Voice Actors of the TV Anime Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia Discuss the Importance of Thinking for Yourself in Modern Society

Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia, the manga by Tomato Soup serialized in AKITASHOTEN's Souffle, has been adapted into a TV anime at Science SARU under executive director Naoko Yamada and director Abel Gongora.

The story follows Sitara, a girl taken in by a family of scholars, who is made to serve the Mongol Empire as a captive and who, drawing on the wisdom she has cultivated, begins to plot revenge together with Töregene, the sixth consort of the third prince Ögedei.

This weighty story, set in the Mongol Empire as it flourished in medieval times, is told with touches of humor through delicate animation, and through Sitara, who works in the shadows to put her knowledge to use and carry out her revenge, it is an appealing work that conveys how important it is to think for yourself.

This article brings you a roundtable with the main cast of the TV anime Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia — Akira Sekine as Sitara, Ami Koshimizu as Töregene, Jun Saito as Muhammad, Hiro Shimono as Ögedei, and Ryota Suzuki as Tolui — in which they talk about the importance of thinking and gaining experience for yourself, a point that is also central to the series.

— Watching the story of the series, I was struck by the way Sitara makes her way through the mighty Mongol Empire, a place whose roots differ from her own, by drawing on her own knowledge. For those of us living in a modern Japan that has become an information society shaped by AI and social media, thinking and learning for yourself and gaining your own experience seem obvious, and yet they are easy to lose sight of. In a sense, I sometimes feel that people's hearts today are more desolate than they were in medieval times.

Koshimizu: That is true of other cultures as well, but I felt very strongly that for everyone to live at a comfortable distance from one another, everyone has to learn equally. When I think about what lies at the root of friction between people, one factor is fear. Fear has all kinds of causes, but a great deal of it comes down to being afraid because you do not know.

You cannot understand something because you do not know it, and that makes it frightening. It is hard to put into clear words, but I think there is quite a lot that knowledge and understanding can ease.

Shimono: For example, say there is popcorn in front of you, and suppose you had no idea it existed. Someone tells you it is salty and delicious, so you gain the knowledge that it is that kind of food, and the fear of whether it is safe to eat goes away.

It is the same between people. You have decided on your own that someone is a certain way, but by talking with them and getting to know them, you understand that they are different from the person you had imagined, and the fear goes away. On that note, in our industry, this is a job where you have to compete with others for roles.

Say you audition for a character you want to play, you do not get it, and a rival does. It stings, but when you talk to that rival you find out that they actually felt even more strongly about the role than you did, and when you watch the finished work there are moments when you think it suits them better than it would have suited you.

If all you do there is hold on to that frustration, you are left with nothing but the feeling of why did they get it and not me. Instead, when you actually listen to the other person's thoughts and opinions, and sometimes even argue with them, you come to know yourself better, and there are moments when you realize that they are a really interesting person.

I think it matters not only to acquire knowledge, but also to feel and think about all sorts of things within yourself and find your own answers.

Suzuki: I agree. In my case, ever since I was young, the people who were afraid of me, or the ones where our impressions of each other were not very good, are the ones I have ended up becoming extremely close friends with.

Koshimizu: Ahaha (laughs). That is like a coming-of-age delinquent manga! But on the subject of auditions, if someone is the type who does not want people to see them making an effort, there are those who present it as though they got the part without any effort at all, right? Even when in fact they were working behind the scenes without sparing time for sleep.

What you have seen, or what someone has shown you, is not everything. There are things that are hard to judge from conversation alone.

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