Voice actors face all kinds of challenges when they step into the booth, but Abby Trott’s role inDemon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaibais just as tough on a physical level as it is on a mental one. At first, her character, Nezuko Kamado, doesn’t have many speaking lines: she’s been turned into a demon who retains a portion of her humanity, and her primary form of communication is done through grunting and growling.
“It’s definitely different from a lot of my other characters,” Trott laughs when she and I talked about the show over Zoom, swearing she enjoys doing creature voices in her work. “But from the moment I got the audition, you could see the two sides to her, and we seesomany more as the show has gone on.”
From Growling To Growing As Nezuko Kamado
While her brother Tanjiro is away from the house, the Kamado family comes under attack by powerful demons, and Nezuko is the only survivor of the massacre. She’s turned into a demon after being maimed in the attack, with the usual demon restrictions like being unable to go into the sunlight initially without burning alive and mostly wiped of her memories – but she retains enough to know Tanjiro is important to her.
Early on in Demon Slayer, with a bamboo stop in her mouth to prevent her from harming anyone, Nezuko can only communicate through what Trott describes with a smile as “feral growling,” but says she enjoys doing creature voices in her work.
Striking the right balance with Nezuko, a little sister character who fights fiercely with her demonic powers, was critical to both Trott and the directors when recording. “It’s been fun to explore the feral side to her. One of the producers early on wanted to make sure Nezuko didn’t sound ‘too cute,’ especially when she was in demon mode,” a note she says she carried with her throughout the entire series.
As Demon Slayer progresses, so too do Nezuko’s abilities and how well she can harness them.She begins to fightalongside Tanjiro and his fellow demon slayers, the brash and boorish Inosuke and the affable Zenitsu, utilizing her powers and proving to be a powerful asset to the team. She even learns to speak again, eventually allowing Trott to explore more dialogue-based moments with the character.
She cites Nezuko learning to conquer the sun as one of her most memorable parts to have recorded, seeking to deliver on the emotionality ofa long-overdue triumph.
“I tried to prepare as well as I could for that because I had built up all this pressure, because it’s such a pivotal moment," she tells me. “I was like, ‘This moment, I want it to be perfect.’ It was really challenging and emotional to record, but it’s one of my favorite moments of the whole story.”
With Tanjiro uprooting his life and seeking to avenge the family after the attack, I ask if Trott thinks Nezuko would have done the same thing her brother did had their places during the initial slaughter been switched. She barely hesitates before affirming, “If it were reversed, I think Nezuko would step up to the plate, and she would do anything to turn Tanjiro back into a human.”
She mentions both characters’ in-universe powers, like Tanjiro’s heightened sense of smell and Nezuko learning to conquer the sun, but Trott says one of the pair’s biggest powers lies in their relationship. “In addition to those kinds of powers, they both have that bond, the bond between siblings. I think you’ll see that even though Nezuko is a demon, she’s stillsoloyal to her family.”
Providing The Perfect Balance In Dandadan And Zom 100: Bucket List Of The Dead
Pivoting from the guttural early days of Demon Slayer, Trott’s recent work also includes voicing Momo Ayase,one of the two protagonistsin the smash-hit series Dandadan. Momo is a teenage it-girl with a steadfast belief in ghosts despite never having seen one before the events of the series, and Trott laughs when I ask about her experience in the role.
“Oh my god, I love Momo so much,” she smiles, professing to be a big fan of sci-fi stories herself. “She’s been so fun to voice. She’s very dynamic and expressive, which as an actor is just the best.”
Trott tells me she feels like her co-star A.J. Beckles, who plays the shyalien believer Okarunthat explores the supernatural alongside Momo, was “perfect casting” for the role. “As an actor, that’s so helpful because it gives you more to go off than just wherever your imagination, since you can really respond. [Beckles] has this endearing quality that’s obviously quintessential to his character, and he nails it.”
“I love the dynamic between Momo and Okarun,” she summarizes. “They are very different from each other, but they’re also so good for each otherbecause ofthose differences, notdespitethem.”
Another contrasting character Trott has loaned her voice to recently was Shizuka Mikazuki in Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead. In the series, Shizuka and a handful of other survivors in a technicolor zombie apocalypse that ravages the majority of Tokyo seek to use the end of the world to eschew their former ways of life in pursuit of happiness, resulting in the creation of the titular bucket list. Shizuka is the solution-oriented realist who counterbalances the brashness of protagonist Akira Tendo and his oafish best friend Kenichiro Ryuzaki.
“I know it’s general, but that’s such a staple role, such a stable counterbalance to the dude-bro action that’s going on with the other two that I really, really enjoy,” Trott says of Shizuka. “You can see the evolution of her character just in season one – she comes so far.”
Similar to Dandadan, the sharp differences in personalities are an asset to the storytelling in Zom 100. “It’s because Akira is good for her in that way,” Trott says, referring to the relationship between Momo and Okarun in similar fashion to the one between Shizuka and Akira. “He’s teaching her, and she’s teaching him. Even though she is the responsible one, she needs to let go a little bit and loosen up, while he needs to tighten up. When you’re an actor, those character evolutions keep things interesting.”
I ask what Trott’s bucket list item would be in a situation like Shizuka’s, and she laughs. “One of my bucket list items is to go to Paris. I’ve never been to France, and I would love to go to Paris, but in the zombie apocalypse, what is there? I’m not going to get any croissants because there’s no one there to make them, and zombie baguettes are not quite the move.”
A Summer Of Roles Reprised
While she can’t tell me too much about the release when we talked in March, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle will see a theatrical release in the Fall of 2025. It’s the first of a planned three-part series of films that serve to follow up the anime’s fourth and final season with feature-length explorations of its most pivotal moments. She’ll also reprise her role as Nezuko in the English version of an upcoming Demon Slayer game, Demon Slayer: The Hinokami Chronicles 2, slated forrelease in August 2025.
Additionally, Dandadan’s highly anticipated second season debuts this summer on Crunchyroll and Netflix. The series will be available for streaming, but eager fans can catch a feature-length version of the first three episodes in theaters with Dandadan: Evil Eye. The series has been nominated for just shy of 20 awards for the upcoming ninth Crunchyroll Anime Awards, which will take place on May 25 in Tokyo.
Catch Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Movie: Infinity Castle beginning September 12 in North American theaters, and keep an eye out for the debut of the second season of Dandadan on July 3 in the meantime.
