It’s been a few months since I did one of these, but finally another CG has caught my interest. This time it’s hardcore death-metal singer and mushroom grower Hoshi Syoko’s actress, Matsuda Satsumi from Arts Vision.
Satsumi, a.k.a. Sattsun, was born in Osaka on July 17, 1993, one day behind her twin sister Matsuda Risae, who is also a seiyuu under I’m Enterprise. It’s almost impossible to talk about one without talking about the other, as since the beginning, they've been nearly inseparable. Growing up together, they had the same mannerisms, the same habits, and even wore the same clothing and accessories. As students they’ve even gone to the school nurse’s office for the same injuries in the exact same places.
Their interests were similar as well, and both excelled in dancing, soft-tennis, Japanese drum, and calligraphy (both hold tokutaisei status). Sattsun jokes that they’re working on getting ESP mental connection between eachother too.
The main common interest that pulled them toward the seiyuu industry was their interest in tokusatsu. From a young age, these two were huge fans of tokusatsu and every week, they would get up early to watch the Super Hero Time programming block on TV. Through this, they developed a deep love of sentai heroes and its related music. Approving parents bought them goods and took them to the movies. Sattsun recalls some of her first movie-going experiences were seeing Hurricaneger and Kamen Rider Ryuki in theaters. Sattsun’s specialty was Kamen Rider, and her favorite series were Ryuki, Den-O, and Kabuto. She proudly admits that she owns belts from both Den-O and Gaim, and still wants to collect more.
Because of these influences, Sattsun slowly realized she wanted to become a seiyuu and recalls the desire being especially strong around the time of Den-O. The pair also enjoyed anime like Sailor Moon, Fate, and Code Geass (Sattsun liked Suzaku, while Risae liked Lelouche) and loved singing anisongs so it was a good fit. They started buying seiyuu magazines and following industry news. When she initially told her family about these aspirations, they said it wasn’t possible unless one lived in Tokyo but she pointed to Ueda Kana as an example of someone who made it from Osaka and they aimed to follow her footsteps.
To gain experience, they formed their own twins unit, performing anime songs with a careful focus on the synchronized harmony of their two voices. After entering high school, the Matsuda twins decided to “challenge their youth” by taking on the 3rd Anisong Grandprix tournament in 2009. They made it to Osaka's regional competition but ultimately did not qualify. Still it was a valuable experience. They said at the time they were so nervous and inexperienced that they were actually suffering from stage fright.
The following year, under the name 2-WIN, they re-emerged at the 4th tournament with a rousing duet performance of WORLD END from Code Geass, achieving 1st place in Osaka. But it wasn’t without some criticism from the judges. During the evaluation, they were told by an Avex section manager that they were too stiff and conventional. Famed anisong singer Mizuki Ichiro had similar criticisms, suggesting they ought to go out and “be adventurous” while they’re young. They took this to heart, going out and exploring “trendy” places like Shinsaibashi and getting first-time life experiences like getting professional make-over at a beauty salon.
Unfortunately, 2-WIN faltered at the National competition, scoring only 76 points and were told that their harmony had actually decreased since the Osaka qualification round. In the end, they did not win that year. Interestingly, another Osaka runner-up, Kawano Marina, ended up winning the entire thing (Each region’s top 4 were allowed to compete in the finals).
After that painful loss, they were still as determined as ever and began serious vocal and acting training. After another grueling year, they returned to the 5th Anisong Grandprix as the Matsuda sisters and once again took first place in Osaka. This time, the same judge who had criticized them before had no complaints this year. He said they turned into fine young ladies, and even remarked that their faces have matured. Alas, despite no significant faults this time, they still lost at Nationals to the young vocalist Suzuki Konomi. The competition was just too strong that year.
After this, the sisters felt that competing three times had already given them plenty of good experiences, memories, industry contacts, and public exposure. Thus, coinciding with their final year of high school, they decided to put the competition behind them and publicly announced they would not be trying out next year.
By this time, both had decided they would definitely become seiyuu and were instead focused on building that future. As aspiring seiyuu/singers, they had already enrolled in Nichinare’s Osaka branch. That school had the highest chance of making it into certain affiliated agencies with a glittering reputation as “idol seiyuu” factories. Sattsun recalls looking through a magazine and thinking that Arts Vision or I’m Enterprise were the ones to try for if you wanted a role in things like IDOLM@STER.
According to Sattsun, their rigorous schedule of dance lessons, voice lessons, and holding down a job lead to times where they couldn’t get home until 10PM. By the way, Sattsun’s main part-time job was a cook at a local Okonomiyaki shop in front of the station.
At the same time, they continued working and building experience in the local idol scene, billing themselves as the Matsuda sisters at various indie events. At one event, Anipawa Dreamer! vol 2, they covered Minorin’s Paradise Lost. At another, they sang IM@S songs like Ready!!. Just a few years ago, it was possible to see these two up close for an insane ticket price of about $20 (Good luck with trying that now).
After succesfully being picked up by Arts Vision, Sattsun was chosen as one of three local seiyuu to host Radio Osaka’s new show Mecchasukiyanen, where she introduced herself as a high tension girl who loved collecting panda goods (hence @DaPanda323 -> reflecting a deep admiration for the lazy panda), restaurant hopping, nail art, and singing. Joining her were Nakajima Yui and Oozora Naomi, whom you already know!
You can see Sattsun’s first public tweet to her co-host Sorasora. The tone at that time was so stiff it’s almost laughable, given how close they are now. In it, she apologizes for accidentally sending the first tweet from her sister’s account. Since then, it has gotten much more casual.
Although she liked to think of herself as a cool tsukkomi type, in no time at all, she developed a bit of the opposite reputation for constantly failing jokes with no reaction and ended up getting the nickname Suberi-hime, or “joke-bombing princess.” This eventually got enough traction outside of the program that Asapon once demanded a demonstration and threatened to demote her to Suberi-ippanjin if she couldn’t live up to the royal title.
Later that year, she made her first acting debut alongside Risae as one of the fugitive sisters (Bonnie and Clyea) in Metal Max 4 for Nintendo DS.
Then in 2014, things really began to speed up for Sattsun. At the end of January, she was announced as the voice of Hoshi Syoko for IDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls. When she received the notice, she said her manager broke the news to her simply with "Welcome to the world of IM@S." A straightforward, yet powerful short message that moved her to tears.
Besides releasing a character single, IM@S immediately opened her up to a whole slew of events, guest appearances, and other things. Curious Producers bombarded her twitter with questions, which she was seemingly happy to answer during occasional mass-reply sessions:
“What’s your favorite 765 Idol?”
The Futami twins obviously. In fact she recently came clean to Asapon, whom she calls Shimonee, about this.
“What’s your favorite mushroom?”
“What would you like to do with customers at an event?”
Go drink and hang out (Side note: Sattsun’s preferred alcoholic drink is Kahlua Milk)
“Have you ever done the Twins joke where you secretly switch with each other at events?”
Of course. I did it during an MC event! (Skip to 1:49:00 for the swap)
Excited to be a part of the legendary franchise and able to flex her singing and dancing skills, she dove into the character, studying up on metal, listening to the entire discography of Metallica (does that really count?) and even taking an interest in mushrooms as part of preparation for the role. She stopped short of cultivating them, saying that plants the Matsuda family touches tend to dry up and die. Instead she said she’ll just stick to professing her love for eating mushrooms rather than talking to them or growing them.
Within a year she had guested on both Dereraji and Derepa programs, and also made her live appearance singing Syoko’s character song at CG 2nd live. Backstage, she’s further deepened her bond with Sorasora, as well as made new friends (she says her ideal oneesan in CG is Touyama Nao).
Simultaneously, while she was busy with CG, she also landed her first role in anime, which happened to be a huge role as Atago Hiroe in the popular mahjong focused anime Saki. Even more than CG, this really thrust her into the spotlight as being a major character she was was given the opportunity to appear on many Saki and mahjong related events. When playing, her preferred MJ hand is to go for Chinrintou.
Since then, she has continued doing work on both Saki (via events, games, etc) and Cinderella Girls, as well as landed a few other roles on the side. Her sister Risae seems to be slowly making her way up as well, landing a few anime roles and hosting A&G’s weekly NEXT BREAKS FIVE STARS show.
I heard of Sattsun and wrote briefly about at the beginning of the year thanks to Derepa, but it wasn’t until more recently thanks to Deresute (SYOKO STOP YELLING) that she really started to make an impression me.
I was especially interested after watching CG 2nd live, when I saw she had a crisp voice and great smile that made me want to look up more of her works. With a little bit more research it was easy to see there was a fresh and funny geinin style behind her talk events too. I haven’t had as much exposure to her twin Ricchan, but as it stands right now, with a few more years of time and luck, they might really be the most successful twins in the idol seiyuu world.
You can follow Satsumi and her sister Risae on twitter, and through their shared ameblo blog.
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