Wall of text warning, so if you just want the basics;
TL;DR: Ichiki auditions for a role in a popular anime, said audition is actually a prank pulled by fellow actors. Ichiki believes he got the role and attends a live event when he's told he's not in the show and they play his audition tape where they deliberately made him overact to humiliate him. They hire him as "PR" and continue to publicly humiliate him for the sake of "Promoting" the show. Other actors get pissed, fans boycott the show, actors who pulled the prank have practically been blacklisted
A few years ago in Japan;
Before the "Kokoro Connect" anime began airing, a prank was being planned on an unsuspecting and aspiring voice actor that ended up being more of an abuse in power than a simple joke. The producer, who seemingly planned all this is called Takahiro Yamanaka and works for King Records.
Around 2 months before the anime began airing, there was an event held for fans that was hosted by 3 of the voice actors from the Kokoro Connect anime. They were Takuma Terashima, Takahiro Mizushima and Asuka Oogame. The event was also shown online via ustream for public viewing.
Prior to this, Ichiki was called into an audition for the anime where he was told he would star as an anime original character. The producer had planned everything out in detail. He had other fake voice actors there also auditioning for the role, along with the various staff for the anime, like the director and sound producer. A hidden camera was placed in the auditioning room. Ichiki was shown fake dialogue and fake character design for his role, to make it seem more convincing. During the audition, Ichiki had to say various lines in different ways, the director insisting he say it with the loudest voice possible.
Fast forward two months later at the publicity event, Ichiki was called on to stage. He was not called into any rehearsals or given a script for the event and was just told to arrive for a surprise announcement. He was lead to believe that his anime original character would be announced. As he appears on stage, he introduces himself and video displayed on stage. The video explains that the audition was fake and the role was made up, too. He's not starring in the anime.
During the video, they play his audition with spliced and unusual questions edited to further embarrass Ichiki. This tape was all narrated by Takuma Terashima, one of the main voice actors of the anime, included lines mockin
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