Kouda Mariko

"Idol seiyuu" is special term that had been given to seiyuu that does more than just voice acting. These seiyuu would not just concentrate solely on voice acting, they would also work on CDs, concerts and appear in magazines. Although all seiyuu do these kinds of work mostly with the intent of promoting anime works they star in, idol seiyuu differ in that their other works mostly would have little to no relation with any anime they have participate in, but solely rely on their own names to sell. Some idol seiyuu would do so well, that they would have more success with their other works than their voice acting. A good example of an idol seiyuu is Iizuka Mayumi. However, when it comes to being most representative, there are only two names, and one of them is Kouda Mariko.

Having failed the entrance exam of the college of her choice twice, Mariko decided to pursued her dream of becoming an actress. She entered and graduated from Aoni Jyuku, a actor/actress school, and later joined, and is still working for Aoni Production as a seiyuu.

On her voice acting side, Mariko hasn't stared in a lot of work, however she did voice some famous anime characters. The most well known ones are Miki from Marmalade Boy and more recently, Shaorin in Mamotte Shugogetten. Although the contrast between the happy and outgoing Miki and the gentle and innocence of Shaorin are good indication of the emotional side of Mariko's voice acting skills, Mariko seems to lack a broad spectrum to her voice range as both were done in a similar sort of voice. Her other noteworthy works tend to fall into the happy and careless type with little variation.

On the other hand, Mariko has accomplished a lot more on the other aspects of her career. Firstly, Mariko has a very well established singing career. Having 8 original personal albums, a hand full of best collection albums, and many singles. She has held regular concert tours since the mid 90s and her audience size is getting larger and larger every year. Her accomplishment in the music industry was no fluke, as she had matured from her original cute, sugary anime style songs to her current rock-pop style. Recently she even performed a couple of theme songs for regular Japanese television drama shows, very little seiyuu were given the opportunity to do so in the past.

Mariko is also one of the few seiyuu that made it to the big screen. She starred as the lead role character in the movie "Looking For" (released in 1997), and even performed the theme song, of the same name, for it. Also she played the lead role in a 25 episode Japanese TV drama series called "Setsunai" in 1998.

CC's comments (contains bias ^_^):

Currently Kouda Mariko almost ties with Iwao Junko as my favourite seiyuu, however I must admit that I didn't really like her at the beginning. ^^;;

I have to say I like Mariko as an idol personality rather than her voice work. I actually have very little exposure to her voice work (they could all be counted by one hand with fingers to spare). As such my understanding of her is mostly on her music career.

I was introduced to Mariko soon after I was introduced to Hayashibara Megumi, in early 1997, I've met a fellow seiyuu fan on the internet and he treated me with a RealAudio sample of Mariko's live performance of her radio program theme song "Horizon". At that time I was a rabid Megumi fan, and after checking some popularity polls, song polls etc and seeing that Megumi had Mariko beaten in every one, I simply brushed Mariko aside.

However, after playing the clip on repeat several times, I started to really like the song, and decided to hunt down a CD which contains that track. After checking several review sites, I purchased Mariko's first best album "My Best Friend", one of her most praised albums and one I still enjoy to this day. Having listen to this album I was completely converted by the sheer quality of this album, and thus began my "quest" in obtaining more of her works. Now I have many of her albums and concert DVDs, and after so much exposure to her work I am still surprise by her ability, due to her willingness to try something different unlike some others, which tend to be fixated in the same old style. And I think this is preciously the quality that made her popularity grow steadily over the years compared with other seiyuu that tend to fade as years goes. Her current rock music style had opened up a whole new territory for her career, and I'm certain that she's going to stay for a few more years to come.