6x9 Seiyuu: Takehito Koyasu and Chisa Yokoyama

Zechs Merquise is voiced by seiyuu Takehito Koyasu. He's become rather typecast in bad-boy bishounen parts such as Tekkaman Evil in Tekkaman Blade, Seishiro in Tokyo Babylon, and Touga in Utena, although he's also played some good guys as well, most notably Hotohori in Fushigi Yuugi.

He says he tried not to play Zechs too much like Shuuichi Ikeda's Char Aznable in the original Gundam series. You be the judge, if you can overlook all of Zechs' physical similarities to Char. He also admits that towards the end of the TV series, he didn't understand Zechs' motives at all, a complaint shared by many GW fans. (And here I thought it was just because my Japanese wasn't good enough.)

In one interview, Koyasu half-jokingly begs the producers to make more Gundam W so he can continue to play Zechs. Even the other seiyuu admit it's a great role--when asked which GW character they'd want to play if they had to do it over again, Toshihiko Seki (Duo) and Shigeru Nakahara(Trowa) said they'd want to do Zechs because "he's cool, and has a lot of lines."

Chisa Yokoyama (isn't she cute?) departs from her usual girly-girl roles (Sasami in Tenchi Muyo, Milk Lamune & 40, Chiaki in Zenki, etc.) as Lucrezia Noin.

For preparation, she studied Takarazuka actresses who play male parts. (Takarazuka is an all-female theater company, and frankly, with those swoopy bangs, Noin even *looks* like one of those actresses, especially in her Cinq Kingdom uniform. Check out the Takarazuka website for pictures.) She mentions "Elegant ni, Lady," (episode ??) as a line that gave her a lot of trouble--she had to do seven or eight re-takes before she got it right.

She says a lot of people told her they were suprised to learn that she was Noin, and that a manga-ka acquaintance asked her to do another Noin-like role. (I suspect this turned out to be Ryoko in Martian Successor Nadesico.)

Links:

Chisa Yokoyama: @ Hitoshi Doi's Seiyuu Database
  Anime Hideaway Seiyuu Photo Gallery has a Chisa Yokoyama section.
  Anime Voices Paradise has a Chisa Yokoyama section.
Takehito Koyasu: @ Hitoshi Doi's Seiyuu Database
  Anime Hideaway Seiyuu Photo Gallery has a Takehito Koyasu page.
  Koyasu Takehito-san ga Daisuki! Since I couldn't find any good web pages on Takehito Koyasu, I made one myself. ^_^