If anyone was born in the mid or early 90s, Saturday cartoons were still a big part of the TV schedule and as more eastern properties began to make their way to North America, the viewers of that time were introduced to exciting new worlds that their parents would never have been able to dream of.
A couple of those shows include the inclusion of Digimon: Digital Monsters and Power Rangers (called Super Sentai) in Japan. At the time, most of these shows were produced through Saban, who put a lot of the programs on their FOX Kids block. One of the biggest names in the voice acting field is Joshua Seth, who is probably best known for his role as Tai on Digimon.
Recently, we were able to sit down with him and discuss how he needed up giving his voice to Tai, and surprisingly we learned that his journey began on Power Rangers! Voicing the robotic friend to the team, Alpha 5, Seth was pointed in a direction that would later lead him to Tai!
His full story can be read in the excerpt below but if anyone is interested in the full audio, check out the episode in Literary Joe's Inner Child Podcast below!. We also included our chat with fellow Digimon veteran Robbie Daymond (Sailor Moon, Persona 5) along with the transcript.
16m 06s Literary Joe: There are roles that I didn't even see credited to you that I was finding out about, like Power Rangers.
16m 16s Joshua Seth: I was the second voice actor to play Alpha 5, I believe, after Richard Horvitz, who is the voice of Invader Zim. It's because I did Power Rangers that the people casting for Digimon brought me in to read for Tai. That's how he knew who I was. We all knew everybody somehow. Back then, the world of voice acting; when I began, it was much smaller. If you got to the point where you were getting hired to do the work, you started seeing the same people.
I lived walking distance from Warner Brothers animation, and I would have a weekly poker game every Thursday night. And I would invite people that I had worked with, actors and directors, mostly directors and writers and producers that can hire me honestly. The community would get together at my house for years in the early 2000s for poker games, and coming from Ohio, from a smaller town, I wanted to recreate that community feels in LA, which is anything but.
Cause we would get to see these people for a couple of hours in recording studios. And then not again for another week or however long until we saw him in another recording session, I felt like I don't know anybody in this town. I want to get to know them socially. So I put together this poker game. We all got to know each other, and people like Lex Lange 20 years ago would come over or Jeff Nimoy, the writer on Kizuna and the original movie. And he took over the voice act the role of Tentomon after I created it. We've known each other for 20 years. I may not ever see them anymore except at a comic con, but the friendships are deep and true and have been there for decades.
18m 34s Literary Joe: When's the last time you saw the other voice actors? I'm assuming you don't get to see any of them because of COVID?
18m 45s Joshua Seth: Usually, I would. I'd be out in LA for a few days, voicing this, and I get together with people. The last time, pre-COVID that I've voiced something, I got together with Laura Jill Miller. We had lunch to say hi and see how she's doing. She was the voice of Cari in the original Digimon. Or I'd see Jeff or some friends like that.
I have a funny story about that if you want to hear it.This was in March when I went out to LA to lay down the tracks for Kizuna, and COVID was just starting to enter people's consciousness. They had stopped a cruise ship from letting the passengers off in California, but no city had shut down yet. There was no mask ordinances, no guidance, nothing. It seemed like a problem we were concerned about was coming, but it wasn't here. I was slated to fly out a couple of weeks after that, to LA, to do this.
And I called Jamie, the producer, and said, "Hey, they stopped this cruise ship. I'm starting to wonder if they're going to stop airplane traffic. Or they are going to limit people from being able to freely move about to contain COVID. Maybe we should reschedule my session for tomorrow; if you can clear the schedule, I'll come out tomorrow." And he got back to me within an hour and said yeah, and I bought a ticket. I live in Florida now because I can. I got the ticket to fly from here to LA for the very next morning, first flight out at 7:00 AM.
While I'm in the air, while I'm in transit, and I don't know any of this is happening, Eric Garcetti shuts the city down. That's the day they said, restaurants are closed, bars are closed, and everybody stays at home and social distance. That's the day it began, but I didn't know this. And then I landed, and because of the time difference, it's night now. I check in to the hotel, and I think I'm going to walk down the street, get a bite to eat.
I used to live here; I know what all the restaurants are. That restaurant is closed. It has a sign on it saying closed until further notice. I love that restaurant. I'm sad to see it go, wait a second. The next restaurant is closed too, what's going on? Hang on. This is like a ghost town. Every restaurant is closed. I still didn't put it together, because, why would I? And I feel like Will Smith in that vampire movie suddenly he's walking down the street and it's shut down. I walked to the Burbank mall. Everything is shut down. I still didn't know what's going on. I go back to the front desk. I'm like, what's going on? Where can a guy get a bite to eat around here? And they explained, and then I ate from the vending machine.
And then the next day I show up at the studio, and everybody's running around, holding out pieces of paper like this, going, no, get away from me, stand back on your sides, your script is already in there. And because of the way that voiceovers work, nobody would be in a room with me anyway. We were already socially distanced with a pane of glass between us. We recorded it, but it was weird because we had no context for this yet.
Now everybody is recording everything from home. I could probably do voiceovers all day long if I wanted to even here from Florida with this setup. But I've been doing virtual keynotes and putting together these voice trainings for people instead. And that's kept me plenty busy.
*This interview has been edited for clarity. Sister sites writer Comic Brooks co-hosts audio.*
Tai is now a university student, living alone, working hard at school, and working every day, but his future is still undecided. Meanwhile, Matt and others continue to work on Digimon incidents and activities that help people with their partner Digimon. When an unprecedented phenomenon occurs, the DigiDestined discover that their relationship with their partner Digimon will come closer to an end when they grow up.
As a countdown timer activates on the Digivice, they realize that the more they fight with their partner Digimon, the faster their bond breaks. Will they fight for others and lose their partner? The time to choose and decide is approaching fast. There is a short time before "chosen children" will become adults. This is the last adventure of Tai and Agumon.
Digimon: Last Evolution Kizuna is now available on both Digital and Blu-Ray/DVD!