Shizuka Itoh

Shizuka Itoh is an actor, born 1980.

Nearly two hundred credits sit under Shizuka Itoh's name in this catalog alone, which is an ordinary number for a working seiyuu in Tokyo and an absurd one by any other measure. She is from Tokyo, is represented by Ken Production, and sings as well as acts.

Her natural register is a low, amused, faintly dangerous adult woman, and the industry noticed early. Akeno Himejima in High School DxD, Meiko Shiraki in Prison School, Irina Jelavic in Assassination Classroom: three shows, three variations on a woman who knows precisely what effect she is having. The Seiyu Awards gave her Best Actress in a Supporting Role at their tenth ceremony for Prison School and Sailor Moon Crystal, and that pairing is the useful one, because Minako Aino is the opposite mode, bright and quick and entirely without smoke.

The range is wider than the typecasting suggests. Yayoi Kunizuka in Psycho-Pass is flat and procedural on purpose. Lenalee Lee in D.Gray-man, Kaori Kanzaki in A Certain Magical Index, Flare Corona in Fairy Tail, Himawari Kunogi in xxxHOLiC, Hilda in Beelzebub. In Gurren Lagann she plays the child Darry Adai, and in the two films she takes the animal mascot as well.

The recent work has been quieter and better: Izumi in To Your Eternity, Minami Toba in Laid-Back Camp, Nami in Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop. Several roles her name is attached to, Koko Hekmatyar in Jormungand among them, are missing here, so the page under-represents her.

Movies (45)

TV (147)

Where to start with Shizuka Itoh

Two starting points, depending on your tolerance. Sailor Moon Crystal is the bright one: Minako Aino shows off the comic timing and the singing background at once, and it needs no context at all.

If you want the performance the industry actually rewarded, it is Prison School, a loud and coarse comedy that will not suit everyone, but Meiko Shiraki is genuinely funny voice work, all clipped authority and barely held temper.

From there: Assassination Classroom for the best written of her adult-woman roles, Psycho-Pass for the flattest and most disciplined, Gurren Lagann for the surprise that she is playing a small girl in it, and High School DxD for the register she is hired for most often. The quiet late work in To Your Eternity and Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop is a better showcase than any of the comedies she is famous for.

The long-running leads

The roles that carry across many seasons and films. Akeno in High School DxD is the one most associated with her, and Sailor Venus is a legacy part with decades of history and a great deal of expectation attached.

The comic and the award-winning

Meiko in Prison School won her a Seiyu Award and is nothing like the rest of the work, a performance pitched at complete absurdity and played entirely straight. The other comedies use her lower register for deadpan.

The serious work

The dramatic parts, generally as someone holding something back. Yayoi in Psycho-Pass is a study in flat affect over damage, and the Gurren Lagann roles are the early ones where the range first became obvious.

Genres Shizuka Itoh works in

More about Shizuka Itoh

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