Hiroko Konishi
Hiroko Konishi is an actor, born 1975.
For roughly six years either side of 1998, Konishi was one of the most recognisable young voices in anime, and then she effectively stopped. Born in 1975, she assembled the sort of run that usually launches a thirty-year career: Nene Romanova in Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040, Sae Sawanoguchi in Magic User's Club, Jiyuu Nanohana in Jubei-chan, and the title role in Ojarumaru, which this catalogue lists under its English name, Prince Mackaroo.
The range in that period is what stands out. She voiced Takeru in Digimon, a small boy, in the same stretch of years as adult women in ensemble science fiction, and the two registers genuinely do not sound like the same performer. In games she was Shiori Misaka in the original Kanon, Lilith Aensland in Darkstalkers and Bridget in Guilty Gear X2, a run of roles that still turns up in fan arguments about recasting decades later.
She is no longer attached to any production company and has largely retired from voice acting; her later work has been in music and in AI research. Performers leave this industry constantly. Very few leave behind a body of work this specific.
Movies (7)
TV (15)
- Digimon: Digital Monsters (1999)
- Magical DoReMi (1999)
- You're Under Arrest! (1996)
- Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 (1998)
- Prince Mackaroo (1998)
- Dr. Slump (1997)
- AIKa (1997)
- I'm Gonna Be An Angel! (1999)
- Tenchi Universe (1995)
- Now and Then, Here and There (1999)
- Magic User's Club! (1999)
- Yume no Crayon Oukoku (1997)
- Jubei-chan the Ninja Girl: Secret of the Lovely Eyepatch (1999)
- Ninja Cadets (1996)
- Bomberman B-Daman Bakugaiden (1998)
Where to start with Hiroko Konishi
Jubei-chan the Ninja Girl: Secret of the Lovely Eyepatch is the one to watch first. It is a comedy about a schoolgirl handed a samurai legacy she wants no part of, the animation is far better than the premise suggests, and Konishi carries the entire tonal swing between farce and swordplay.
Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 is the serious counterweight, a slower and gloomier reworking of a 1980s cyberpunk staple. Magic User's Club! is the gentlest thing on the list and the best showcase of her comic timing. If you arrived from the games, Digimon: Digital Monsters is where the boy-voice work sits, and Our War Game is the compact feature that fans still rate above most of the series around it. Prince Mackaroo is the true oddity, a children's series about a Heian-era child prince, and nothing else here sounds remotely like it.