Exclusive: Black Torch anime stars Ryan Coles-Levy, AJ Beckles on Ryosuke, Jiro and wild death twist: ‘It’s an amplifier’

He dies in episode one and comes back with more power than ever.

In Black Torch, nothing about the line between human and supernatural stays fixed for long, and the actors voicing its world had to find their footing fast. Gulf News caught up with Ryan Coles-Levy (Ryosuke Shiba) and AJ Beckles (Jiro) to talk found family, same-day dubbing, and acting opposite characters who can't answer back.

Jiro Azuma looks like your average high schooler, but obviously, he isn't. A descendant of ninjas trained in the ancient art of the shinobi, Jiro also happens to be able to talk to animals, which comes in handy the day he stumbles across an injured stray cat named Rago.

Handy, that is, until the cat turns out to be the legendary Black Star of Doom, a being with power enough to make it public enemy number one for every mononoke on the prowl. With the Bureau of Espionage now in the picture, Jiro is pulled into a full-blown supernatural turf war, fighting off packs of spirits desperate to get their hands on Rago's power before someone else does.

Shiba operates in a world filled with supernatural threats and espionage, and Coles-Levy, who has also dubbed Chainsaw Man, and VINLAND SAGA, says the character's voice came to him almost instantly. "The first thing for me was seeing the artwork and getting an immediate sense that he had this very cool kind of calm demeanour," he explains.

As chief of his division, Shiba carries a lot on his plate, or as Coles-Levy puts it, a' lot of information and a lot of stress', but rather than play that pressure outwardly, Coles-Levy leaned the opposite way.

He says, "I liked the idea of getting to put the opposite kind of energy, instead of feeling frantic or bossy, to have him have this really calm and confident presence."

It was, he says, mostly instinct, one that paid off. "The character very much plays that way, and he's incredibly soothing."

That soothing quality sits alongside something, more fluid. "So much is his attitude," Coles-Levy says, "I love that he's just got this kind of swagger and yet he can also be really goofy."

What drew him in were the small, human touches, moments like watching Shiba, just on his own staring out at the water, maybe even taking in time to himself. As he puts it, that's something that you don't often get to do with characters.

That restraint carries into how much Shiba shows, and doesn't. Playing a character built around secrecy, Coles-Levy says he tries to stay in the moment ,rather than over-plan the reveal. "You play the idea of having secrets or information just in the energy of knowing how much he's existed in this space, before you meet the other characters."

The idea: You might get information, but not the whole picture, as Shiba, by nature, has to keep things a little more locked down, just to be safe.

Asked what themes in Black Torch resonated most, Coles-Levy points to the show's found-family core. "I love a good found family. I love unlikely friendships. So, putting together a crew of seemingly mismatched energies and personalities and having them become a genuine unit over time, that's always so satisfying."

But it's the show's underlying philosophy that stays with AJ longest: The idea that all things, all living beings are equal. AJ points to Jiro's bond with animals and his refusal to judge beings by category rather than character. "Jiro loves animals and can speak with them, but he sees Mononoke as no different, even though some are bad, there's also Rago who's really good, and he will make the judgement based off of the individual and not necessarily the type of being that it is."

That's the heart of the series: "This idea that we can all kind of come together and coexist no matter where you come from or who you are, I think is a really beautiful message," adds AJ.

Same-day dubbing, releasing a dub within hours of a Japanese broadcast has become standard practice in anime over the last decade. For AJ, the pressure of that timeline doesn't change much once the mic is on. "Honestly, it doesn't change a tonne for me ultimately, when we're in the booth and we're working, we're always going to give the best product that we can."

As they say, whether they have more time or less time, everybody is going for it and trying their hardest to make sure it comes out good, because that's the most important thing, the quality of it." The upside, AJ adds, is for the audience: "The consumer, the folks watching, don't have to wait so long to hear our versions of it, so it's really cool."

Coles-Levy echoes that sense of tunnel vision inside the booth. "The second you close yourself into that booth for the time frame that you're recording, you're just focused on being that character and in that space," he says. "You're not really thinking about deadline or this or that, you're just focussing on doing the work and playing the character. Thankfully the scheduling is done out of our hands."

Really, someone's dead? Both the artists chuckle.

Few anime pull the rug out as fast as Black Torch does with Jiro, who is killed and resurrected within the first episode. For AJ, the shift is about the personality. "I feel like Jiro just has more power and responsibility afterwards," they say. "I don't think any of his ideals or his morals change. I think he just wants to help in any way he can, and this, just through his reincarnation, it gives him more of the ability to do more of that," adds AJ.

Coles-Levy sums it up in a word: "It's an amplifier."

The show begins where he is already defending somebody against some bullies. "He's always been a protector and a fighter. So really, I think the only thing that changes isn't, necessarily, how I play him or his personality, it's just the amount of power that he has, and him kind of learning what that entails and how to handle it and what to do with it."

Jiro's ability to talk to animals posed its own performance challenge: How do you make a one-sided exchange feel like a real conversation?

AJ found the answer in tone rather than technique. "At least for Jiro, he can speak to the animals, so when I was able to hear them, the way I thought about it is like they're kind of his little brothers and sisters."

He adds, "Trying to imagine talking to my little brothers, or talking to a kid or something like that, and being soft and warm, because maybe these animals are a little bit more scared given the situations that they're in. That was important to me, and I think helped make me more connected to them as characters."

A trickier dynamic altogether: Voicing Rago, a being who shares a body with Keith Silverstein's character, while recording separately from his scene partner entirely. "Honestly, a lot of it comes down to trust," AJ says. "Keith Silverstein is an amazing actor, so I know he's going to bring it, and I know that I can't hold back myself either."

AJ notes, holds the throughline the actors can't always see in the moment, he explains that their job is not only to direct them, but to keep the entire project in mind." Over time, even without sharing a room, a rhythm formed. "Sometimes maybe Keith recorded before me and I can hear him, I can get a feel for maybe how he'll respond as Rago, and our compatibility grows over time."

Asked for a surprising or funny memory from making the show, AJ points to a moment of relief, finding out who they'd be working with. "Because we never had before, like, you know, it's a small world, the voice acting world, so we all know each other, but this is like kind of our first time working in tandem like this, which is really cool." That was really really cool, being like, oh, who's my cast, you know."

As for the story itself, both actors land on the same beat: Jiro's death in episode one. "I mean, I think him dying in the first episode was pretty surprising," Coles-Levy says. "You're usually not prepped for that."

Black Torch is streaming on Crunchyroll.