Idolm@ster step 1.9: "Azusa Miura" is Chiaki Takahashi is Tomoko Ishibashi

(tags idolm@ster, seiyuu, voice actor, game, CD)
(originally written 2007-10-07)

I don't boast my voice actress recognition skills because I don't have any. I can't pick out the difference between seiyuu A and seiyuu B if I don't have at least their names. It doesn't help when seiyuu change their name.

Take for instance, Tomoko Ishibashi (石橋朋子). I loved to hear her voice Mizuki from Kimi ga Nozomu Eien. I looked her up in the Japanese Wikipedia and her career seemed to be stalled in 2005. But an #insertcredit regular, kyouji, pointed out that the English Wikipedia version of the page linked Tomoko Ishibashi to Chiaki Takashashi (たかはし智秋). Foreign Wikipedia editors FTW. So that woman that I considered the strange finger-point dancing sidekick in Aice5 is one of my class A favorite seiyuu. Huh.

When I figured that out a couple of weeks back, I first thought, ugh, I'm going to have to buy the Aice5 music, ha ha. But no, the Idolm@ster works have plenty of Chiaki Takahashi. She is one of the regular hosts of the Idolm@ster Radio (アイマスレディオ):

(Pictures swiped from Geemaga blog: 「ゲーマガblog: アイマスレイディオ・舞台裏中継」)
(10/7, 10/14, 10/21, 10/28, 11/4)

I don't make time to listen to web radio so I bought her character CD instead:

She sounds just like the Tomoko Ishibashi I want to hear. WIN! I like most of the songs on this CD except that her singing seems a little coarse at the high end. For example, she did a cover of the PS2 game Final Fantasy XII song "Kiss me Good Bye". While her start sounds excellent, in the end I prefer Angela Aki's original version. She is killer great in dialogue, and the CD's drama parts had me melting. It also helps that my favorite tsundere voice Rie Kugimiya (釘宮理恵) guest stars on this CD.

And this also puts to rest who C.T. Veronica was in the duo Exige. I bought the Exige single because of Minami Kuribayashi (栗林みな実), but C.T. (Chiaki Takahashi) Veronica sang so good I wondered who this "gaijin" was. Hehe.

Still, learning that my "hero" has resurrected from a 2005 "death" is great. Now to find more of her work, on the cheep. More fun links: "elder sister Chiaki Takahashi info site" 「elder sister たかはし智秋さん情報サイト」.