Otanjoubi Omedetou, Takahashi Mikako!

Today's the birthday of Takahashi Mikako, the seiyuu who plays Ryuuzaki Sakuno! She was born on 29 May 1980 and comes from Chiba Prefecture. Takahashi-san graduated from Teikyo Heisei Tanki Daigaku (Teikyo Heisei Short-Term University) and belongs to I'm Enterprise. Actually, Takahashi-san took part in the idol nurturing programme, Ebitai before making her debut under the agency Murals. She formed a duo named Excel Girls with Kobayashi Yumiko but when the company was dissolved, this also marked an end to the partnership since Kobayashi joined a different agency i.e. Arts Vision. Besides Tenipuri, Takahashi's voice can also be heard in animes like Hachimitsu to Clover (Yamada Ayumi), Karin, Ichigo 100%, Gindama, Joushikousei GIRLS' HIGH, Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora (Akiba Rika), Mai Oto-HIME and Maria-sama ga Miteru.

Well, I must admit that I didn't like Takahashi-san's voice when I first heard her in Tenipuri. I guess it has much to do with the fact that I dislike female characters who seem so weak, shy and without a character of their own. It irked me to hear her saying "Ryoma-kun" all the time. I am also the type who has some issues with high pitched and saccharine-sweet voices so you can guess how receptive I was towards this seiyuu.

However, everything changed when I watched Hachikuro. I must say that it is partly related to the fact that Takahashi-san played Yamada so well that the sweet voice didn't get on my nerves as compared to Sakuno and there was more depth in this character too. That's why I grew to like her more as time went by. As for the rest of her works, I've only watched Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora but I didn't like her character Rika though. Maybe the characters she plays has a strong influence as to whether I like her performance so the moment I see a cutesy-type of girl plus Takahashi-san's voice, my reaction tends to be rather adverse. Could this be an allergy to the "kawaii-girl" in animes?

With the on-going OVA series, one would have expected that Takahashi would get to appear in this but so far, I've not heard her voice in the 2 volumes of DVDs. She may appear in any of the remaining 5 volumes though although chances may be low. I guess there is too much content to cover so that leaves very little room for Sakuno and her noisy buddy, Tomoka to speak a single line. As such, fans of Takahashi may be disappointed to find her conspicuously missing from the seiyuu list and her pet phrase, "Ryoma-kun" feeling like a thing of the past.