the dark similarities, and Sam was staring like a doe trapped in the middle of the highway.

A hand reached out to save him, but there wasn’t any time, and not enough space to even escape. An explosion of sound and force bombarded the crowd.

Two. Only two bodies flew. They bounced and crashed into the street, rolling around on the asphalt several times before stopping. Silent and still, these couple of broken and crushed forms on the ground lay unmoving, with little hope of survival.

There were a few others that the truck had smashed into, but the two, Sam and his father, had been right in the middle of the accident.

Blinking, disbelieving the event that just happened, Sam rasped in half a lungful of air. At the back of his throat there was a rising thickness. From the roof of his mouth, he could taste iron. He coughed, the space in his lungs filling with fluid.

On his body were several lacerations, but the deepest one was, oddly enough, near his right wrist. A bright band of blood encircled his wrist, and the liquid trailed from that wound along the ground all the way to his feet.

He wanted to move, but nothing was responding. It was like flying in a plane with iced over wings—everything was frozen. Grey leeched away all the color around him like bleach dissolving the dye from a load of dark clothes.

From the buildings, vehicles, and people surging upon them, everything melted into a dreary greyscale. Already, the events were beginning to fade away from his mind, and the gash at the side of his head was probably to blame.

“What?” he managed to wheeze out quietly. Sam’s eyes fluttered, the spots in his vision swirling around.  

In his dimming vision, against the bright blue of the sky he saw one dark shape float by: a single, quivering black butterfly.

 .red string of fate

Sam was still staring upwards with that blank, unknowing stare. The red blood on his wrist was no longer just a trail of red, but a cord of coiling crimson twine. It stretched across time and space, twirling in loops, winding around jungle gyms, and snaking through cities. He closed his eyes and simply forgot that bloodstained day. He forgot everything about his father. He forgot everything about himself.

      In the hospital, there was only him, the string, and the feeling that several puzzle pieces were missing. A shard of his heart was chipped off in the aftermath of the event that changed the scenery of his whole mental landscape.

      Even if he could remember, Sam was not the same, and he would probably never revert to his former personality. His former self was as different as red was from blue. It was what his father often used to call an ‘unfortunate eventuality’ that accompanied growing up. 

      Sam would not be able to even remember his father telling him that, so it didn’t really matter. But for the short time that Mr. Evans was able to counsel his son on important life events, he had never quite explained what would happen if Sam were to meet that person on the other end of that tangled red string of Fate.            

      Not that it would do him any good, even if he could recall.

Bryson fell out of bed and very nearly dented the floor when he landed. Grumbling and rubbing his side, he lifted his disheveled, unbathed body upright, using the side table as a support. As the piercing squeal that had roused him echoed through the house once more, Bryson scowled and stomped out of his room.                       

Prancing down the hallway like an energetic reindeer in blue camouflage pajamas, Sam let out another “squee!” of delight and proceeded to wiggle his arms and legs in the rhythmic motion called “dance”. As the blonde Brit broke out his best moves, his older brother squinted in bile fascination at this display of joy so early in the morning.

“What.” Bryson had never before seen his brother in this state. Dancing and squealing? Not once could he recall his brother doing either.

The kid had rhythm, though; he had to give him that.

“Hey now,” said Bryson. A few seconds ago when he woke up, the sunlight had temporarily blinded him. He rubbed his eyes and tried to blink away the spots in his vision. “You think you could celebrate a little later in the day?”  

It was summer vacation, and a Friday, no less.

Bryson had already switched over to Night Owl Mode, and every night was literally party after party, so he valued his sleep even more than life itself. Tonight he was going to L.A. for a party he had heard about on Satellite, the main topic of the latest social network craze in Southern California.

“Sorry, Bryce,” Samuel stopped his own little party to face his brother, “but this is too good for me not to be excited.” His baby-blue eyes were as wide and sparkly as two newly minted quarters.

“Well, what in the world is going on, then?” Scratching his fluffy brown mop of hair, Bryson raised his eyebrows and waited for an explanation.

 “It’s the news story of the millennia.” Samuel lifted up the very official-looking envelope. It was thick, and looked like it contained a booklet of some sort. The mail carrier always came early, at around 5AM every morning, and this had been the only piece to arrive for today.

So this was the letter, the letter that Samuel had been hoping for his entire freshman year was received with such a grand welcome that the casual passerby could have thought he had won the lottery.

His hands were trembling with excitement as he held it out to his brother, whose eyes were growing large and bug-like.

“Wait.” Bryson took the envelope from him and stared at the official seal of Newberry Fine Arts Academy stamped on the front in red. It had been his brother’s dream school ever since he learned it even existed. “Are you serious? This isn’t some joke or something?”

 “I opened the letter just a minute ago,” said Sam confidently, giving Bryson a thumbs up. “It’s 1000% real.”

Looking into his brother’s face, the older boy felt uneasy. Bryson held his forehead in disbelief as he read over the letter. Even if Sam wasn’t lying, Bryson had a bad feeling about this whole situation. He had never expected Sam to be accepted into the transfer program—even if they had attempted to bribe the whole board of directors.

Their mother was not home from her night shift yet, but Sam was tempted to run all the way to her office just to tell her the good news.  He had taken all those extra academic classes in his freshman year to allow for a freer schedule later, to pursue his artistic endeavors, and it looked like he was right to do so.

With her dirty blonde hair sticking up like a messy Mohawk, Wilhelmina walked through the threshold of the kitchen, yawning as large as a cat would.

A hand was in front of her mouth to shield them from her deadly morning breath.

“Anyone want to tell me why we’re up so early?” Puffs of dragon fire still managed to reach her two brothers, but they were too excited to be fazed by the noxious fumes.

“Wil, great news!” Bryson grabbed Sam around the shoulders with his left arm. “They accepted him!” Already Bryson had begun to ponder the numerous possibilities of what he could do with the soon-to-be-vacant bedroom. Maybe he could store things there? He imagined piles of magazines or DVDs stacked everywhere, with him sitting in the middle of the mess, playing videogames.

‘Yeah, this is going to be fun,’ Bryson thought, smiling dreamily.

Not that he didn’t like his brother. It was just…convenient that Sam would be away from them for quite some time.

Wilhelmina’s washed out, almost grey eyes welled up with tears. “Oniichan[2] is going to leave us?”

“Okay, one,” said Bryson, holding up a finger to count off the reasons why her ‘cute little sister’ act was getting old. “You are such a weeaboo, so stop using that term.”

“Two,” said Sam, mimicking Bryson, “you’re older than me, aren’t you?”

“And three,” Bryson smiled as if he was a male model on the runway, “we’ll see him for holiday, right?”

“Right.” Sam smiled, hugging Wilhelmina around the shoulder. He playfully poked her in the cheek with his finger, to which she responded with a tiny pout. “It’s not like I’ll be gone forever.”

Smiling, Sam walked back to his own bedroom while his siblings continued to fawn over the letter from Newberry Fine Arts. A letter he had to read over three times before the situation actually had sunk in. Content over his accomplishment, Sam fell back onto his bed and stared at the poster on the ceiling. He had many of them plastered all over his room walls, but this one was his absolute favourite.

A cute, dark-skinned blonde girl in a school uniform, holding a light blue cellphone—she appeared content in her happy little world, striking a pose and blushing.

“I did it, Yukari-chan,” said Sam. He turned over onto his left side, where a body pillow with the same girl from the poster was printed on the fabric. From her unchanging world, she smiled back at him. Sam hugged the pillow and closed his eyes. “I’m going to be in your world soon.”

He never expected to be late for the first day of school, but thinking back, Sam could rightly say there were many things that he did not expect. He did not expect to have amnesia, nor could he even remember not expecting it. He never expected he would love anime as much as he now did. Last, but most importantly, no matter how badly he had wanted to go there, Sam never expected to be accepted to Newberry Fine Arts Academy.

To think that it was a little less than three years ago, when he had first seen the commercials for the school.

A long jumble of blue and white cloth dangled around his popped up shirt collar. Fumbling with the light blue buttons on the front of his shirt, Sam jogged to the bus stop, noting with increasing alarm that the bus had already passed him on his left. With more than half a block to go, he did not think he had even a sliver of a chance.

There was something he never neglected to do in the morning, and that was to pick up his iPod from the charger, put in his earbuds, and play J-pop until he reached homeroom. However, the upbeat music was not helping his feet to move any faster than they were, despite all the scientific research put into such superfluous questions.  

‘Forget decorum,’ he thought, grinding his teeth.

Waving his arms and yelling “Don’t leave! Don’t leave!” at the top of his lungs seemed to help Samuel catch the eye of the bus driver from his right rearview mirror. He recognized the half-on half-off uniform of Newberry, and accurately deduced that this was a new student. Instead of passing by the empty stop completely, he gently pressed the brake pedal and eased to a very squeaky stop.

By the time Sam arrived at the opened bus door, he was panting and red in the face. As he stepped up the first two steps, Sam had to grip the railing so he wouldn’t fall backwards and off the bus.

“Th-thank you,” Sam spoke in between breaths, “for stopping.” He felt lightheaded from running, and his heartbeat thundered in his ears.

“Don’t mention it,” said the bus driver, who, once he saw the ruffled fellow walk onto his bus, had to contain his laughter.

Samuel sat in the closest empty seat he could find and calmed his breathing. Since Newberry Fine Arts was nearly 90 miles away from his home, he had coerced his mother into allowing him to live closer by. Of course, since he was only 16 (very soon to be 17), it had to be with a family friend or a close relative.

The person living closest to his new school was, unfortunately, his uncle, Sebastian Lewis.

Not that Uncle Sebastian was a bad influence…okay, maybe he was a terrible influence. Specifically, what Samuel’s mother did not approve of was her brother’s ‘lifestyle choice’, as she had decided to call it. That ‘lifestyle choice’ in question was that he owned and operated his own bar.

That, as one would imagine, did not help with his less-than-healthy little problem with drinking.

Penelope Evans did not want to nurse the thought of her precious son being exposed to the kind of crowd that accompanies copious amounts of alcohol. She was a mother after all, and worrying was what just came naturally to her. However, she remembered that Samuel was the most morally balanced of his siblings, and hoped to God that he would stay that way.

In any case, she threatened her younger brother with castration if any harm should ever come to her child.

Penelope Evans was a woman of her word, and that Sebastian knew firsthand. He still had the scars from when she had—well, that was a story that Sebastian would never speak of again...

Slightly embarrassed that had to fix himself up while on the bus, Samuel looked over his uniform once more, smoothing out the dark blue blazer as he wedged a lock of blond behind his ear. Brown loafers, no scuffs, check. Properly pressed khaki pants, check. The blazer was spotless, and his shirt was ironed and tucked in.

Excellent.

Everything was almost perfect for the first day of school. He was going to play a celebratory song, preferably one of the opening theme songs to his favourite anime, to complete the nearly perfect start to his day.  

Since Sam still had in his earbuds from earlier this morning, he was about to change the current song. Right now, after that cardio workout, the sweet, yet saddening euphony of Claris’[3] “Connect” was just what Sam craved, but when he glanced up from his iPod, his mind froze.

As the other students on the bus were, for the most part, also wearing the same uniform as he was, so Samuel did not truly notice nor acknowledge them. It wasn’t really in his nature, greeting strangers. However, when he looked up, his eyes were glued to the space across from him, wondering if there truly was such a thing as magic and miracles.

A girl who unmistakably wore the female version of Newberry’s uniform. A girl, who, without any definite facial expression, read from a white notebook with soot-colored butterflies on the cover. A girl, who, had a length of curling hair just as black as those insects on her notebook, and which extended further than he thought possible for a human in the real world.

On her left pinky finger was a silver ring adorned with a modestly sized ruby. The red gem glistened every time she shifted her light cinnamon fingers to turn a page.

That type of girl: a girl who was unreal yet real.

Before he could even think of talking to her, however, he was promptly disappointed. With the time he had spent getting himself looking decent, coupled with the time spent looking at this girl, several songs had already played without him really noticing.

It was only when the bus reached the front gate of Newberry Fine Arts that he noticed the catchy Korean lyrics of 4minute’s “Huh”, and snapped out of his reverie.

Clearly, Sam’s experience at this new school was going to be more exciting than he expected.

‘After all,’ thought Samuel to himself, ‘I think I know a main character when I see one.’

 “Good morning students,” said Dr. Hermenez listlessly, “I will be your vocal coach for this year.” He sighed as if he felt like there was something else he would rather be doing now. “Mrs. Enrich and I will be jointly teaching Voice Acting 101.”

“I hope we have a good year, students.” Mrs. Enrich said in a sweet, singsongy voice that belonged to an anime character. In any case, she was short when comparing her petite form to the tall stocky build of Dr. Hermenez. She had a small, round face, and large doe eyes that were the color of jade. Her youthful looks probably had captured many students’ hearts over the years, despite the platinum band around her ring finger.

Sam was wondering how she would look in the school’s uniform when he realized he was missing most of their welcoming speech. He pulled himself out of that latest embarrassing daydream and tried to seriously focus.

“Most of you, as we know, are not unfamiliar with N.F.A., but for those of you who arenew,” Dr. Hermenez surveyed the class, noting several unknown faces, “we’ve assigned a veteran student to assist you.”

Dr. Hermenez stroked his greying goatee like a sagacious monk. “However,” he raised his eyebrows, “we’re warning you now, newbies, they won’t be as kind as we are!”  He turned to Mrs. Enrich for any further comments. “Did we forget anything?”