Voice Actor Focus: Rie Kugimiya and the Tsundere Protagonist

gamerant.com:

With a career that precedes her, Rie Kugimiya is perhaps one of modern anime's most iconic, most recognizable voices. Known to many fans as the «Tsundere Queen», Kugimiya carved a name for herself portraying characters like Alphonse Elric from Hiromu Arakawa's classic Fullmetal Alchemist, Louise from Familiar of Zero; the titular character from Shakugan no Shana, Kagura from Gintama and is responsible for giving life to not just various iconic hot'n'cold queens, but to other characters both major and minor.

Just how did Kugimiya become synonymous with the tsundere archetype, and what has her impact been on anime overall? From mascot character to protagonist, she is one of the most prolific voice actors in the industry. Here's the rundown on the voice acting deity that is Rie Kugimiya.

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Born May 30th, 1979, in Osaka, Kugimiya has been active in the industry for nearly 25 years, first earning her stripes with Japanese voice talent agency, I'm Enterprise in the very first summer school training program for voice actors sponsored by the Japan Narration Institute. Her debut role came in 1998, in the video game etude prologue -Shaking heart-, where she played the role of Tadami Seki.

From the beginning of her career, Kugimiya's talents were used to voice juveniles and young teenage characters, but she has since diversified her repertoire with various interesting roles that aren't in line with how she started her career. This association with juvenile characters is due to her voice's quality and her inflection which grants her characters even more youth, but she also tends to offer them a bratty quality, which strengthens the association with childhood or