Megumi Ogata Voice Actress

Megumi Ogata is a Japanese voice actress, singer-songwriter, and radio host that was born on June 6th, 1965 in Tokyo, Japan. At the 7th annual Seiyu Awards in 2013, she was awarded the Kazue Takahashi Memorial Award, an achievement given to a voice actress that is involved in various kinds of performance other than just voice acting. She currently works in Shinjuku, Tokyo at Breathe Arts, an agency that she founded in February 2019.

Early Years

After graduating from Toho Girl’s Senior High School, Ogata began studying at Tokai University’s school of oceanography. However, she left Tokai in favor of studying in the music department of the Tokyo Vocal Specialist School (currently renamed and relocated to the Showa University of Music). Shortly after, she joined a group named the “Neverland Musical Community”. When this group disbanded, she tried her chances at voice acting, which ended up causing her popularity to explode. Her voice has a characteristic deep tone that made it easy for her to be cast as younger boys and tomboys.

Voice Acting

Ogata’s first voice acting role was Kurama from “Yu Yu Hakusho”. The show’s popularity and the prominent role allowed her name to be spread far and wide, resulting in more opportunities for other roles. While Ogata has voiced dozens of anime characters to date, some of her most notable roles include Sailor Uranus (Sailor Moon), Makoto Naegi and Nagito Komaeda (Danganronpa series), Yugi Mutou and Dark Yugi (Yu-Gi-Oh!), and Shinji Ikari (Evangelion). In 1995, her performance as Kurama won her both Best Voice Actor/Actress and Best Male Character in the 17th Anime Grand Prix, a yearly poll created by the Animage magazine that allows readers to vote for their favorite anime characters, episodes, voice actors/actresses, and anime-related songs.

Although she performs her voice acting roles with incredible passion and emotion, Ogata has mentioned that there are times where her acting has caused her physical pain. She specifically mentions her role acting as Shinji Ikari from Evangelion causing significant issues at the time, as the character is known for his rather shrill screams. After recording said screams, Ogata says that she would get headaches so severe, she would have to sit down and rest before continuing with the recording session.

Musical Career

Just as fans enjoyed Ogata’s deeper, more masculine voice in her voice acting roles, many fans of her music appreciate her wide range of tones and pitches. She is capable of producing both lower, calming vocals and higher, more intense ones with plenty of power behind them.

Ogata first began her music career with a pre-debut album titled “HALF MOON”, which was distributed under Tokuma Japan Communications in 1994. Various people worked on this 11-track album, but Ogata is credited for writing the lyrics for the final track, which shares the same name as the album itself. Her debut album, “Marine Legend”, is also an 11-track album, but it was distributed by Sony Music Records. She is also credited with writing lyrics for more songs as well. This trend of switching record labels and becoming more involved with her music continues throughout her career. On her 2001 album “rain”, she took up the stage name “em:ou”, which is a stylistic spelling of her initials (MO).

Apart from her original music albums, Ogata has also released two cover albums that include songs from various anime, some of which she played a character in. Both albums share the name “Animegu”, but the second album was released as a way to celebrate the 25th year of Ogata’s career. As such, the second album was called “Animegu. 25th” and was released in October 2017. Prior to the launch of the anniversary album, Ogata had received concerns from fans overseas that said that they had no legitimate method to purchase her work other than the albums imported and paying expensive shipping fees, which led to piracy and unauthorized reuploads of her content online. In response, Ogata launched a crowdfunding campaign in May 2017 that allowed fans across the world to purchase the “Animegu. 25th” album and have it shipped as a backer reward. This campaign was highly successful, making just over $32,000 (over $7,000 its original goal).

In February 2019, she announced on her official blog that she created Breathe Arts, a talent agency that will train people interested in doing music and voice acting, then network them with people in the music, video games, and television industries to help them find work.

Filmography

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

Angel Beats! (2010)
Super Robot Wars Original Generation: The Inspector ! (2010)
Nichijou ! (2011)
Tamayura ~~Hitotose~~! (2011)
Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate ! (2012)
Medaka Box Abnormal (2012)
Danganronpa: The Animation (2013)
Devil Survivor 2: The Animation (2013)
Chaika - The Coffin Princess (2014)
Hamatora: The Animation (2014)
Tokyo ESP (2014)
Assassination Classroom (2015)
Aokana: Four Rhythm Across the Blue (2016)
Divine Gate (2016)
Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School (2016)
Magical Girl Raising Project (2016)
Regalia: The Three Sacred Stars (2016)
Konohana Kitan (2017)
Kino's Journey -the Beautiful World- the Animated Series (2017)
Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card (2018)
Hakumei and Mikochi (2018)
Magical Girl Ore (2018)
Shinkansen Henkei Robo Shinkalion (2018)
Kengan Ashura (2019)
Phantasy Star Online 2: Episode Oracle (2019)
Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun (2020)

Links

Megumi Ogata’s Official Website (Japanese Only)
Megumi Ogata’s Discography(Japanese Only)
Entry Announcing Breathe Arts from Megumi Ogata’s Official Blog (Japanese Only)
Archive of Animage’s 17th Anime Grand Prix Poll
Voice Actress Megumi Ogata Discusses The Rigors of Her Profession
Megumi Ogata’s Filmography
Archive of Animegu’s Crowdfunding Page
Interview with Megumi Ogata Discussing the Animegu.25th Album and Crowdfunding
Megumi Ogata Establishes Her Own Talent Agency
Results of the 7th Annual Seiyu Awards