No Seiyuu No Life: Mamiko Noto

I can’t deal with the fact that in two weeks I will be in Japan. I think everyone in my stead would be as surprised as I am. Either way, it’s a really weird feeling. I do hope I will be able to attend seiyuu events. I could do a report in this column…

But now is not the time to talk about dreams, now is the time to talk about Mamiko Noto. Which is actually talking more about nightmares than it is talking about dreams.

Known for: Ai Enma (Hell Girl)

My favorite role: Ai Enma (Hell Girl)

I am not very original I know, but strangely, I have found it hard to find a role of Mamiko Noto that truly stuck out from the rest except for Ai Enma.

Yet, she was in an enormous amount of shows. I haven’t watched many of the anime she starred in but she also has the habit to voice side characters. Somehow, they’re always important characters but they’re almost never the main ones. It isn’t a bad thing but it’s really strange.

I have found her to have quite the interesting range of voice. That voice of hers is suitable for nearly everything and somehow not very noticeable. While writing this article I have discovered she was doing Saki Arima in Your Lie in April, the evil mom of Kousei. I absolutely had no idea. I had no idea she was in Aikatsu either and god knows how much I LOVE Aikatsu.

At the same time, it would seem that being so unnoticeable did her good. Again, look at the list of all the characters she voiced, it’s simply crazy.

Being unnoticeable most of the time does not mean she never had big roles and/or roles that stuck with me. Somehow, it’s always her evil ones that I remember.

I even have found her annoying before. I don’t know if you watched or played Sengoku Basara but she was voicing Ichi, Nobunaga’s little sister. At the end of the series, I thought there was no way I would ever bear to listen to her somewhere else again. I was this annoyed. It’s still not an annoyance comparable to what Kobayashi Yuu creates in me but it came close.

And then I was proved wrong. Then I started watching Hell Girl not knowing she was in it and I loved her. Her voice in Hell Girl was the perfect mix of innocence and evilness and it couldn’t have been more perfect. She did a lot for my enjoyment of this anime and I’ve been loving her ever since. I can’t wait to see how she will perform in Gangsta.

What about you? Do you know Mamiko Noto? Do you like her? Sound off in the comments!