In this last instalment, we will be swinging our focus to look at the young talents who have made a splash within the first five years of their début. With three of the Best Newcomers in 2008 (Yuuki Kaji, Kana Asumi and Haruka Tomatsu) sweeping the top awards in 2013, these up-and-coming newbies are definitely on the cusp of something big. So make sure to keep your eyes (or rather, ears) trained on them in the coming years.
Best Male Newcomers 2013 – Kazutomi Yamamoto, Nobunaga Shimazaki (from Voice Newtype)
Nobunaga Shimazaki
Shimazaki first aspired to become a seiyuu as he looked up to veteran seiyuu Midorikawa Hikaru, who voiced protagonist Heero Yuy in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing. His love for manga and anime stayed true throughout his schooling years, even joining the school tennis club because he liked the series Prince of Tennis. Although his mother constantly signed him up for talent auditions, he stayed firm in his aspirations. Having graduated from the seiyuu training school affiliated with Aoni Productions, he scored his first leading role in 2012, as Kaito in Ano Natsu de Matteru. In the same year, he was also part of the main cast of TARI TARI and Sukitte Ii na yo. Shortly after his debut, he won Best Newcomer, and shot to fame with his leading role as Nanase Haruka in summer hit anime Free!, and also scored main roles in Ace of Diamond, Date A Live and Photo Kano.
Nobunaga Shimazaki (from Seigura)
As a seiyuu fan himself, he looks up to many of his seniors, sometimes even getting teased for it. In the radio show for baseball anime Ace of Diamond, he is often teased by his peers about his admiration for veteran Takahiro Sakurai, who stars alongside Shimazaki’s character as Kazuya Miyuki. He also gets up to hilarious antics as an adoring kouhai with Tatsuhisa Suzuki on the anime radio show Free! Iwatobi Channel. Among his peers, he is also good friends with Yoshitsugu Matsuoka. Sharing a name with a extremely famous historical figure, his name is also the source of conversation, disbelief and often, teasing, among many.
Catch him this season in Nobunaga the Fool, Nobunagan (both in which he ironically doesn’t play Nobunaga), Date A Live II, Buddy Complex and Ace of Diamond.
Kazutomi Yamamoto
Kazutomi Yamamoto (from Voice Newtype)
With his small stature and high-pitched voice, Yamamoto is often mistaken for a girl. However, his unique voice quality may have carved a niche for himself. Despite only debuting in 2009, he got his first main role as Yuudai Chiba in 2010 gag series Mitsudomoe. In the same series, he also plays Yuudai’s mother, Kazumi, convincing with a mature female voice. Subsequently appearing as supporting characters in Deadman Wonderland and Nichijou, he scored leading role Kio Asuno in Mobile Suit Gundam Age and Yuuya Mochizuki in horror series Another in 2012, securing his Best Newcomer win the year after.
More recently, he continues to play to his strength as Kenjiro Hato in Genshiken Nidaime, with his extremely convincing female voice. Continue to look forward to (possibly) more shocking roles from this newbie!
Best Female Newcomers 2013 – Rumi Ookubo, Kaori Ishihara (from Voice Newtype)
Rumi Ookubo
As the overall winner at the third 81 Auditions organised by renowned seiyuu management agency 81 produce, Ookubo got a stellar start to her career. She first took notice of the seiyuu profession when she realised that the same voice was behind two different characters in Pokemon and Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, provided by veteran Mayumi Iizuka.
Rumi Ookubo, Tokyo International Anime Fair 2012 (from koepota.jp)
Her first main anime role was Kaho Hiiragi in Freezing, quickly followed with other memorable roles such as Chinatsu Yoshikawa (YuruYuri), Hibashi (Mushibugyo), and Touko Ichimiya (Servant x Service). Passionate about her work, she has a penchant for dressing up as her own characters when attending events, appearing before in the Nanamori Middle School uniform for YuruYuri, in hakama and yukata for Acchi Kocchi, and once even dressed up as Sweet Little Devil Nobunaga Oda for Sengoku Collection. In an interview, she admitted to liking kids anime series Digimon so much, that at the beginning of every year, she has this little ritual in which she opens her DVD box set and watches all the episodes.
Kaori Ishihara
Kaori Ishihara (from Famitsu.com)
Ishihara started her career in 2008 as a trainee in HAPPY!STYLE Rookies under Style Cube. She graduated from the group in 2009, forming the unit YuiKaori with label mate Yui Ogura. Her formal début as a seiyuu was in hit anime series Kaicho wa Maid-sama! as younger sister Suzuna Ayuzawa. Since then she has been taking on an increasing number of roles, many of them in supporting positions, most memorably as as Azusa Azuki in Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko, Kanna Tanigawa in Ano Natsu de Matteru, Sayu Hisanuma in Nagi no Asukara. Additionally, she has also played the lead in large productions such as Rinne no Lagrange (Madoka Kyouno) and Magi (Aladdin).
Ishihara is also active as an anisong artiste. Not only as part of YuiKaori, Ogura and Ishihara were part of the pioneer generation of seiyuu unit StylipS (with Arisa Noto and Maho Matsunaga). As part of these groups, she has provided vocals in songs for numerous anime series such as High School DxD, KissxSis, Saki Achiga-hen Episode of Side-A, and Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru!. However, Ishihara and Ogura both graduated from StylipS in mid-2013, and after, transferred management agencies from Style Cube to Sigma Seven.
We’ve finally reached the end of the series featuring the winners from the 7th Seiyuu Awards! Keep checking back to AFACHAN for the list of winners for the 8th Seiyuu Awards on 1 March~
Stay tuned!
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