キープ

キープ – kiipu. Booking term that refers to a tentative reservation in a schedule. You may also see this as キープスケジュール (kiipu sukejūru; lit. keep schedule). Tentative is the keyword here because being booked in this manner doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be doing the job. It only means they’re expected to be available that time or day to do a recording. Such assignments must be confirmed, which could happen a day before they’re supposed to do it, otherwise they are considered cancelled (バラシ; barashi). The details of the reservation may also change once they’ve been properly booked. Some reservations can also be sudden where the booking period is undetermined until further notice.

These are usually done for seiyuu who have been offered to voice regular roles in anime or serialized shows since recording for those are expected to be done in a consistent manner (such as every week over a period of a few months). However, as this is generally done for those with smaller roles and such roles have numerous candidates prepared for it, cases exist where a seiyuu had been booked for three months for an anime but was never called to do a recording; the same seiyuu then brought up another project that lasted five months where they were called to every recording.