Danica Davidson
November 4, 2015 When it was announced that he would be playing Tuxedo Mask in the new VIZ dub, voice actor Robbie Daymond had just nabbed one of the most iconic figures in anime. He spoke to Otaku USA at the time, and a year later, he was happy to update readers on Sailor Moon and all the other anime work he’s been up to.
“We’re doing the release of Crystal coming up,” Daymond told Otaku USA while at Youmacon in Detroit. “It’ll be streaming the same way they did with Sailor Moon. We’re releasing fully dubbed episodes coming up on Hulu and the VIZ website in December.”
A year ago the main question he got asked was what he thought of the original English dub of Sailor Moon. Now, he says, fan questions have changed. “It seems like people just want to know more about the show in general now,” he said. “We’re already released up through R and Crystal is coming out. I get character questions, all the classic anime con stuff, like who would win in a fight, who would you want to be stuck on a desert island with.”
So who would he like to be stuck with on a desert island?
“Probably Luna, right?” he joked. “She’d probably have the best odds of getting me off the island, so I’ll pick her.”
Daymond said he’s always liked anime, and playing Tuxedo Mask is like letting him rediscover Sailor Moon. And he has some interesting Tuxedo Mask scenes to record in the future. “I know I’m Santa Claus in one of the movies,” he said. “I think I have five lines in that movie, and one of them is like, ‘Merry Christmas, everyone!’ And he rips off the Santa costume but he’s Tuxedo Mask underneath. We haven’t done that one yet.”
“Sailor Moon was my first [anime] series, and since then I’ve been fortunate enough to guest star on a few shows and play some supporting characters,” he said. “I was in the new JoJo dub. I was in Fate/Stay Night. I just finished the last Naruto movie, and I played the main bad guy in that who captures Hinata. ”
And then there’s The Seven Deadly Sins, which has just begun streaming on Netflix. He plays Gilthunder.
“I play pretty much two archetypes a lot: the young love interest teenager and the heavy characters,” Daymond noted. “I’m not sure why; it’s not something I do a lot. But there’s one studio in town that sort of thinks that’s something I do. So I play all these deeper-voiced characters.”
While stressing how much he loves the anime he’s been in, Daymond also said he wants to expand into more anime genres and would like to be a lead in a shonen title. “I’d love to do a Bleach or a Naruto and do a younger lead in a show like that. That sounds like a ton of fun and that’s one I’m really itching to do.”
And he’s also known to sometimes binge-watch anime on Netflix. “Of course I love Attack on Titan; that’s been a powerhouse lately. I really like Tokyo Ghoul. I loved Kill La Kill. It was like watching a beautiful trainwreck. It was like, ‘What am I watching? Cool, all right.’ I was into it; I got onto that train.”
While he’s new to the anime acting world, he’s had his hat in the voice acting ring for a while, doing traditional animation for places like Nickelodeon. “We’re still doing Breadwinners and Get Blake is going to get released someday,” he said about his Nick titles. “I have some other traditional animation shows coming out, but I don’t think I’m clear to talk about that. I have some more games coming out: I’ll be in Stella Glow, which is coming out. We just released Tales of Zestiria. I’m going to be in Lego Avengers as A-Bomb. I got to make lots of monster noises for that one.”
Daymond expressed his appreciation for the fans, especially for fans of Sailor Moon. “That’s the cool thing about the fandom: it’s across the board. There are kids, there are adult women and adult men, teenagers.”
Sometimes fans might want to reach out to their favorite voice actor but feel hesitant about it. Daymond says he loves to interact with fans. “If you want to keep in touch, you can follow me on Twitter. Come find me, we’ll talk.”
For Minecraft fans, the young-at-heart and people who know young Minecraft fans, Danica Davidson’s middle grade Minecraft novel Escape from the Overworld is now available and its sequel, Attack on the Overworld, is released October 6. You can also listen to the audio book, which is narrated by anime voice actor Dan Woren of Robotech and Bleach.
