Singer Yuya Tegoshi Gets a Guest Voice Role in The Vermilion Mask, and Japan’s Celebrity Casting Debate Tags Along
Singer Yuya Tegoshi, frontman of the rock band T.N.T, will voice a guest role in episode 12 of The Vermilion Mask, the finale of the anime’s first part. The show’s official site announced it on Tuesday. The role is still a secret, and so is how fans of career voice actors will take it. In Japan, a celebrity walking into an anime booth has started arguments for years.
The Vermilion Mask premieres on October 10 on Yomiuri TV and Nippon TV, Saturdays at 5:30 pm, and runs in two split parts. Crunchyroll will stream it as it airs in Japan, according to Anime News Network. The studio is 100Studio, directed by Tetsuaki Watanabe, with MAN WITH A MISSION singing the opening theme and yutori the ending.
Tegoshi isn’t new to the project. T.N.T have been the show’s PR ambassadors since August, and the band will star in a special on October 7 and a watch party for episode 2 on October 17.
What we know about the role
Not much, on purpose. The official announcement says only that Tegoshi appears in “the final episode 12, where the story reaches its peak,” and asks: “What role will he appear in? Look forward to it!” Anime News Network and MANTANWEB reported the same, and ORICON NEWS added that details of the role haven’t been revealed.
The story follows Peru, an apprentice mask maker who kills his master and friends while controlled by a cursed mask, then sets out to destroy every mask his master made. It’s based on the manga by Dr.Poro and Nabana Naba in Young King Ours.
When T.N.T took the ambassador job in August, Tegoshi said on the official site: “Settings like a mask’s special powers are something that guys especially have dreamed about at least once, and it’s just plain exciting fun.” He added that he was “truly looking forward to being involved with The Vermilion Mask.”
The cast he’s joining
He’ll be a guest among career voice actors. Taihi Kimura leads as Peru, with Yūki Yamamoto as Sona, Junya Enoki as Zent and Kazuhiko Inoue as Gaston. A second wave in September added Kenji Nojima, Aoi Koga, Yūki Shin, Akihisa Wakayama, Aya Endō and Yui Horie.
Kimura wrote on the official site that he recorded “with the feeling of carrying the past together with Peru” rather than just sympathising with him. Yamamoto said she records “facing it head on every time,” so Sona doesn’t lose to the fate coming for her.
A test run in Kyoto
Tegoshi has already stood at a mic next to this cast. At the Kyoto International Manga Anime Fair on September 20, T.N.T joined a special Vermilion Mask stage and beat a voice team of Kimura, Yamamoto and Enoki in a mask quiz, ORICON NEWS reported. The band also tried dubbing a scene.
ROHM Theatre Kyoto, where Tegoshi posted from after the fair's Vermilion Mask stage. Photo: Suicasmo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The next day Tegoshi posted about it on Instagram. “Me, a kid who loved anime and games, never imagined a day would come when I’d be dubbing on stage surrounded by professional voice actors,” he wrote. Getting to record “while the professional voice actors watched over me” was “a really precious experience.”
Then he compared it to his own world: “For us, it’s like suddenly joining a professional artist’s band and playing, or singing right next to that artist.” His verdict: “It was only one scene, but it was so much fun.”
VoiceEditSuitePro audio tools built for working voice actors.Auto Clean UpACX Audiobook PrepAudition DirectorIn the post above, Tegoshi thanks fans for the Kyoto stage and the band’s show that night. His bandmate Furutatsu was blunter on his own account: “Dubbing is way too hard.”
What the fans said
The comments under both posts are mostly from T.N.T fans, and several of them came away talking about the voice actors. “It was my first time hearing voice actors dub live and I got goosebumps!!” wrote miyu_1054. Instagram user yz_kc11 said the back and forth with the voice actors was so funny that “I’m more interested in anime than before.”
The Kyoto International Manga Anime Fair in 2015. Photo: 玄史生, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
“I had a great time with songs I love, games, and dubbing I never expected,” wrote mayumidagu. Another fan, mz1054_yuya, was sorry to have missed it: “Doing it in front of pros is quite something, isn’t it. I wish I could have heard Yuya’s dubbing live.” From Chile, tegoyan wrote in English: “It must have been amazing!!”
On Instagram, sarasatego wrote that the Kyoto stage was a first chance to see voice actors in person: “Everyone was really lovely and their voices really were wonderful!” Under Furutatsu’s post, k3tgs1054 agreed dubbing is hard, “but I really thought your voice suits anime!”
An old argument in Japan
Outside the fan base, a celebrity in an anime cast is a touchy subject. ORICON NEWS called the debate over casting popular actors as voices in anime films a standoff between producers chasing a wider audience and anime fans who want to protect the “sanctuary” of the original. It noted that Kōichi Yamadera had once lamented the practice on his blog.
Voice actor Mitsuo Iwata explained the business side in a 2019 excerpt from his book in President Online. “If a popular celebrity appears in a work, the media will come to cover it,” he wrote. “But voice actors are craftspeople, and they don’t exist to create buzz.” He also noted that a celebrity’s fee sometimes comes from the advertising budget rather than the production budget.
Hiroshi Matsuyama of the game studio CyberConnect2, who has directed two CG anime films, put it more bluntly in a 2021 column. Why do anime films keep casting celebrities? His answer: “to sell.” When he told a producer he wanted only professional voice actors, he was asked, “Are you OK with this film not selling?” He added that some celebrity casts do the work well.
It breaks the spell
Joshi SPA! wrote in June that a celebrity’s inexperienced performance can feel out of place among career voice actors and pull viewers out of the story.
It gets people talking
The same piece said the choice has a logic when a new title needs to be noticed, and pointed to comedians who were cast and did well.
That Joshi SPA! piece also made a point that fits Tegoshi’s case. Celebrities in small parts, as in the Doraemon and Crayon Shin-chan films, rarely change how a work is judged. The fight starts when a star is handed a lead.
What it means for working voice actors
A one-episode guest spot is at the gentle end of that scale. The regular cast carries the show, and the guest carries the headlines. Iwata’s own test is simple: if you can lose yourself in the work without feeling something is off, “that celebrity gave a good performance.”
There’s a small irony here too. Tegoshi appears on the variety show Sekai no Hate made Itte Q!, and Iwata used that same show’s narrator, Fumihiko Tachiki, as his example of a voice viewers hear all day long.
What happens next
T.N.T’s special airs late on October 7 in the Kansai area, then goes up on ytv animation’s YouTube channel and TVer. The series starts October 10, and the band’s watch party streams from 5:15 pm on October 17. The date of episode 12 and Tegoshi’s role haven’t been announced. Voice Over Herald will update this story when they are.
Sources: The Vermilion Mask official site (announcements of July 4, August 7, September 11 and September 29, 2026, and cast comments); Anime News Network (September 29, 2026); ORICON NEWS (August 8 and September 29, 2026); MANTANWEB (September 29, 2026); Yuya Tegoshi and Furutatsu on Instagram, and public comments by miyu_1054, yz_kc11, mayumidagu, mz1054_yuya, tegoyan and k3tgs1054; sarasatego on Instagram; President Online (June 5, 2019); Hiroshi Matsuyama on note (July 31, 2021); ORICON NEWS (September 27, 2021); Joshi SPA! (June 6, 2026). Quotations from Japanese sources are translated by Voice Over Herald. Hero image and key visual: ©Nabana Naba, Dr.Poro, Shonengahosha / The Vermilion Mask Production Committee. Photos of ROHM Theatre Kyoto by Suicasmo (CC BY-SA 4.0) and of the 2015 fair by 玄史生 (CC0), via Wikimedia Commons.
Lee este artículo en español: El cantante Yuya Tegoshi será voz invitada en The Vermilion Mask, y vuelve el debate sobre celebridades en el anime
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