Voice Compare » Ah! My Goddess! » Otaki Aoyama

Otaki Aoyama is one of the members of the Nekomi Institute of Technology's Motor Club and is best friends with NIT Motor Club's president Toraichi Tamiya. While Otaki does appear to be somewhat saner than Tamiya (emphasis on the somewhat) he too is very much wacky comedy relief much like Tamiya. While Otaki and Tamiya are the best of friends they were once romantic rivals for former NIT Motor Club president Chihiro Fujimi until she turned both of them down for the good of the club. Oh yes and Otaki always wear shades in which he is rarely if ever seen without them covering his eyes.

EDITOR'S OPINION

Today on the Ah! My Goddess VC section we have a little something for the guy who is NIT Motor Club President Toraichi Tamiya's right hand man... OTAKI AOYAMA! Of course we shall start things off with the 90s Animeigo dub of the Ah! My Goddess! OVA in which North Carolina VA Sean P O'Connell will be the first VA we will look at in this VC. While Sean's voice for Otaki is obviously an attempt at a surfer voice but to be honest I actually don't mind it as Sean did a fairly good attempt at making it work. Sean's performance for the role was appropriately goofy enough (but it does also suit on Otaki is somewhat saner in the OVA well at least compared to the movie and the TV series). Basically I was pleasantly surprised with Sean's work for Otaki and is a good example of the voice work in the dub.

Now as the dub of the movie done by the late Pioneer/Geneon, California VA Daran Norris was the one to voice Otaki. Now don't get me wrong Daran is by all means a fine VA and as much as I liked the dub of the movie but Daran's work is a somewhat uneven mixed bag here. My problem with Daran's work as Otaki was mainly his voice oh sure it seemed to be decent enough at first but when Otaki was shouting more & more Daran's voice for the role was sounding really strained. But to be fair at least Daran's performance was not too bad for Otaki as it does have a good sense of energy that is necessary for the role especially in the movie. But still while Daran's performance was not really bad it would have came off better if his voice didn't sound so strained when Otaki was shouting (in which Otaki did plenty of shouting in that movie).

Now for the TV series in which New York VA Scottie Ray plays the role of Ootaki in the Media Blasters/ADV dub of the Ah! My Goddess! TV series. Well I must say I was pleasantly surprised with Scottie Ray here as I would never picture him doing a role like this pretty well. Scottie's voice for the role was fairly high but surprisingly I was okay with that on how Scottie was able to make that work despite on how Otaki is a fairly big guy. Scottie's performance for Otaki was rather suitable on how it did suit on how Otaki is very much wacky comedy relief here. So in other words Scottie Ray's overall performance is suitably wacky and a very interesting change of pace here. Overall I liked both Sean P O'Connell and Scottie Ray the most with Daran Norris at a disappointing second place.  


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