Masumi Asano's “My Awakening”: Discovering My Own Shape Through Bonds with Fellow Voice Actors

When we look back on our lives, everyone has moments they can point to and say, “That was a turning point,” or “Without that, I wouldn’t be who I am today.”
For me, that moment came during the two years I spent in a five-member voice actor unit.

I’ve always found it difficult to work in groups.
The first time I realized this was in high school. I joined the school’s brass band because it had a good reputation. But the moment I heard the performance, I knew something felt off.

“You can’t make beautiful music unless everyone here is on the same page,” the instructor said.
It’s an obvious point, really—but hearing it spelled out like that left me stunned. All these instruments, lined up side by side. All these members I hadn’t even spoken to yet. To think that we had to all be united in our mindset to create one cohesive sound—it felt so inefficient.

I ended up quitting the band shortly after joining. I had my eyes on getting into university through a recommendation, so I needed to improve my internal report card through club activity. Rather than struggling to sync with others, I figured it would be far more efficient to join a club where I could be evaluated based on individual effort. That was how I thought at the time.

In college and even into adulthood, I remained the type who preferred building relationships with just a few close friends. If I was going to meet up with someone, I preferred one-on-one or maybe a group of three. Once the number grew, I found it increasingly troublesome to match everyone else’s pace, and the hassle started to outweigh the enjoyment.

So it was ironic that I, of all people, found myself in a five-person unit as a voice actor.

At first, I was constantly overwhelmed.

Our unit consisted of five female voice actors, all around the same age. Naturally, from the very first day, we had to start doing everything together.

Dance lessons, photoshoots, song selections... Even our outfits needed to strike a balance between group harmony and individual personality.
We had to decide on merchandise, plan radio segments… I was suddenly spending all my time with four very different personalities—the kind of situation I would’ve avoided in my private life.
I still wasn’t comfortable in group settings and didn’t know how to navigate it. But with performance after performance coming at us, I didn’t have time to stop. I kept moving forward, figuring things out along the way.

Then something changed.

“You’re really good at this kind of thing—amazing, actually.”
One of the other members said that to me during a group discussion. We were trying to reach a decision on something, and I had apparently explained my thoughts clearly. They told me I had a gift for using words, for articulating ideas.

“Wait—me?”


I had never thought of that as one of my strengths. But the other members nodded in agreement, saying it was something they couldn’t do themselves.

I realized I had often felt the same way about them, too.

There were moments when tensions ran high and disagreements arose, yet one member could say just the right thing to lighten the mood. Another could speak honestly about her preferences without a hint of embarrassment. Time and again, they each surprised me and supported me in ways I never could have managed alone.

And when I told them how much I admired that, they’d look surprised and say, “Really?”
That’s when I understood—maybe we all go through life unaware of what we’re good at, or what we’re missing.

Through our unit work, I began to see the value in engaging with people different from myself—people I had avoided before.

Take dance, for example. Even when we all learned the same choreography from the same instructor, our performances would still turn out differently. How we stepped, how we moved our hands—it was like each of us had our own filter.
No matter how much I tried to mimic others, my version of the dance would still be distinctly mine—for better or worse.
It was simply my interpretation—my way of seeing and expressing it.
And just as I had my dance, everyone else had theirs. The same goes for singing, for talking, for everything.

So who am I, really?
Ironically, it was through closely connecting with people unlike me that I started to find out.

The differences between people aren’t just nuisances. Like puzzle pieces, it’s precisely because we’re shaped differently that we fit together meaningfully.
Over those two years of unit activity, I finally understood—deep down—the truth behind that familiar phrase.

Toward the end of our time together as a unit, I submitted my very first piece of creative writing to a contest.
To my surprise, I received an award, and that became the start of my writing career.

I wouldn’t have dared to try if not for the people around me—who helped me discover my “shape”.

Now, having experienced that “awakening,” I’m simply enjoying this new world that has opened up to me.

This text has been translated using an automatic translation tool.