I decided to make Tamura Yukari 田村ゆかりmy seiyuu for spring mainly because she's a highly popular seiyuu whom I haven't featured yet and who has three good roles in the coming anime season. I've always liked her voice work, in a lukewarm sort of way, but I've never taken her that seriously.But now that I've seen more of her, in researching this post, I can understand the passionate support her fans give her. She's a charming person and a real entertainer.
Yukarin is one of 2channel's absolute favorites. On the Japanese discussion board, her thread is enormous: over 800,000 posts. Among seiyuus, this is second only to Mizuki Nana (who has just over a million posts), and well ahead of Horie Yui and Hirano Aya, who each have around 500,000. I hasten to add that Aya's thread is now full of negative posts, unlike Yukarin's, which is basically a love-fest.
Yukarin's most famous role is as Nanoha in Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha. Other well-known roles include Ichigo in Please Teacher, Kawasumi Mai in Kanon (both versions), Akazukin in Otogijushi Akazukin, Tenten in Naruto, Togame in Katanagatari, Yamada in B-gata H-kei, Kanako and Meruru in OreImo, Rika in Higurashi, and Masuzu in the recently completed OreShura. This season, she will be the mermaid Muromi-san in Namiuchigawa no Muromi-san, and Wakatsuki-sensei in Aiura, as well as reprising her role(s) in OreImo.
Her list of works on Japanese Wikipedia is huge: anime, music, games, concerts, TV appearances, radio, and even planetarium narration. If any seiyuu is making a good living, it must be Yukarin.
Yukari-hime was born 27 February 1976 and grew up in Fukuoka, on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. In elementary school, she admired Fukuoka-born idol Matsuda Seiko and the idol/magical girl anime Magical Angel Creamy Mami, and decided she wanted to become an idol. At the same time, her friends made fun of her high voice, so she started to learn how to make her voice sound lower.
In middle school, she joined both the choir and the drama club. In high school, she was in the drama club and the manga research club. She went to a commerce-oriented high school, where she gained qualifications in abacus, book-keeping, insurance, and other subjects.
After graduation, she went to work in a company, but at the same time took courses at the Yoyogi Animation branch school in Fukuoka. She got a position as an assistant on a local late-night radio show, but no real seiyuu roles. So she quit her job, packed up, moved to Tokyo and became a student at the big Nihon Narration seiyuu school.
She got her first role at about 19, as a waitress in a PC game on which one of her teachers was the sound director. She got very few seiyuu roles at first, and did more singing. She had little money and lived a hard life.
In 1996, she became a regular on a radio top hits show. In 1999, the show put Yukarin and Horie Yui together as a singing unit called Yamato Nadeshiko. This helped make both of them popular idols. Later, some fans said they were actually a couple. This seems to have been based mainly on Hocchan saying later that they had once walked around their hotel room naked.
Yukarin's singing career was making progress. She put out her first single in 1997. In 1999, she issued four singles. None of these sold enough to enter the charts, however.
But starting in 2002, she crept up above 100th place, and slowly made her way up to the top ten, which she reached in 2005, with Spiritual Garden. Since then, almost all her songs have been in the top ten, as high as #4. She has had a total of 27 singles, of which ten have reached the top ten.
Her anime work was continuing to grow. From 1998 on, she had several roles a year, in addition to an even larger number of voice roles in games.
Most of you may have an idea of her seiyuu work. But her true popularity comes from her work as an idol, and the relationship she creates with her fans. Here are a couple of videos that opened my eyes. First, from 2001, a live event in support of the release of her first album:
Next, I believe from last year (ten years later!), a clip from a concert on a grander scale, showing just how well she and her fans work together:
She has the knack of seeming relaxed and intimate even in the midst of a grand performance. She presents herself as ditzy and vague, but is somehow able to twist huge crowds around her little finger. There is more to her than she lets on.
And here is a clip entitled "Tamura Yukari destroys the human race." She tells the audience that her magic wand will make them all fall madly in love with her. After she uses it once, they all chant "again, again" and she obliges, with devastating results:
One of the things that makes her such a favorite is how closely she corresponds to the otaku notion of an ideal female: cute, sexy, and obliging. As I say, I think there is more to her than this public image, but she wears the image seamlessly.
To get an idea of what she is like in a calmer setting, here are three videos: an interview about an early role (2001), some clips from what appears to be an internet TV show, and finally a "making of" video for the PV for her 2008 single Bambino, Bambina:
There's something that I have never heard anyone mention, but that has always struck me: she's actually pretty funny-looking. Huge ears, low forehead, strong features, very broad cheeks. But I've learned from seeing these and other videos that all that is beside the point: she moves gracefully and conveys charm and femininity with her every move. Now that we know that, here are more photos:
Finally, we reach her actual seiyuu roles. Here are pics of a few of her characters (mouseover for names):
And here are a couple of videos giving us a taste of her seiyuu voice. First, a compendium of voices she has used playing Nanoha:
Next, a scene from Kanon:
Finally, two more videos: first, "An Angel's Day Off," showing Yukarin wandering around Paris:
And here is the music video for her most recent single:
Rather than trying to type out a complete list of her work, I'm going to link you to Wikipedia, which has a good, if incomplete, list of her anime, game, and musical work. For a complete list, I'm afraid I have to send you to Japanese Wikipedia. There are just too many roles and CDs and events for a blog post. Anime News Network has a fairly complete list of her anime work.
For more pics of Yukarin, check here or here. For more videos, search YouTube on her name in Japanese: 田村ゆかり