'It Synced With My Own Reserved Side': Voice Actor Makoto Furukawa on the Different Ways He Builds a Character [TV Anime 'The Oblivious Saint Can't Contain Her Power' Interview]

The TV anime The Oblivious Saint Can't Contain Her Power began broadcasting and streaming on June 30.

The series is a TV anime adaptation of the original novel, which won the Encouragement Award at the 2nd Earth Star Novel Award and has sold over two million copies. The story begins when the heroine, Carolina, who feels inferior to her accomplished older sister Flora, accepts a political marriage to Edward, the second prince of the Empire of Malcosias. As she settles into her new environment and comes to realize that she is needed by Edward and the people around her, Carolina gradually breaks free of her inferiority complex and grows as a person.

In this article, we share part of an interview with voice actor Makoto Furukawa, who plays Prince Edward Ruby Martinez, about how he approached building the character by drawing on what he has in common with Edward.

— Even from a male perspective, Edward is a very likable character. He's the leader of the "Blazing Phoenix Corps" and excels in battle, yet he becomes awkward the moment he's in front of Carolina — there's a real humanity to that.

Furukawa: Broadly speaking, I think people's first impression of Edward is that he's a dependable hero-type character, but he's also written with a very human kind of immaturity, which I personally find appealing. A character who can do everything, is strong, cool, and reliable just isn't that interesting, right?

— True, that kind of character can end up being hard to relate to.

Furukawa: Edward is described in some pretty ominous terms — words like "ruthless" show up in his official character profile — but he doesn't know how to act around women, and he doesn't know how to bring up important topics.

He's probably failed at this again and again, to the point where he's convinced himself that if he speaks up, he'll just frighten the other person — he gets caught in that vicious cycle. He's genuinely, humanly immature, right down to that.

The way he moves instinctively to help Carolina looks very dependable, but once he realizes how much she means to him, he freezes up the moment he's actually in front of her (laughs). Looking at it objectively, I think that lopsided gap is something viewers will love too, and the way he gets so bashful makes you just want to cheer him on: "You can do it! You can do it!"

— At the heart of the story is Carolina meeting Edward and the people of the Empire of Malcosias, and gradually gaining confidence and growing as a result.

Furukawa: I think Edward is able to grow precisely because he's walking that path alongside Carolina. I really get the sense that the two of them are going to keep growing into fine adults together.