Megumi Hayashibara Voice Actress

Megumi Hayashibara is a Japanese voice actress that was born in Tokyo, Japan on March 30th, 1967. Although she is mainly known through her work as a voice actress, she has also written literature and comics and performed as a DJ and a singer-songwriter. Hayashibara is best known for her roles in the Evangelion series, the Pokémon series, Ranma ½, Cowboy Bebop, and Slayers series. However, she has performed dozens of other roles throughout the years. Hayashibara is still currently active as a voice actress and works through her personal office, Woodpark Office.

Early Years

According to her comic compilation book, “Ashita ga Aru Sa”,Hayashibara applied to attend a nursing school after graduating from high school. However, she saw a notice for free voice acting auditions while strolling through a book store and decided to try and see if she would be cast for any roles. Hayashibara decided to continue studying to become a nurse while also training herself to become a voice actress. Eventually, she was called in to perform various small roles for the anime adaptation of a manga written by Rumiko Takahashi called Maison Ikkoku. Although she gained all of the requirements to become a nurse, she decided to focus her career on voice acting, which would prove to be quite successful.

Voice Acting

While her voice acting debut was in 1986 with Maison Ikkoku, her first truly major role would come in 1989. Strangely enough, this role was another adaptation of a manga created by Rumiko Takahashi, Ranma ½. Hayashibara was selected to voice the female version of Ranma, the protagonist of the series. The popularity and international success of the anime led to a jumpstart in Hayashibara’s voice acting career, leading to even more prominent roles in the Nineties. Such roles include Rei Ayanami from the Evangelion series, Lina Inverse from the Slayers series, Jessie (Musashi) from the Pokémon series, and Faye Valentine from Cowboy Bebop.

Hayashibara’s skillful performances and ability to create a variety of different voices for different characters resulted in an overwhelming number of fans supporting her in various popularity polls. One such example is Animage’s Anime Grand Prix, a yearly 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 poll for Best Voice Actress 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 much different than it was back in the 90’s, when anime was just beginning to boom. She mentions that nowadays, being a voice actor for anime involves much more than just providing lines for a character. Live events and drama CDs are commonplace for a voice actor or actress to take part in nowadays, which makes the lives of them more hectic. Hayashibara continues to say that these live events also closes the gap between the performance and the performer, so to speak. In other words, fans have begun to pay more attention to voice actors/actresses and, as a result, they treat them like celebrities rather than just enjoying their performance. She continues on to say that modern voice acting careers can also be much more unstable when compared to previous decades, saying “you’re made to feel like an indispensable person, but in three years’ time that position might change”.

Musical Career

Hayashibara may be best known as a voice actress, however, she started her musical career only a few years after her making her break as a voice actress. Her debut album was titled “Half and, Half” and was released in March of 1991 under the Starchild record label (a part of the King Records company). As her career as a voice actress flourished through the 90’s, so did the popularity of her albums. Her most successful album debut came from her 7th album, “Bertemu”. It ranked 3rd in Oricon’s album debuts at the time and is also Hayashibara’s first album that received a gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of Japan. The 14-track album features covers of both the opening and ending themes from Neon Genesis Evangelion, “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis (Ayanami Version)” and “Fly Me to the Moon” (Ayanami Version)”. To date (as of January 2020), Hayashibara has produced 13 albums and dozens of singles. Her most recent album is titled “Fifty-Fifty” and was released in March 2018 under the King Amusement Created record label.

Filmography

Hayashibara has an extensive filmography of works. Here is a selection of the most recent projects she has been in.

Pocket Monsters: Best Wishes! (2010)
Rainbow: Nisha Rokubō no Shichinin (2010)
Blue Exorcist (2011)
Pocket Monsters: Best Wishes! Season 2 (2012)
Chihayafuru 2 (2013)
Pocket Monsters: Best Wishes! Season 2: Episode N (2013)
Pocket Monsters: Best Wishes! Season 2: Decolora Adventure (2013)
Pocket Monsters: XY (2013)
Insufficient Direction (2014)
Magic Kaito 1412 (2014)
One Piece (2014)
Wildernuts (2014)
Space Dandy (2014)
Sword Art Online II (2014)
Cross Ange (2014)
Pocket Monsters: XY&Z (2015)
Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū (2016)
Ushio and Tora (2016)
Sengoku Chōjū Giga (2016)
Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon (2016)
Onihei Hankachō (2017)
The Dragon Dentist (2017)
Rin-ne (2017)
FLCL Progressive (2018)
Karakuri Circus (2018)
Carole & Tuesday (2019)

Links

Megumi Hayashibara’s Official Website (Japanese Only)
Megumi Hayashibara’s Filmography
Megumi Hayashibara Shares Her Thoughts on Modern Voice Acting
Megumi Hayashibara’s Discography (Japanese Only)
Statistics of Records from the Recording Industry Association of Japan (Japanese Only)