If you’ve been watching anime long enough, there’s a high likelihood you’ve heard of Rie Kugimiya. She’s been the voice of a number of prominent characters, ranging from Alphonse Elric in the Fullmetal Alchemist series, Kagura in Gintama, and to Taiga in Toradora!. That’s some of her more famous anime roles — over the past couple years she’s voiced Kagura Sohma in the Fruits Basket reboot, Kanata in Kado: The Right Answer, and Angela Balzac in Expelled from Paradise to add to the hundreds of voices she’s done over the past two decades.
Just a few weeks ago, she made her first ever US appearance at Anime NYC 2019. I was a part of the media contingent that was able to have a couple questions answered. That’s important to note as this was a group interview, so it was all done in order. The moderator, Lisle Wilkerson (voice actress of Nina from Tekken, Sarah from Virtua Fighter) asked and also translated the questions that was sent over to Rie Kugimiya. For this one, lots of media (and time) factored into the questions listed in this interview. So you’ll likely get a full picture of the roughly 40 minute session from other outlets over the next few months.
So without further ado, here’s TheOASG’s portion of the interview with Rie Kugimiya:
TheOASG: How’s your time in New York been? Been able to check the city out for a bit?
Rie Kugimiya: I’ve been to Central Park, the Guggenheim Museum, and the opera house.
Is there anything else you would like to do if you could in NY?
[Go to] the MET and MOMA for sure. And see musicals! *laughs*
If you had another day what musical would you want to see?
Wicked!
When did you realize that voice acting was something you wanted to do?
In high school I joined the broadcast club, and through that I was able to practice on the mic. I found myself really enjoying that. I thought, “Maybe this is something that I should pursue.” So I talked to my parents about it and they were like, “Why don’t you go into the world of TV announcing?” That was also a really big thing in Japan. But personally I love books, and I thought I would love to be able to be a part of these stories that are being told through voice acting.
How would you say the voice acting industry has changed from when you started to 2019?
Now in 2019 you see in one anime series or one franchise tons of fresh young faces, people who don’t really yet have careers because they’re just getting started. Sometimes there will be an anime franchise where it’s only new people, so not very many people who have actually been in the industry for a long time.
When I first started, it was the opposite — it was mostly sempai, maybe one or two new voice actors, but with that you have the sempai-kouhai [dynamic] that’s so important in Japanese culture, where the sempai will take you and say, “No, I think you might want to do it this way.”
So maybe it’s a little bit tougher now because you don’t have someone to look up to and get advice from?
Probably what they’re doing is they’re all kind of getting together and trying to figure it out on their own, but not really have that sempai relationship as much, you don’t see it as much.
Another thing that is very different about anime now is a long time ago, an anime series would be a year, two years, three years, but now you see a lot more shorter ones, like three months, or one cour.
What’s been some of the challenges you’ve encountered when doing voice work on an anime or on a video game series?
For games, one of the things that’s sometimes a challenge is, and especially right now, there are many social games and a lot of times there’s not so much direction. Maybe they’ll have like 2 drawings and only a few lines. So what I would do is sometimes use the colors that are being used to figure out a little bit more about that character.
For anime, when I do the main characters, everything revolves around them, so the reactions are what’s really necessary. When you’re doing a sub character, there’s a lot of explanation involved usually, and sometimes very difficult lines you will have to give as a sub character.
Would you like to leave a final message for your international fans?
First of all, thank you so much for spending time with me today. I’ve been able to see the impact of anime, the impact my work has had on everyone, and it really means so much to me. I’m so honored to be able to spend this time with you.
There’s going to be so many more new projects coming out, so please continue to love anime and to please continue to support it. I’m really excited about being able to share future projects with you guys in the future as well, so thank you so much.