Tomokazu Seki started his career as a seiyuu, or Japanese voice actor, back with the 1993 Mobile Suit Gundamseries Mobile Suit Victory Gundam. He's since enjoyed a twenty-year career as everything from Toji Suzuhara of Evangelion (in both the original and Rebuild of Evangelion incarnations) to Kenji in Pokémon, with literally dozens of other roles along the way.

We had a chance to sit down with Tomokazu Seki for a few minutes at Otakon 2013 and ask him a few questions about his career.

[Interview was edited and condensed for clarity.]

Q: The career trajectories of American voice actors and Japanese seiyuu have some similarities; they often don't stay with just voice acting. Was this something you've chosen deliberate for your own career, or was it suggested to you as a good career path?

Tomokazu Seki: There are always some people that do just that one thing, like just voice acting. And there are also people that do all sorts of stuff, but that's their own interest. Their own interest makes them approach people and be very active about doing lots more things than just that one thing. It's that person's personal way of doing their job. So there could be one type of person that does one type of thing and another type of person that does all things; it's just up to that person.

Q: You're also a singer who has done a number of different show themes [e.g., Sket Dance, Weiss Kreuz / Knight Hunters]. Is this something you started doing before or acting getting into voice acting?

Tomokazu Seki: Singing is not really something that I intended to do. Sometimes the job includes a contract, and that contract [sometimes] includes singing. Now, I personally enjoy karaoke, but I like singing that way, but not really singing on a stage. Sometimes the contracts make you sing on stage. And I find [I'm] happier doing my roles rather than singing on stage.

Q: Sounds like it's a common thing in a contract, to have something like that.

Tomokazu Seki: Yes, it's apparently a very popular kind of contract.

Q: You have your own talent agency that specializes in voice acting. What are some of the biggest issues in dealing with other voice actors?

Tomokazu Seki: One of the difficulties of dealing with a younger generation of voice actors is, explicitly, that younger generation. There's an emotional difference that comes with a generation difference, and our generation is the more, sort of, hard-working -- if you will, in terms of saying like anime, the "nekketsu" type, ["Nekketsu means roughly "hot-blooded" or maybe "go-getter"] where you're hard-working for what you deserve. But the recent generation, we call them the "yutori" generation ["Yutori" means "rest" or "spare time"], where they are sort of laid-back and doing their stuff at their own pace. I respect their freedom, but then the difference that exists in the ideal towards how they work is very different. If I push my own way of very hard work onto them, it doesn't really match them. But again, if we listen to their ideals of working, and follow their ways of slowly doing stuff, it sort of feels like we're spoiling them, right? So the hardest thing that I personally feel is [looking for] a way to find something in between those two ways.

Q: By "younger generation," you mean those under thirty?

Tomokazu Seki: Yes, mainly the generation under thirty.

Q: You've been involved with the Evangelion and Gundam franchises. Is there pressure from those who control the franchise to have things a specific way, or do they let the actors add their own flavor to it?

Tomokazu Seki: Firstly, regarding Gundam, that is a series where they're constantly trying new stuff. Bandai and Sunrise [the show's creators] are able to tell us, "Be original," but my friends who are Gundam lovers say, "That's not Gundam! It should be more Gundam, it should sound like this!" But in reality, in cases like Evangelion, when I started Evangelion, it wasn't really popular the way Gundam was popular when I did it. And everyone was doing trial and error, trying to get things right. Personally, when I was first doing jobs for Evangelion, I was saying, "What is this strange anime?" [Laughs]