I’ve been looking around for an opportunity to do another Life with Tenshi segment but unfortunately, I have not encountered a piano playing student council president nor a girl who got a heart transplant among many other possibilities. However, Tenshi’s seiyū, Kana Hanazawa, will be coming to our little red dot known as Singapore for the 2010 edition of Anime Festival Asia, a.k.a AFA X. Thus, I have decided to take this opportunity to do a short write up on her and at the same time, shamelessly drum up publicity for Animenauts. More after the jump.
Born on 25/2/1989, Kana Hanazawa’s first seiyū role was in the Gonzo-produced Last Exile, playing the role of Holy Madosein. Her first lead role in anime was in Zegapain, voicing the character of Ryoko Kaminagi. Since then, Kana Hanazawa’s star has been on the rise, with major roles in anime like Sekirei, To Love-Ru, Darker Than Black: Ryusei no Gemini, and Kobato. Some of her recent roles include Toko Amano in Bungaku Shoujo, Anri Sonohara in Durarara!!, Sakura Hanazono in Maid Sama! and of course, Tenshi/Kanade Tachibana in Angel Beats! (For some reason, the last three anime I’ve mentioned all happen to have exclamation marks…).
Some of the roles she has played. Clockwise from top left: Ryoko Kaminagi in Zegapain, Anri Sonohara in Durarara!! and Tenshi in Angel Beats!
She has also been involved in the theme song performances for several of the anime she’s been in like Sekirei, Kyoran Kazoku Nikki and Bakemonogatari. For non-anime roles, she has appeared in the IDOLM@STER series of games as Eri Mizutani, Wii game Tales of Graces as Sophie and in PC/XBox360 visual novel Steins;Gate as Mayuri Shiina. She can currently be heard in The World God Only Knows as Shiori Shiomiya, Motto To Love-Ru as Yuki Mikan, Otome Youkai Zakuro as Susukihotaru, Oreimo as Kuroneko and Kuragehime as Tsukimi Kurashita.
Among her many roles, my personal favourites would be Tenshi from Angel Beats! and Kusano from Sekirei (She says “Kuu!” half the time but she’s real cute!). I think its pretty cool that the AFA committee has managed to bring her in. Looking forward to seeing her at AFA X (provided I am not working on that day of course…).
There will be a Q&A session during her AFA X stage segment and fans will be able to submit their questions to the AFA X website . A set of questions will be selected from the submissions to be answered by Kana Hanazawa.
Tags: Angel Beats!, Anime Festival Asia, Tenshi