Crunchyroll’s season of love is in full effect. Hana-Kimi, We are Polar Opposites and Hell’s Paradise were the focus during the Spring-flavored press day. That Hashtag Show got to speak with a ton of voice talent! We sat down with stars like:
- Hana-Kimi (Katelyn Barr, Wyatt Baker, Dallas Reid)
- You and I Are Polar Opposites (Celeste Perez, Brandon Acosta)
- Hell’s Paradise Season 2 (Alejandro Saab)
Each of these stars gave us some great answers about Love, its place in each of these delightful shows, and teased what fans can expect from this current season. Let’s dive right into each of these offerings. First up, Hana-Kimi as the anime has been highly-anticipated since the moment it was announced.
Hana-Kimi provides the blueprint
Hana-Kimi is absolutely massive, and understandably so. Katelyn Barr plays Mizuki in the latest version of this classic story. She, Wyatt Baker who plays Sano, and Dallas Reid who plays Nakatsu are all on this ride together. I asked them about love and the biggest theme from the show they could think of. We got some amazing answers.
“I thin the big obvious one is that love isn’t superficial. Sano knows that! Even Nakatsu knows that he has a whole sort of internal crisis about who it’s possible for him to love.” Dallas immediatley joked that the blonde-haired boy’s crisis was immediate.
For Katelyn Barr, this is one of the most iconic protagonists in romance anime. She feels like Mizuki has a pretty pure deployment of love here. In essence, she doesn’t want to change Sano necessarily. Mizuki just wants him to be the best version of himself in any shape that it takes.
“I think in Mizuki’s case, a lot of it is about love, literally can transcend oceans. She travels across the ocean to be with the boy that she loves, and I think it’s also really cool that when she gets to Japan and she finds out that saunas quit the high jump, she’s not self-serving in trying to get him to go back to high jumping. It’s because she loves him, in my opinion, and I think that’s cool. She wants him to do that because she loves him and that’s important to her and not what would be self-serving for her.”
You and I Are Polar Opposites finds harmony
Crunchyroll’s Spring preview at Alamo Drafthouse Had plenty of surprises. But One of the biggest crowd pleasers was you and I are polar opposites. That hashtag show was joined by Celeste Perez and Brandon Acosta to talk about Miyu Suzuki and Yusuke Tani’s charming love story.
Perez talked about trying to harness the energy to capture the effervescent personality of our heroine. “[Effervescent] is a great word. I try to go in with as much energy as possible, and I feel a big similarity to Suzuki in this way, especially as a teenager,” she told us. “I was a very bubbly teenager. [laughs] And it’s been a lot of fun to reach back into my past like that and bring all of the positivity as much as possible to this character.”
A lot of this comes down to trust for Celeste and Brandon. Our leading man loves that You and I are Polar Opposites showcases the idea of loving the complete package of someone. Acosta admitted, “That’s something that I love that the series explores is that, beyond that confession, beyond them getting together, you see them develop this relationship and grow as people alongside one another.”
“I think that’s just a healthy relationship. That’s what that looks like! And another thing I absolutely adore about them too, is that they talk,” Acosta added. “Anytime there’s a misunderstanding, they come together and like, ‘Hey, what’s going on? Tell me what’s on your mind. I’ll drag it out of you if I have to.’ Which Suzuki often does, right?”
Hell’s Paradise Season 2 and the ‘Wife Guy’ Olympics?
When we sat down with Alejandro Saab, we couldn’t stop joking about how much of a “wife guy” Gabimaru from Hell’s Paradise truly is. It’s hard to miss! He joked, “When I got asked to do this, I was also like, because wife guy, that has to be it, right? That has to be it!” The Hell’s Paradise star isn’t wrong. Gabimaru is powered by one thing. Getting back to his partner. But, that narrative along with some slick action is drawing a ton of people in. He talked about the show’s audience getting bigger by the day.
“I’m glad they’re getting on board. I remember when we were recording season one, I was like, everyone’s like, oh, this one’s going to be big. This one’s going to be big. And I was like, I mean, I believe it when I see it. I mean, I love all the promo and I think it’s really cool that we’re going to do this. And I love the show. I definitely do think it’s underrated in my opinion, because it’s a really cool story.”
“It’s a classic story of finding the sort of life and mortality, all that fountain of youth. But the main character isn’t driven by any of that,” Saab added. “He’s just like, I want to go home. I want to be with my wife. And I was like, oh, that’s cool. I like that. Yeah, all battle shonen and stuff is great. The animation season two looks phenomenal. Extremely awesome plays.”
All of these shows are streaming now on Crunchyroll!
That Hashtag Show has more great interviews with all of your favorite creatives right here.
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