Evangelion anime voice actress says gay man grabbed her chest in Tokyo bar district

Stranger assumed she was a lesbian, Eva lead says.

In the early hours of the morning on May 23, anime voice actress Megumi Ogata was out having some drinks with a female friend in Golden Gai, one of the oldest bar districts in Tokyo. Ogata’s ability to perform deeper voices than many other anime voice actresses has won her some very memorable roles, such as Evangelion protagonist Shinji Ikari and Sailor Moon’s Haruka Tenoh, a.k.a. Sailor Uranus.

▼ Megumi Ogata

However, Ogata’s rise to fame predates the more recent anime marketing strategies that emphasize putting voice actresses in front of the camera, and so she’s usually less likely to be recognized on the street than some of her younger colleagues. Not knowing who she was, though, didn’t stop a passerby from copping a feel, though, Ogata said through her Twitter account.

今。ゴールデン街を歩いていて。 見知らぬゲイの人に、すれ違いざま胸を掴まれ「ゲイだと思ったのにビアンなんだ」と言われたよ？(一緒に歩いていた女性Pとは勿論何も無い飲み友達) 私個人は、LGBT、何の偏見もない。だけどこの行為自体… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

—
緒方恵美@6/6B.D.Live (@Megumi_Ogata) May 22, 2019

“Just now, I was walking through Golden Gai. As I passed by a gay man who I’d never met before, he grabbed my chest and said ‘At first I thought you were a gay guy, but it turns out you’re a lesbian’ (the woman I was with, Ms. P, is just a platonic friend I was drinking with).

I have no personal prejudice against LGBT people, but his actions qualify as sexual harassment.”

Online commenters were quick to voice their agreement and shock:

“That guy is nothing more than a chikan [groper].”
“What he did was criminal.”
“Regardless of a person’s sexual identity, touching their chest without permission is wrong.”
“There’s something wrong with a guy who’d just start squeezing someone’s breasts like that.”

One Twitter user, identifying herself as a member of Golden Gai’s neighborhood association, went so far as to ask the voice actress to contact the organization, so that they could see if the incident had been recorded on security cameras and the man could be identified, though Ogata hasn’t said whether or not she intends to track the man down to pursue legal action.

Source: Twitter/@Megumi_Ogata via Otakomu
Top image: Pakutaso
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