Takako Honda

Half of this career is not visible here. Takako Honda is one of Japan's steady dubbing voices, the regular Japanese voice of Halle Berry, Hilary Swank, Milla Jovovich and Charlize Theron, and since 2006 the Japanese Lara Croft, taking over from Atsuko Tanaka. Dubbing credits do not appear on a filmography like this one, so what you can see is the anime half of the job.

That half is unusually wide in register. She specialises in adult women with something withheld: Touko Aozaki across the Garden of Sinners films, a character built almost entirely out of tone; Kiwi in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners; Hone Onna in Hell Girl; Makina in Deadman Wonderland; Junko in NANA, who is the sane one in a story with no sane people in it. The common thread is control. She reads lines low and level and lets the audience come to her, which in a medium that rewards volume is a distinctive choice.

The other specialism is boys. Gimmy in Gurren Lagann and Jinta in the Bleach films are both small, loud children played by a woman in her thirties, and the switch is total. Add Shiina in Ranking of Kings, Kiriko in SK8 the Infinity, and credits across Psycho-Pass, Knights of Sidonia, Chihayafuru and Trinity Blood, and the shape is a career spent being whoever the scene needs.