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Megumi Hayashibara Voice Actress

Megumi Hayashibara is a Japanese voice actress born in Tokyo, Japan on March 30, 1967. Although she is primarily known for her work as a voice actress, she has also written literature and comics and performed as a DJ and singer-songwriter. Hayashibara is best known for her roles in the Evangelion series , the Pokémon series, Ranma ½ None Cowboy Bebop , and Killers series. However, she has voiced dozens of other roles over the years. Hayashibara is still active as a voice actress and works out of her personal office, Woodpark Office.

The early years

According to her comic book compilation, "Ashita ga Aru Sa," Hayashibara applied to nursing school after graduating from high school. However, she saw an ad for free voice acting auditions while walking through a bookstore and decided to try to see if she would be cast in any roles. Hayashibara decided to continue studying to become a nurse while also training to become a voice actress. Eventually, she was asked to voice various small roles for the anime adaptation of a manga written by Rumiko Takahashi called Maison Ikkoku. Although she met all the requirements to become a nurse, she decided to focus her career on voice acting, which turned out to be quite successful.

Dubbing

Although she made her voice acting debut in 1986 with Maison Ikkoku , her first real major role would come in 1989. Oddly enough, this role was another adaptation of a manga created by Rumiko Takahashi, Ranma ½ Hayashibara was chosen to voice the female version of Ranma, the protagonist of the series. The popularity and international success of the anime allowed Hayashibara to kick-start her voice acting career, which led to even bigger roles in the 90s. Some of these roles include Rei Ayanami from the Evangelion series, Lina Inverse from the Killers series, Jessie (Musashi) from the Pokémon series, and Faye Valentine from Cowboy Bebop None

Hayashibara's skillful performances and ability to create a variety of different voices for different characters have earned her an impressive fan base in various popularity polls. One example is Animage's Anime Grand Prix, an annual poll that allows readers to vote for their favorite anime character, voice actor or actress, anime theme song, and more. With the exception of 1994, Hayashibara won the Best Voice Actress poll from 1989 to 2001. The winner of the 1994 poll was fellow Evangelion voice actress Megumi Ogata , who voices Shinji Ikari.

Although Hayashibara is still active as a voice actress today, in an interview with Seiyu Premium, she notes that voice acting today is very different from what it was in the 90s, when anime was just starting to boom. She mentions that being a voice actress for an anime today involves much more than just providing lines for a character. Live events and drama CDs are commonplace for a voice actor or actress these days, making their lives more eventful. Hayashibara continues to state that these live events also bridge the gap between the performance and the performer, so to speak. In other words, fans have started paying more attention to voice actors/actresses and, as a result, they treat them like celebrities rather than simply enjoying their performance. She goes on to say that modern voice acting careers can also be much more unstable compared to previous decades, stating that "you're made to feel like you're an indispensable person, but in three years, that position could change."

Musical career

Hayashibara may be best known as a voice actress, but she began her music career just a few years after making her debut as a voice actress. Her debut album, "Half and, Half," was released in March 1991 under the Starchild label (a subsidiary of King Records). As her voice acting career blossomed in the 1990s, so did the popularity of her albums. Her most successful debut album came from her 7th album, "Bertemu." It ranked 3rd on Oricon's debut albums chart at the time and is also Hayashibara's first album to receive a gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of Japan. The 14-track album includes covers of the Neon Genesis Evangelion None opening and ending themes “A Cruel Angel's Thesis (Ayanami Version)” and “Take Me to the Moon” (Ayanami Version)”. To date (as of January 2020), Hayashibara has released 13 albums and dozens of singles. His most recent album is titled “Fifty-Fifty” and was released in March 2018 under the King Amusement Created label.