ComingSoon Senior Editor Spencer Legacy spoke with voice actresses Xanthe Huynh and Kayli Mills about the world-building and pacing of Adult Swim’s ongoing horror anime. Housing Complex C‘s third episode premieres on October 16 at midnight ET/PT on Adult Swim and on HBO Max the next day, with the finale premiering the next week on October 23 at midnight ET/PT.
“Kimi Shirokado is an eccentric girl who lives at a low-cost housing complex in the seaside town of Kurosaki in August 2000,” reads the show’s synopsis. “She then befriends Yuri Koshide when her family moves in along with Middle Eastern fishing interns.”
Spencer Legacy: What about Housing Complex C grabbed you and made you want to be part of it?
Xanthe Huynh: To be honest, I didn’t know anything about this project going into it, except that it was horror. The studio did reach out and asked if I was okay with this kind of material before getting the chance to work on it. I said I was interested, even though I’m quite a scaredy cat when it comes to anything spooky. But yeah, I guess I wanted to try something different, and it’s been a really cool ride.
Kayli Mills: Same situation, just like, “are you okay with horror?” “Actually, I really love horror!” I’ve been doing a lot of the interactive theater stuff this year. Once I started working on the project, though, what made it feel so different to me was there was a Lovecraftian element to this, and I was like, “What?” So I got very excited about that.
Xanthe, what do you find most interesting about Kimi as a character?
Huynh: Kimi … I guess she’s just such a bright little ball of energy. She wants everybody to get along. She’s just really sweet and trying to make sure that everybody’s happy — everybody that’s living there seems to love her. When the new residents arrive, she just wants everybody to get along and be friends as well. I think that’s what I really like about her.
Kayli, Yuri’s already going through a lot, having just moved, and now there’s, as you mentioned, Lovecraftian stuff going on and all this tension. What was it like to get in the headspace for those lines?
Mills: If you’re in this brand new place, you’re already scared enough of new people. I know if I’m in a new place, I’m already scared enough just to talk to new people. Now on top of that, we have Kimi and she’s super nice and we’re able to make friends, but then the first thing that we all do together, this little nice shaved ice party, there’s … something special in the syrup.
So yeah, it’s like, “okay, so I’m going to go out of my comfort zone, I’m going to make a friend. And wow, it’s already turning out bad.” So it’s just lot of anxiety. But also, I feel like Yuri isn’t as freaked out as you might expect. I think we’ll probably find out why in the next couple episodes. .
Housing Complex C is only four episodes in length. What’s it like to tell a story with a quicker pace than most shows with your characters?
Huynh: I think because of that — because it’s so short — there’s so much world building that needs to happen in these first few episodes. I feel like in the first two episodes, there is a lot of lore that’s been given out, especially when Kimi sings the song. Then Taka has to explain some of the components of the song so that it doesn’t sound like a bunch of words thrown together. What was the question again?
I think for me, we rely so much on Bill Millsap [ADR Director for the series] because he’s been able to digest the show before we get to work on it. He’s also getting the whole story, whereas like a lot of times we’re only getting to know what’s happening exactly with our character. So he’s been explaining a lot of things on the way as we were recording so that I understood what was happening. He also withheld a lot of information because he wanted us to discover it as the characters as well. .
Mills: So funny! That was a lot of fun.
How do you two view the friendship between Kimi and Yuri?
Mills: From what we’ve seen so far, it’s incredibly sweet. They’re the only two girls of that age, and they just connected so well instantly, like both of them accepting each other and wanting to share their lives. Yuri being so open to, “Oh, what do you do for fun?” Instead of being like, “Oh, that’s like gross country stuff.” She was super open to it, like, “Oh yeah, let’s go try this thing and let’s go explore together.” And I think that that’s just so sweet because there’s so many times where you go in … I’ve moved around schools a lot. I go to new places and people there are just like, “Nah, no thank you.” And you try to make friends with them and they’re like, “That’s weird because I’ve never seen it before.” So the fact that they connect so quickly and so well is very sweet.
Huynh: I love their dynamic, because Yuri is a little bit more mature and mellow, whereas Kimi is in your face, like, “I want to do all these things.” She’s a bit of a prankster too, trying to show how clever she is and all the new things that she’s learned, even if it may or may not be the correct usage of certain words and such. Even when Yuri and her had just met, she’s like, “I want to show you something cool.” And then she spooks her. But I love that Yuri’s not one to like back down either. She’ll call her out or she’ll be like, “All right, since I’m older, I’ll go into this scary dark place first and Ill protect you.”
Mills: I’m the big sister!
Huynh: So they have a great balance to each other.
Mills: Yeah, that’s a good dynamic.
There’s an interesting mix of characters in the complex, especially with the different foreigners and the elderly people, and that causes some racial tensions. What do you find most intriguing about that mix of personalities that happens in the show?
Huynh: Yeah, I think it’s really interesting to see like how that reflects maybe some of what’s happening in our own world, but I love that the character Taka is a little bit more open and levelheaded, being like, “Oh, well we shouldn’t be so close-minded. We should listen to them and get to know them so that we can find common ground,” rather than just be like, “Oh, that’s different than what I’m used to. You shouldn’t be doing that because it makes me uncomfortable because I don’t understand you.” So I think that’s really nice, to get to hear the different character’s point of views. Some of the other ones are a little bit more laid back and being like, “All right, we’ll just leave them alone and they’ll leave us alone.” But of course, Kimi is like, “No, we should all get together and be friends!”
Mills: Yeah, I feel like the interns came in and they were very willing to learn and integrate with like the world around them, but then they just got so much backlash that they didn’t know what to do. Then it created so much tension on both sides. Then Kimi comes in and she’s like, “Hey.” But the first couple episodes, you’re like, “Oh, Khan is this big guy, maybe he’s causing trouble,” but he’s actually the sweetest human being on the planet. Just trying to understand and make everyone get along. Having it spun that way, I really appreciated Khan as a character.
Xanthe, as Haru in Persona 5, what resonated with you most about her character arc?
Huynh: I think that her arc … she went from someone being very submissive and very [much] not the person to rock the boat and always listen to her parents and any other adults that when it came to major decisions within her own life … I think that when she overcomes that barrier to be like, “Okay, I’m my own person. I should be able to make decisions on my own.” I think she gets this great sense of independence through her awakening.
Kayli, a similar question. You play Emelia in Re: Zero, so what about that character has really resonated with you?
Mills: For Emelia, it was that … Emilia [in] the first season is missing so much of her memories, yet she’s still in this position where she’s trying to make such a big change and a good change for the people around her and take this leadership position on. This whole time, she’s got all of this pressure on her, but she’s still so sweet and kind and trying to understand all of the time. I think that that’s so amazing because you might see her as like, “Oh, she’s this very sweet, refined girl,” but there’s so much going on under the surface and she’s been through so much hurt and so much trauma and she still just wants to make sure everyone else is okay.
To go back to Housing Complex C, it has a very measured pace and it keeps building — with Episode 2 featuring that shocking ending with the syrup. What can we expect from the next two episodes?
Huynh: Expect a lot more moss and getting to know other characters sides.
Mills: Yeah, it’s so hard not to spoil because a lot of people are like, “Oh, is it like really a horror anime? Not that much has happened,” but like Xanthe said, it’s a lot of world-building. Everything happens in Episodes 3 and 4 and it happens hard and it happens fast and there’s just a lot that’s going on. All I’ll say is buckle up because you’re not going to expect the twists that are going to happen. You’re going to probably have to take some time to process what’s happened afterward because there’s so much.
