Loving the Squeaking
I know she is unremarkable besides that signature nasal noise but somehow I really like Ai Nonaka. It is really weird, too, because I can’t think of a typical reason why I would like her or that voice. Why do I like her act? Her voice? Her typically cute, Japanese face (that one is self-explanatory I think…and kinda typical)? I don’t know.
Taking a leaping step back, to most untrained ears for Japanese animation…or Japan in general, anime voices sound like high-pitching whining. It’s a perception based on stereotype, but there are a lot of high-pitched voices out there working the block. At least, there are more of these than any other cultural scenes that I know of. I suppose smaller Asian girls generally sound higher pitched than not as a matter of laws of physics, but to make a living out of it? That takes as much talent and hard work as anything else.
In the past year or two, I’ve started to play “spot the Ai Nonaka” game. It’s sort of fun because she’s very easy to spot relatively, and it’s always kind of interesting hearing her filling the shoes of some re-occuring background voice acting role. Even someone as marketable as she is, she took up a fair share of minor roles. In some ways it is also a very tricky proposition to give her a minor role. Nanoka’s voice is very notable, and you never really want a background role to draw too much attention. At the same time, if you are going to give actual lines to a minor character (as in, literally, ~3 lines per series) because she needs to air out the gossip between your protagonist classmates or something, you might as well make the line stick?
It’s no coincidence that nasal, high pitched voices are awesome whining voices. I think that was a key ingredient in making that episode of Kamichu (episode 14) where Yurie spends the day inside the kotatsu awesome. MAKO’s high pitched Japanese-school-girl voice is rather … high, after all. And somewhat nasal. She was able to get it just right–some amount of annoyance to be realistic but not annoying, right amount cute to be sweet but not saccharine, and the rest is LOLs.
Perhaps that is the start of this weird liking. I don’t know, it probably goes way back honestly, to thingspeople like Sakura Tange, Junko Iwao and Hayashibara.
But being the protagonist, the voice actor has time to spin out the act; there are lines and scenes to flesh out the characterization. It is not so for an one-liner act; you gotta go to the punch right there. Witness Nonaka in, say, Toradora. She might as well caption her own lines with her act, with the text “Insert the female class consensus here.” (Although she actually has conversing lines in that one which is a little unusual.) It gets the job done.
In Kamichu, both MAKO and Ai Nonaka are major characters. Thankfully one is mostly silent as I am not sure if the show can handle much more than one of them. In SoraKake? Only time will tell if things will implode from high-pitched, nasal cuteness.
[Top image from Famitsu, FYI.]
It’s the adorable laugh.
One of my favorites too. She was awesome in Iriya! :)
I like Ai Nonaka’s voice too. She’s certainly not on my A-list, but is pretty good. I don’t think pitch has anything to do with it, she just has a cute, happy-sounding voice that works really well for the types of roles she usually does. I couldn’t see myself taking her seriously in a drama.
I’d also never have flagged Hayashibara as having a high pitch. As female seiyuu go, she did most of her signature roles in what would be the mid range as far as I can recall.
Personally, I don’t think that pitch has any real relevance. I often really dislike the higher-pitched seiyuu, especially the ones that have that annoyingly nasal whine. For example I generally can’t stand Aya Hirano, to me she constantly sounds like she’s whining. Yet I like Halko Momoi and quite liked Sakura Tange back in the day. I suspect that it’s less to do with pitch and more with tone. And a lot to do with the quality of the roles they do too.
I loved her as Fuura Kafuka, and since have been playing the ’spot Nonaka’ game myself.
NZ: Hayashibara is super high pitch during her hay days.
Roles are important, yeah. But to me as long as you put on a good performance in a good show, I’ll take a note of you…
Nonaka’s voice is very earnest, and I appreciate her for that. :3
I have a top seiyuu list like most of you, probably, and while I simply *can’t* call her my favorite seiyuu, she’s left a long-lasting impression with the distinctiveness of her voice that I’ve submitted her name for the Foreign Seiyuu Awards category.