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 This thread is for Japanese voice actors, the English Dub thread is probably a better place to talk about their English counterparts. Most normal people watch television or movies, and eventually begin to recognize or appreciate actors in their roles across various works. I couldn't tell you how much my family loves Tom Hanks and will obsessively watch any new movie he's in, to give one example. It's a bit harder to do that with anime, since it's, well, animated. Instead, the best we have is voice acting. Just like live action actors, voice actors have a wide range of skill and often have a type of role they're particularly good at portraying. So post your favorite voice actor(s) and explain why they're the best! Click each actor's name to go their AnimeNewsNetwork page. All images are also from ANN (rehosted on imgur). I've marked some videos as  , liberally, for the literal definition of not work safe. No video has anything explicit.Keiji Fujiwara  Notable roles: Fullmetal Alchemist/Brotherhood (Maes Hughes), Eureka Seven (Holland), Baccano! (Ladd Russo) Work sample Fujiwara is notable because he seems to have only a single voice that works well portraying many different types of characters. The three roles I've mentioned above, for example, are respectively a doting father/cool uncle figure, an angry but passionate leader, and an insane murderer. His voice is also very unique and completely recognizable. Besides working in anime, he also does a lot of video game work, notably Axel from Kingdom Hearts 2 and Drebin from Metal Gear Solid 4. Miyuki Sawashiro  Notable roles: Bakemonogatari (Suruga Kanbaru), Durarara!! (Celty Sturluson), Kokoro Connect (Himeko Inaba) Work sample (Baby butt, blood)Sawashiro has a knack for playing women who are supposed to sound mature and emotional. Her performance in Kokoro Connect was, if I remember the thread right, regarded as utterly fantastic and I agree with the sentiment. Moreso than a lot of other VAs, she seems to be able to put believable, genuine emotion into her lines so she does very well when her characters get the chance to let their emotions run freely. Partially because of that, she also plays emotional (typically angry) young boys well, such as Kousuke Kira from Btooom! and Carl Clover from the video game Blazblue. Tomokazu Sugita  Notable roles: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Kyon), Kanon 2006 (Yuuichi Aizawa), JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (Joseph Joestar) Work sample Sugita probably has more fun with his roles than any other voice actor I've ever heard. He plays jokers well, and the role of Joseph Joestar was pretty much made for him, to give you yet another reason to watch Jojo if you currently aren't. He's a huge nerd, and absolutely loves the art he helps create. Like Sawashiro, he plays a character in the video game Blazblue (Ragna the Bloodedge), and a character he largely inspired and designed (Amane Nishiki) is part of the latest version of the game. Sugita is great to watch just for all the fun he sounds like he's having with every single line of his. Yuuichi Nakamura  Notable roles: Clannad (Tomoya Okazaki), Hyouka (Houtarou Oreki), Squid Girl (Gorou Arashiyama) Work sample (Mostly naked men, panty shots, suggestive dialogue)Nakamura excels at roles that require him to be typically collected or aloof, with an occasional outburst that seems at first glance to be unbefitting of the character. He exemplifies this archetype in Clannad, where the main character is exactly this sort of person. That said, his range of voices is fairly large, being able to play gruff, deep voices like Greed from Fullmetal Alchemist, and completely batshit insane Joker-style villains like Hazama from Blazblue (noticing a trend yet?  ).Takehito Koyasu  Notable roles: Tales of the Abyss (Jade Curtiss), JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (Dio Brando), Sword Art Online (Nobuyuki Sugou) Work sample Mainly notable for being, I believe, the single most prolific voice actor in the entire industry. Seriously, look at how long his ANN page is. Which is kind of strange because his unique accent (particularly recognizable on his "S", which sounds almost like a lisp) suggests that he should be tied to a few certain kinds of roles. Recently he's picked up roles as deranged villains in Jojo and Sword Art Online, and has pulled them off masterfully, so we'll see if his new roles continue the trend. I don't want to clutter up the OP too much so this is it for me. And despite putting him in the thread title, I haven't seen nearly enough of Norio Wakamoto's stuff to make an appropriate effortpost for him so I'll leave that one to you guys
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 09:32 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 15:43 |
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Miyuki Sawashiro is probably my favorite mostly because of her huge range of roles. Even though mature women are her forte, she does everything; guys, young women, older women, stupid mascot characters. Theres a huge difference between something like Dlanor Knox & a more serious role like Inaba in Kokoro connect. Theres a lot of amazing voice actors that keep getting stuck in the same role because they're hired to do what they're famous for, so its nice to be able to see someone hit a wide variety. Even though her voice is easily recognizable, I rarely feel like I'm hearing the same exact role she did in a previous work. That was made rather obvious aftering watching maybe 5 series in a row that she was coincidentally in last year. Sometimes I feel a little guilty about playing Persona 4: Arena with the english voice track because Miyuki voices my main character in that. 
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 10:46 |
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Rie Kugimiya probably deserves a mention, it's not often that a japanese VA gets such notoriety internationally and I'm pretty sure almost everyone who has watched anime has come across the 'Queen of Tsundere' in some role or another. Strangely enough shes probably best known for her work as Alphonse Elric from Full Metal Alchemist, her work as Shana from Shakugan no Shana and Taiga Aisaka from Toradora probably cemented her reputation as 'that tusndere VA' though.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 11:45 |
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBlG5AXcb-k Keiji Fujiwara as The Joker and Tomuyuki Dan (who's best known as Kisame Hoshigake in Naruto and as Dr. Isaka/Weather Dopant in Kamen Rider W) as Batman. I'll update these later: Norio Wakamoto Endorph said it best below. Instantly recognizable in whatever role he plays, especially if he starts yelling. Notable Roles: Oda Nobunaga (Sengoku Basara), Dracula (Castlevania: Symphony of the Night), Charles Zi Brittania (Code Geass) Akio Otsuka. Equally capable of being world weary, laid back, boisterous, disturing and above all, BADASS. Notable Roles: Solid Snake (Metal Gear series), Dr. Black Jack, Marshal D. Teach (One Piece), Batou (Ghost In The Shell), Kyoraku Shunsui (Bleach), Rider (Fate/Zero) Currently voices Wham in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and Livebearer in Toriko Work Sample Warning: Epic speech Jurouta Kosogi Notable roles: Jotaro Kujo (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure OVA), Arlong (One Piece), Akisame Koetsuji (History's Greatest Disciple Kenichi) Jouji Nakata One of the go-to voices for refined villany or anti-heroism. Notable roles: Alucard (Hellsing), Edmond Dantes (Gankutsuou); Hody Jones (One Piece) Work Sample Perigryn fucked around with this message at Feb 26, 2013 around 10:14 |
| # ? Feb 25, 2013 12:37 |
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Mamoru Miyano has done some good work; a few roles people would recognize him from would be Okabe in Steins;Gate, Setsuna from Gundam 00, or Taichi from Chihayafuru. Dude's got the 'cool,' aloof sounding male voice down pat.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 18:59 |
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Akira Kamiya owns. He doesn't really voice a lot nowadays, but he was the starring role in many major titles in the 70s-80s. Here's a bunch of assorted clips of his work. Some of his well known roles are shown here, like Ryo Saeba from City Hunter and Roy Focker from Macross. But it does lack the role he's usually known for, which is of course Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kPII561-GY Kamiya is really good at giving a lot of character to the roles he plays. He really carries City Hunter; for those who haven't seen the show Ryo Saeba is a pervert who goofs around but is serious when the situation calls for it. Kamiya does such a good job at making both parts of his personality believable. And of course I don't really need to go into why his performance as Kenshiro is great, just watch that clip if you're a heathen that hasn't seen a single episode of Fist of the North Star.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 21:44 |
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Junichi Suwabe  . He's voiced a lot of fabulous and suave dudes, including Archer (EMIYA) from Fate/Stay Night and its spinoffs, Grimmjow in Bleach and Greed in the original Full Metal Alchemist and will voice Terence D'Arby on the new Jojo game (and possibly in Stardust Crusaders).
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 23:13 |
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I guess I'll be the one to actually post Norio Wakamoto. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oC8px1P7C8 He's Norio Wakamoto. Seriously though, I just really love his voice. It's probably the most distinctive I've heard in any language, and he always makes it work no matter if he's going for threatening villain or comedy. EDIT: Oh wait, someone else posted him. Dammit.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 23:20 |
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Surprised Atsuko Tanaka hasn't been mentioned yet. Maj. Motoko Kusanagi is her most famous role, but she occasionally shows up in other shows. Wish she had more work as lead characters though... that voice 
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 23:41 |
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Not really an example of a super prolific VA, but rather somewhat of an interesting note: In Full Moon they casted pop artist Myco for the role as 12 year old Mistuki, her first and only role as a voice actor. At the start of the series she was clearly not a very good actor, sounded very stiff and didn't fit the role well, but by the end she was actually doing a quite good job. No examples to link because I'm lazy and because I might be remembering wrong. (Regardless, she isn't doing a very good job at the beginning of the series.)
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| # ? Feb 26, 2013 01:08 |
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Wow, no mention of Jun Fukuyama(Lelouch in Code Geass, Lawrence in Spice and Wolf) yet? I'm also a quite partial to Megumi Toyoguchi. When you can play both Revy in Black Lagoon and Hikari in Pokemon, consider me impressed. As well as Eri Kitamura(Sayaka in Madoka Magica, Karen in the Monogatari franchise). I'm also going to go ahead and admit that I actually kind of enjoy Kana Hanazawa(Mayuri in Steins;Gate, Akane in Psycho-Pass).
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| # ? Feb 26, 2013 02:02 |
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PurplieNurplie posted:Mamoru Miyano has done some good work; a few roles people would recognize him from would be Okabe in Steins;Gate, Setsuna from Gundam 00, or Taichi from Chihayafuru. Dude's got the 'cool,' aloof sounding male voice down pat. What no mention of him doing Light from Death Note? And for content, aside from those already mentioned I like Megumi Ogata (Shinji from Evangelion, Sailor Uranus from Sailor Moon, Naegi and Komaeda from the Dangan Ronpa series). She's got a nice deep voice for women and an adorable one for young boys.
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| # ? Feb 26, 2013 02:34 |
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Relambrien posted:Tomokazu Sugita He's also Chrom in Fire Emblem Awakening, which led to this.
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| # ? Feb 26, 2013 03:32 |
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Pollyanna posted:He's also Chrom in Fire Emblem Awakening, which led to this. Oh my god, yet another reason to get that game as soon as I can afford it Redcrimson posted:Wow, no mention of Jun Fukuyama(Lelouch in Code Geass, Lawrence in Spice and Wolf) yet? Yeah I really really wanted to add him to the OP (for Shinra in Durarara and Takanashi in Working), but I already had five people
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| # ? Feb 26, 2013 06:04 |
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Adding on to the Jun Fukuyama love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9o8eGH9qe0
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| # ? Feb 26, 2013 09:45 |
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Malachite posted:Miyuki Sawashiro is probably my favorite mostly because of her huge range of roles. Even though mature women are her forte, she does everything; guys, young women, older women, stupid mascot characters. Theres a huge difference between something like Dlanor Knox & a more serious role like Inaba in Kokoro connect. Theres a lot of amazing voice actors that keep getting stuck in the same role because they're hired to do what they're famous for, so its nice to be able to see someone hit a wide variety. Even though her voice is easily recognizable, I rarely feel like I'm hearing the same exact role she did in a previous work. That was made rather obvious aftering watching maybe 5 series in a row that she was coincidentally in last year. gently caress, beaten. Yeah, this lady owns. She hit my radar with the Angel Beats! singer, 'Iwasawa', then as 'Suruga' in Bakemonogatari and then again with 'Inaba' in Kokoro Connect. All of the characters she ends up playing usually end up owning. She's also a loving chameleon. I literally just made a post about how much I'm liking 'Female Knight' in Maoyuu and look, there she is again. Harettazetta fucked around with this message at Feb 26, 2013 around 13:38 |
| # ? Feb 26, 2013 13:27 |
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Yuuichi Nakamura, Tomokazu Sugita and Takahiro Sakurai play a Yu Yu Hakusho Megadrive game and proceed to have a Norio Wakamoto off (since he voiced Chuu in that series) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNkATKq0bUw ...and it is glorious.
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| # ? Feb 26, 2013 16:19 |
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The 7th Seiyuu Awards have had their results announced, so I'll give a mini spotlight to a few of the winners. Best Actor: Yuuki Kaji  Kaji hasn't been in any particularly major breakout roles, but he's proven himself in a variety of supporting roles like Walker Yumasaki from Durarara and Takeo Takumi (aka Sword Star) from Star Driver. He's also the voice of Satoru Asahina in the currently-airing Shin Sekai Yori / From the New World. He'll be playing Eren in next season's Attack on Titan, which is being really hyped up here in ADTRW. Best Actress: Kana Asumi  Asumi is one of my favorite voice actresses. Her specialty by far is hyper-energetic, bubbly-sounding girls like Popura Taneshima in Working!! / Wagnaria!! and Nyarlko in Nyarlko-san. She can do other more subdued roles as well, but she absolutely shines when voicing someone she can just sort of go insane with. Fans' Award: Hiroshi Kamiya  Probably known to most as "the Shaft guy", for his roles as Koyomi Araragi in Bakemonogatari, Nozomu Itoshiki in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, and Kou Ichinomiya in Arakawa Under the Bridge. Kamiya excels at the kind of fast-talking, banter-heavy roles that Shaft characters often represent, and this extends outside of Shaft as well, in roles like Izaya Orihara from Durarara. If you feel a strange urge to punch him when you hear him talk, it's probably because you played Fate/stay night where he was Shinji Matou. On a completely different note, if anyone wants to challenge their ability to recognize some of these voice actors, there's a Sporcle quiz I made a couple weeks ago for just that. About half of the actors and actresses in the quiz have been mentioned in this thread already!
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| # ? Mar 4, 2013 10:53 |
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Are these awards for specific roles, or just for their entire body of work over a year?
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| # ? Mar 4, 2013 12:48 |
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http://seiyuawards.jp/ posted:声優アワードの目的 Others better than me at Japanese can check, but the first bits basically say that the Seiyuu Awards are intended to recognize VAs that have left the greatest impression throughout the year, so it looks like the latter. There are some awards that seem to be for specific roles though, like the "Best Singers" award going to the Nyarlko-san trio.
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| # ? Mar 4, 2013 12:54 |
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Relambrien posted:
Holy poo poo, Joseph Joestar is Hoshi from Arakawa Under the Bridge? Makes me love Jojo even more
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| # ? Mar 4, 2013 13:33 |
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Perigryn posted:Yuuichi Nakamura, Tomokazu Sugita and Takahiro Sakurai play a Yu Yu Hakusho Megadrive game and proceed to have a Norio Wakamoto off (since he voiced Chuu in that series) I was going to post about Tokyo Encounter. Sugita and Nakamura have a show where all they do is sit around playing and talking about videogames. Inviting other seiyuu as guests aswell, hijinks like the above are the result. You can find some translations here. I have to recommend episode 3 where they play Love Plus+ and its Sugita's personal copy
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| # ? Mar 4, 2013 13:49 |
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Endorph posted:I guess I'll be the one to actually post Norio Wakamoto. This isn't actually Norio Wakamoto, this is the lovely niconicodouga Norio Wakamoto impersonator that people for some reason consistently confuse with being actually him. Norio Wakamoto himself has much better voice control and is half an octave lower typically. Weirdest pet peeve I have is people confusing the two because they're really only superficially similar. Here's the real deal singing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL3F5MFTm0s
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| # ? Mar 4, 2013 14:19 |
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I really wish the Norio Wakamoto as Lando Calrissian clip was still on YouTube  There's this though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4tIi2Q_LWc
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| # ? Mar 4, 2013 14:20 |
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I am a big fan of Maaya Sakamoto. Partly because she's an extremely good voice actor, and partly because she's also found success as a professional singer/musician. As a result OPs/EDs sung by her tend to be pretty great, though I have no idea what happened with Triangler. It's especially striking when compared to other OPs/EDs sung by other voice actors.
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| # ? Mar 4, 2013 15:33 |
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Zorak posted:I really wish the Norio Wakamoto as Lando Calrissian clip was still on YouTube Hold the drat phone, he was Lando in the Japanese dub of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi?
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| # ? Mar 4, 2013 18:59 |
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Who else could do him justice?
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| # ? Mar 4, 2013 19:01 |
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PunkBoy posted:Hold the drat phone, he was Lando in the Japanese dub of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi?
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| # ? Mar 4, 2013 19:53 |
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Perigryn posted:Not only that, he was apparently the dub voice of Vince McMahon before they switched over to using subtitles. Holy poo poo, I need to do some research.
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| # ? Mar 4, 2013 20:31 |
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I have always been a fan of Nobuyuki Hiyama Hes usually cast as "hot blooded" characters, but he has some really diverse roles too. Probably most known for Mr.3 (One Piece) Only video I could find with him really. Guy/Gai(GaoGaiGar) Link has GGG Final spoilers. He also did that one guy in Eden of the East with a normal/calm voice. He also does a lot of fighting game and other video game roles, such as Joe Higashi from King of Fighters Siegfried from Soul Calibur And of course Link in LoZ: Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess. Couldn't find any good examples. Don't think he's been in a major role in a long time, I some times hear him as a background character or a minor side role.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2013 01:34 |
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Harettazetta posted:re: Miyuki Sawashiro Kokoro Connect owned, and yeah she was the biggest reason for that. I had to look up her VA about halfway through that series and man I like a lot of the shows she's done. On top of the stuff you mentioned, she was Celty in Durarara, Shinku in Rozen Maiden, Saeko in HSotD, and Aruruu in Utawarerumono... now I understand why I like that extremely random list of anime. Now I want to watch Maoyuu, and basically everything Crunchyroll has of hers I haven't gotten around to watching yet. Curse you VA thread!
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 17:02 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 15:43 |
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Nate RFB posted:I am a big fan of Maaya Sakamoto. Partly because she's an extremely good voice actor, and partly because she's also found success as a professional singer/musician. As a result OPs/EDs sung by her tend to be pretty great, though I have no idea what happened with Triangler. It's especially striking when compared to other OPs/EDs sung by other voice actors. She's a singer first and a voice actress on the side - she even writes all her own lyrics these days, and they're pretty drat good. I believe she also composed all the songs in her upcoming album. I'm also a big fan - I managed to go to one of her concerts a couple of years ago, too, and she's also fantastic live.
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| # ? Mar 10, 2013 12:29 |
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