Yoshitsugu Matsuoka Reveals the Secrets of Summer Anime The World's Strongest Rearguard, and His Survival Tactics on a Recording Set Full of Women

The program also featured The Villager of Level 999, another highly anticipated summer anime of the July cour. The series follows Koji Kagami, a protagonist who—despite being a villager, considered the weakest of classes—has reached level 999, and the story unfolds from his encounter with Alice, the daughter of the Demon King.

After watching the preview clip, Hantaro Tenshin poked fun at himself: "Nao Toyama's lines were just too good. I muttered that I'd love to have Toyama say that line to me, and it came off a little creepy, didn't it? (laughs)" "A level 999 creep. (laughs)"

The studio then turned to the fact that Keishi Inomata, who plays Kagami, is a junior at the same agency as Matsuoka. Asked whether the two had any connection, Matsuoka confessed, "Not at the moment," and "I've got my A.T. Field fully up, myself." Nakamura appealed through the screen—"Yoshitsugu is like that at first. So everyone, we all have to melt him down from our side!"—drawing roars of laughter. The series is streaming free and exclusively every Wednesday at midnight, with episodes from the second onward available one week ahead of their terrestrial broadcast.

In the following segment, "My Anime Résumé," the show dug deep into the roots of Matsuoka's life as a voice actor. As the work that most powerfully drove him to aim for voice acting, he named Neon Genesis Evangelion, which he says stunned him when he borrowed the video from a friend in junior high school.

He spoke passionately about how, above all, the line delivered by Kaworu Nagisa (voiced by Akira Ishida) in episode 24, "The Beginning and the End, or 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door'"—"Singing is wonderful, isn't it? Singing…"—made him realize the power of acting and struck him to the core. He also shared an episode that fans will find irresistible: when he later told his idol Ishida directly, "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be here," Ishida shot back, "No way—you're just saying that for form's sake."

He also spoke enthusiastically about the performance of Nobuhiko Okamoto, who played Accelerator alongside him in his 2009 debut work, A Certain Scientific Railgun: "I was astonished when I heard he took an approach that mimicked the behavior of chickens." He revealed a rich behind-the-scenes tidbit as well—that the delinquent-role extras he performed with at the time included the likes of Kaito Ishikawa and Nobunaga Shimazaki, faces who are now active on the front lines of the industry.

In the middle of the show, the program gained exclusive access to the figure-production site for Magic Repo Man: Dumped by My Party, I'll Cash In With a Cute Support Fairy to Become the Strongest!, a new anime set to air in October. The coverage spanned an astonishing 180-plus days, revealing that at Kotobukiya—a long-established manufacturer founded 73 years ago—producing a single figure takes anywhere from a year and a half to two years.

The segment also revealed the thinking behind their craftsmanship: "We place importance on asking what it would be like if this character were actually standing right in front of us." The professional-level attention to detail—using 3D software to build the figure in the nude, right down to the toes, before layering on clothing and shoes—drew gasps of amazement in the studio. The show also captured a color-proofing session where the team determines the texture, deciding how to translate an anime's gloss and reflective highlights onto a figure. Further installments of this behind-the-scenes footage will be released in stages going forward.

In addition, "KapuKapu Talk," where two voice actors sit down one-on-one to share their true feelings, delivered a premium conversation between Shion Wakayama and Mayumi Tanaka. Looking back on the tremendous intensity of DANDADAN, in which they co-starred, Tanaka showered Wakayama with praise: "The power these two have is truly amazing." Tanaka also revealed the starting point of her own career as a voice actor—"I failed every audition: theater troupes, voice acting, TV dramas, all of them. It was like, serves you right!"—along with a precious behind-the-scenes story about being shaken by a director's words: "I dislike voice actors' acting; don't fall back on your accumulated acting habits." A portion of the soon-to-be-released conversation was previewed ahead of time.

At the end of the show, it was announced that this cour's ending theme song, starting this week, will be "Ekubo ni Toi!" by Toi Toi Toi.

In episode #92, airing next week on Friday, July 10, guests Miyu Kubota of i☆Ris and Aopon will appear. In addition, the show will welcome Kikunosuke Totani from the fall anime The Insipid Prince's Furtive Grab for the Throne for a big feature on the latest news.

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