With a career that precedes her, Rie Kugimiya is arguably one of the most iconic, most recognizable voices of modern anime. Known to many fans as the “Tsundere Queen”, Kugimiya made a name for himself by portraying characters like Alphonse Elric from Hiromu Arakawa’s classic. Fullmetal AlchemistLouise van Familiar with Zero; the titular character of Shakugan no ShanaKagura out Gintama and is responsible for giving life not only to several iconic hot’n’cold queens, but other characters, both large and small.
How did Kugimiya become synonymous with the tsundere archetype, and what has been her influence on anime in general? From mascot to protagonist, she is one of the most prolific voice actors in the industry. Here is the overview of the voice acting deity that is Rie Kugimiya.
Origin
Born on May 30, 1979 in Osaka, Kugimiya has been in the industry for almost 25 years, first earning her stripes with the Japanese voice talent agency, I’m Enterprise in the first-ever summer school training program for voice actors sponsored by the Japan Story Institute. Her debut role came in 1998, in the video game etude prologue -Shaking heart-, where she played the role of Tadami Seki.
From the beginning of her career, Kugimiya’s talents were used to voice youth and young teenage characters, but since then she has diversified her repertoire with several interesting roles that don’t fit with how she started her career. This association with youthful characters is due to the quality of her voice and her inflection which gives her characters even more youth, but she also tends to give them a brackish quality, which reinforces the association with childhood or adolescence.
A productive VA
Kugimiya works a lot and has built a huge reputation. Right now, seasoned anime fans only need to listen to a character for a few moments to point her out, and that’s because of her appearance in a plethora of different roles. Her codification of the tsundere archetype is also partly a result of Kugimiya’s extensive list of roles, particularly in slice of life and romantic anime. Here’s a rundown of some of her most iconic roles, which isn’t exhaustive, of course:
- Alphonse Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist2003, 2009. She also played Catherine Anne Armstrong in both versions of the anime, and Xiao Mei in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.
- Shana, Shakugan no Shana, 2005-2011. This role made Kugimiya’s “urusai” (“shut up”) particularly memorable, due to Shana’s habit of saying it three times in a row each time. This even saw her 2022 role as Chloe D’Apichier in Part 2 of The case study of Vanitas have an Easter Egg moment when the character said “shut up” twice in a row.
- Isabella Yamamoto, paradise kiss2005.
- kagoura, Gintama, 2006 – present. This role won her Best Actress in a Supporting Role at the first Seiyu Awards.
- Louise de la Valliere, Familiar with Zero2006 – 2012.
- Nagi Sanzenin, Hayate the combat butler2007 – 2013. This, along with the role of Shana, saw Kugimiya take home Best Supporting Actress at the second Seiyu Awards.
- Aisaka Taiga, Toradora!2008. For this role, she won Best Actress at the third Seiyu Awards.
- Happy, Fairy tale; Eden’s Zero, 2009 – present. Kugimiya’s performance turns Happy into one of the most beloved mascot characters in the recent Shounen anime.
- Juuzou Suzuya, Tokyo Ghou2014 – 2019. This role is particularly notable for its huge difference from the characters she had played in the past, as well as the fact that Kugimiya takes a very different approach to the sound of her voice to match the down-to-earth yet psychotic Juuzou .
- Kotaro Sato, Kotaro lives alone, 2022. Somehow, Kugimiya managed to hone her specialty and used her ability to express youth to fully realize one of the youngest protagonists of anime. At just four years old, Kotaro’s character asked for an even younger-sounding voice, but due to his precocity, the voice acting veteran had to somehow give this kid an “older” vocabulary and attitude, while keeping a more youthful sound than she has done. ever had to do.
Queen of Versatility
As mentioned before, Kugimiya is known for her portrayal of the tsundere archetype; her real superpower, however, is her ability to find variety within that small niche, as well as create larger spaces for herself. She cannot simply be considered the Tsundere Queen as she has starred in all sorts of roles.
One of Kugimiya’s most mind-boggling masterclasses is, of course, her portrayal of the depraved Suzuya Juuzou from Tokyo Ghou, a character whose ridiculousness is commensurate with their psychotic nature and violent tendencies. Despite the fear that Juuzou is, Kugimiya maintains a level of sweetness in her voice when she plays him, which adds even more to the fear factor when he appears. Happy, although she has a childish voice, sounds different from Kugimiya’s portrayal of other childish characters, and there’s a particularly cute quality she applies when she plays the blue cat.
Like many others, Kugimiya has also had quite a few dubbing roles, taking on several interesting roles such as Primrose Everdeen in The hunger Games, eleven in Weird stuff, and even Peppa Pig. Her video game appearances are almost as extensive as her anime roles, with Kugimiya taking on the various roles associated with video game adaptations of anime she starred in. Some of her notable video game roles include Haruka Sawamura of the Yakuza series, Rise Kujikawa in persona 4,
In addition to voice acting, Kugimiya, like many other voice actors in the anime industry, also has a singing career. One of her most notable performances would be together with colleagues Toradora! cast members Eri Kitamura and Yui Horie on the anime’s first opening theme, Parade!, as well as the final theme, Orange. Her discography includes several singles and two albums: kokohadoko, which was released in 2012; and Semete Sora wowhich was released in April 2020.
Influence
Over the course of nearly 25 years, Kugimiya has taken on various roles in video games, anime, movies and more, resulting in a career of several highly regarded, standout performances. Fans’ attribution of a nickname in honor of her influence on the tsundere archetype, especially in the first half of her career, is testament to her status as a living legend.
As a veteran who consistently gets more groundbreaking roles that push her boundaries as a voice actor, Kugimiya is perhaps an example of an actor whose genius only grows with age, and many actors out there would be well within their rights to be proud of. be themselves if they had only had half of Kugimiya Rie’s career.
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