Yui Horie

Horie debuted as a voice actress in 1997 and released her first single the following year, and the two careers have run in parallel ever since. Wikipedia puts her involvement at more than 350 productions alongside charting albums and singles, and her fans have called her Hocchan for most of that time. She won Best Supporting Voice Actress at the fourth Seiyu Awards.

The voice itself is bright and forward, the kind that gets typecast into cheerful heroines, and what makes her interesting is how reliably she breaks it. Naru Narusegawa in Love Hina is the early anchor, Minori Kushieda in Toradora! is the performance most people cite, and Kouko Kaga in Golden Time is the one that goes furthest, a character whose confidence is a costume. Her Tsubasa Hanekawa across the Monogatari series is the clearest technical demonstration on the list, since the credit covers both Hanekawa and Black Hanekawa, two voices from one throat in the same show.

The later work is heavy on comic supporting parts, which suits her: Wiz in KONOSUBA, Ferris in Re:ZERO, Carla across the Fairy Tail series and films, Belfast in Azur Lane, Satomi in How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?, Hanyu in Higurashi and Anna Kushina in K. She also does the singing side of the job properly, performing at large venues rather than treating it as merchandise, which is part of why a career built in the late 1990s is still running.