Rie Murakawa
Rie Murakawa is an actor, born 1990.
Rie Murakawa is a Japanese voice actress who also sings and hosts radio, which in her industry is less a sideline than the standard second and third job. The credits listed here begin in the crowd: a student in Oreshura, Beth Vanderwood in the long-running Fairy Tail, Misaki in Parasyte -the maxim-. Nothing in that early run marks her out. What marks her out is what she did once she was handed two leads that ask for opposite things.
Hotaru Ichijou in Non Non Biyori is the warm one, a Tokyo transfer student dropped into a country school with a handful of pupils in it, and Murakawa plays her with an over-formal politeness that keeps cracking under her own enthusiasm. Ram in Re:ZERO is the cold one: flat, clipped, delivering an insult at the volume of a weather report. Anime casting tends to file a performer under one register and keep her there for a decade. She has spent that decade refusing to settle into either.
The rest is range in smaller doses. Anzu in Hinamatsuri is a child deciding to be the responsible adult in the room, Najimi Osana in Komi Can't Communicate is pure chaotic momentum, Escha Malier is a video game heroine carried into a television series, and Constanze in Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade barely speaks at all. Ram has travelled furthest with her, through the Re:ZERO side features and the crossover comedy Isekai Quartet, which is what a signature role looks like when the franchise refuses to stop.
Movies (14)
- Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Memory Snow (2018)
- Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- The Frozen Bond (2019)
- Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: Arrow of the Orion (2019)
- Isekai Quartet the Movie: Another World (2022)
- Trinity Seven: Heaven's Library & Crimson Lord (2019)
- Trinity Seven: Eternity Library & Alchemic Girl (2017)
- Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade (2015)
- Non Non Biyori: Vacation (2018)
- Trinity Seven: Nanatsu no Taizai to Nana Madoushi (2015)
- Shinkansen Henkei Robo Shinkalion The Movie: The Marvelous Fast ALFA-X That Comes From the Future (2019)
- Pandora in the Crimson Shell: Ghost Urn (2015)
- Is the Order a Rabbit?? Dear My Sister (2017)
- Non Non Biyori: We're Going to Okinawa (2014)
- Etotama: Nyankyaku Banrai (2021)
TV (32)
- Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- (2016)
- Parasyte -the maxim- (2014)
- Non Non Biyori (2013)
- Fairy Tail (2009)
- Komi Can't Communicate (2021)
- Oreshura (2013)
- Isekai Quartet (2019)
- Tsukigakirei (2017)
- Pokémon Evolutions (2021)
- Shinkansen Henkei Robo Shinkalion: THE ANIMATION (2018)
- Is the Order a Rabbit? (2014)
- Trinity Seven (2014)
- Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria (2017)
- Star☆Twinkle PreCure (2019)
- Show by Rock!! (2015)
- Re:Creators (2017)
- Tanaka-kun Is Always Listless (2016)
- Rin-ne (2015)
- Yurikuma Arashi (2015)
- One Room (2017)
- Tsuredure Children (2017)
- Magic of Stella (2016)
- Hinamatsuri (2018)
- LBX Girls (2021)
- Phantasy Star Online 2: The Animation (2016)
- Action Heroine Cheer Fruits (2017)
- Pastel Memories (2019)
- Vividred Operation (2013)
- ETOTAMA (2015)
- Caligula (2018)
Where to start with Rie Murakawa
Start with Non Non Biyori. It is the least demanding thing on her CV and the best showcase, because a rural comedy where nothing happens for twenty minutes at a stretch rests entirely on its voice cast, and Hotaru is the character the whole show orbits. Non Non Biyori: Vacation is the same pleasure at feature length.
Then change registers hard with Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, where Ram is the deadpan counterweight to a story otherwise made entirely of panic, and follow it into Isekai Quartet if you want the joke version of the same character. For the middle ground, Hinamatsuri hands her the funniest material she has had and Komi Can't Communicate the loudest. Is the Order a Rabbit? is the cosy end of the range with none of the plot.