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HoriPro Reveals Talent Contest's 1st Voice Actress Winner

Azusa Tadokoro, a 17-year-old girl from Ibaraki prefecture, won the 36th HoriPro Talent Scout Caravan at the Shinagawa Stellar Ball in Tokyo on Monday. HoriPro launched the careers of such talent as Kyoko Fukuda, Haruka Ayase, and Satomi Ishihara from past years' contests. This is the first time the HoriPro competition's focus was on discovering a new anime voice actress.

Tadokoro will go on to make a debut CD with the Lantis recording company. She also won an exclusive contract with HoriPro and a 1,000,000 yen (about US$13,000) prize. The young performer commented that winning was "really like a dream." Tadokoro began liking anime when InuYasha aired on Japanese television during her second year of middle school. She also stated that her hope is to become a voice actress like Miyuki Sawashiro (Di Gi Charat, Strike Witches, Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei) who performs many roles and various character types.

A total of 12,745 young women tried out during the "Next Generation Voice Actress Artist Auditions" held across Japan beginning August 5. Preliminary audition locations in Japan included Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate, Aomori, Akita, and Yamagata prefectures. HoriPro also held auditions in Los Angeles on August 27, and female voice actresses and singers of any nationality could perform. The actresses had to be between the ages of 12 and 22 and be able to speak conversational Japanese.

Ten competitors were selected from the pool of hopeful voice actresses to take part in the final auditions. Tadokoro and the other young women competed in a two-part acting and singing competition to determine the final winner. During the singing portion, Tadokoro sang "Lost My Music" from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya anime. The judges selected Tadokoro as the winner because of the quality of her voice and personal character.

Following the win, HoriPro posted a one-minute interview video with Tadokoro on YouTube on Monday.

Sources: Oricon, Asahi Shimbun