Interview With Daemons of the Shadow Realm's Kensho Ono and Yume Miyamoto
Excitement for the anime adaptation Hiromu Arakawa's Daemons of the Shadow Realm, currently in the midst of broadcasting the second cour, builds every week, Anime Atelier had the opportunity to interview Yuru and Asa's voice actors Kensho Ono (小野賢章) and Yume Miyamoto (宮本侑芽).
We chatted with the duo at Anime Expo '26 andthey discussed the qualities of the anime that stand out as an Arakawa work, their challenges taking on these leading roles and more!
Q: Were either of you familiar with the series before finding out that it would be getting an adaptation?
Ono: My first touchpoint with this franchise was my audition.
Miyamoto: The audition was when I first discovered this work as well, but I later learned that one of my close friends from high school is a huge fan of the work, so when I was auditioning, without telling her that I was auditioning, I asked her a lot of questions about the characters and the world.
Q: Were Yuru and Asa the only roles that you auditioned for?
Both: Yes.
Q: Daemons of the Shadow Realm presents itself as a pure fantasy series at the start; with an early twist, it's set in the modern day. How did you feel about that twist?
Ono: When I auditioned, I started reading the original work and my first moment of shock was realizing that it was written by [Hiromu] Arakawa-sensei. There's also the shock of the story actually being set in the present day. I remember when first experiencing Fullmetal Alchemist, there was a similar shock in the first episode.
Miyamoto: The present-day setting was a big shock, and I recall watching the first episode when it aired with my parents [laughs]. When doing that, there was a similar reaction from my parents who were surprised that there were airplanes in this world, so watching my parents' reaction was very fun for me.
Q: Ono-san, Yuru is someone who is humorously presented as a bit of a countrysider due to his life in the village, but he is also quite ferocious when it comes to fights and protecting those he cares about. Is that contrast something you found difficult to balance?
Ono: It's a trait of Arakawa-sensei's manga that within serious battle sequences, there's comic relief. At first, the contrast between these threw me off, but as I embraced that this was the story's tone and I focused on my job as a performer, I think it became more fun to the core of the character.
Q: Miyamoto-san, Asa is initially presented as a character who looks like a villain during the village attack. Were there any aspects of your performance, or any advice given to you, about how to approach this scene as opposed to how she's presented later.
Miyamoto: It was hard to compartmentalize it at the beginning. I remember the sound director [Kazuhiro Wakabayashi] telling me, "I think you're still letting it show too much that you like your older brother, can you suppress that a little more for the first episode?"
Q: Since Ono-san already answered this question, I'd like to ask just Miyamoto-san. One of Arakawa-sensei's appeals in her manga is the comic relief with the serious moments. Do you find it difficult switching between those comedic and serious moments?
Miyamoto: It was a big challenge. I'm not especially good at comic relief performances, so getting into the mindset of daily life beats and drama, and then switching to comic relief, was a big gap.
Q: On that topic, were there any other challenging moments for either of your performances?
Miyamoto: When we record, we do a test recording before we do any of the actual recording, and in the test recording the atmosphere is a lot more casual and we run through everything. In my case, because there's a "fake Asa", to act against myself between Asa and fake Asa, and switching between those two, was a challenge.
[Ono and Miyamoto laugh]
Ono: Episodes 1 and 2 were a challenge for me because Yuru is in a confused state where he's being exposed to so many new unknowns, and there's a line that really speaks to that where he says something like, "No one is explaining anything to me today." Those kinds of situations can be a bit of a challenge.
Q: Do the two of you have any particularly memorable moments from your recording sessions?
Ono: For me, it's when we watched episode 1 together when it was completed. One day, before the recording session for an episode later on in the season, we were told that episode 1 was completed, so we had a screening with everyone. At the time, it really hit us like, "we're really doing this series."
Miyamoto: In episode 1, I remember when we went to record, Arakawa-sensei came to the studio, and I thought "It's the sensei who did Fullmetal Alchemist..!", which was a humbling moment for me. There's a character, Gabu, played by Misaki Kuno-san, and during the recording she was pulled aside into another room by Arakawa-sensei, so I wonder if she was learning about a big secret about Gabu's character. It bothers me, I really want to know what they said in that room...
Q: If you could have daemons of your own, what kind would you want?
[Ono and Miyamoto laugh]
Miyamoto: Are you changing [your answer]?
Ono: I think I'll change it.
Miyamoto: Oh, really!?
Ono: Um... one that moves...
[Miyamoto laughs]
Ono: ...fast...
Miyamoto: Eh?
Ono: ...and myself...
Miyamoto: Ah, you want it to carry you?
Ono: So that it can carry me [around fast].
Miyamoto: I want one that can instantly dry my manicure when I get my nails done.
[Everyone laughs]
We'd like to thank Ono-san and Miyamoto-san for taking the time to chat with us! You can watch follow their Deamons of the Shadow Realm adventures weekly on Crunchyroll!
Credits:
Assistance: Demelza Ward
Interpreter: Mikey McNamara
Editor: Tamara Lazic
Composition: Sarca
Special Thanks: Crunchyroll
