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Jouji Nakata's Seiyū Red and White Contest Crowns 1st Winners

Jouji Nakata's inaugural Seiyū Red and White Singing Contest crowned its first ever winners on April 14. The White (Men's) Team landed a victory. The program drew enough interest that it will return next year.

The White Team included Natsume's Book of Friends' Kazuhiko Inoue, Yo-kai Watch: Shadowside's Takaya Kuroda Free's Daisuke Hirakawa, Death Note's Naoya Uchida, Black Jack himself Akio Ohtsuka, Full Metal Panic's Tomokazu Seki, idol anime alumni Shunsuke Takeuchi, Yuri!!! on Ice's Toshiyuki Toyonaga, and Bakuman's Kenyuu Horiuchi.

The group competed against Red (Women's) Team members Noriko Hidaka, the voice of Gunbuster's Noriko, Ranma 1/2's Akane, Touch's Minami Asakura, Inuyasha's Kikyō,Wake Up, Girls' Junko Tange, Kikuko Inoue, her daughter Honoka Inoue, Cardcaptor Sakura voice actress Junko Iwao, Magic Knight Rayearth's Hiroko Kasahara, Tenchi Muyo's Chisa Yokoyama, all-around talent and Pokemon fanatic Shoko Nakagawa, and A Place Further Than the Universe's Mikako Komatsu.

The program had a set list full of fan-favorite anime songs like "God knows...." from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, the theme from Galaxy Express 999, "Top o Nerae: Fly High" from Gunbuster, Aquarion's "Sousei no Aquarion" opening theme, and "Condition Green" from Patlabor.

The participants shared behind-the-scenes pictures on social media before taking the stage.

Nakata is the founder of the contest with Junichi Suwabe and Kana Ueda as moderators. The idea started with a casual Twitter post made by Nakata. He floated the idea of a voice actor version of the annual contest and was surprised with how much support he received from fans.

The competition is modeled after NHK's annual Kōhaku Uta Gassen ("Red and White Song Contest") that pits two teams of female singers (the red team) and male singers (the white team) against each other. The program is a New Year's Eve tradition.

[Via Nijimen]