Which seiyuus get the most roles? A Japanese wiki compiles figures showing how many TV anime episodes each seiyuu appears in.The busiest seiyuu in 2009 was Kugimiya Rie, whom the wiki says appeared in a total of 292 episodes that year. If it seemed as if Kugyu was everywhere last year, that's because she was. Her total was well ahead of runners-up Noto Mamiko and Sawashiro Miyuki, who appeared in 249 and 242 episodes, respectively. Orikasa Fumiko and Tomatsu Haruka round out the top five. (mouseover images for captions)Only the top seven names in a list of over 500 appeared in more than 200 episodes. The top 92 were over 100 episodes. Last on the list was the lovely and talented Morinaga Rika, who appeared in 29 episodes.The wiki provides two lists: one by total number of episodes broadcast in 2009, one restricted to anime whose run began in 2009. There are some differences between the lists. Kugimiya, Noto, Sawashiro, Tomatsu, and Fukuyama Jun are the only names that appear in the top ten on both lists.Other names in the top tens are: Kitamura Eri, Nakamura Yuuichi, Horie Yui, Ono Daisuke, Fujiwara Keiji, Irino Miyu, Takagaki Ayahi, Endou Aya, and Koyasu Takehito.Looking over both lists, you see a lot of familiar names. Some things stand out to me. For one, Sony's Music Ray'n seiyuu/singing agency experiment is a big success: Tomatsu, Takagaki Ayahi, and Toyosaki Aki are all in the top twenty.Yahagi Sayuri, one of my favorite young pros, is in the top twenty in both lists. And another top young pro, KitaEri, is there, too. Here are the top twenty lists: new anime all anime Kugimiya Rie Kugimiya Rie Sawashiro Miyuki Noto Mamiko Tomatsu Haruka Sawashiro Miyuki Fukuyama Jun Orikasa Fumiko Noto Mamiko Tomatsu Haruka Kitamura Eri Nakamura Yuuichi Horie Yui Fukuyama Jun Ono Daisuke Fujiwara Keiji Irino Miyu Takagaki Ayahi Endou Aya Koyasu Takehito Kanemitsu Nobuaki Yahagi Sayuri Koshimizu Ami Toyosaki Aki Toyosaki Aki Yoshino Hiroyuki Sakurai Takahiro Konishi Katsuyuki Yahagi Sayuri Kitamura Eri Paku Romi Sakaguchi Daisuke Hirano Aya Horie Yui Fujimura Ayumi Irino Miyu Inoue Marina Takeuchi Junko Oohara Sayaka Toyoguchi Megumi I saw one name in that list of top twenties that I didn't recognize: who the heck is Kanemitsu Nobuaki? Well, I checked on ANN and Japanese Wikipedia, and he has been a seiyuu since 1998 and has only had a few named roles in that time, but has played scads of roles like "Johnny creature" in Eden of the East, and "Guard A" in Genji Sennenki. That's one way of building a career.The wiki has another list adding the name of each seiyuu's agency, and the new-anime top twenty shows a good spread among agencies: I"m Enterprise (2), Mausu Promotions (2), Music Ray'n (2), Office Osawa, Baobab (2), Early Wing, VIMS, Junction, Office PAC, 81 Produce (2), Theatre En, Spacecraft, Ken Production, Sigma Seven, Actors' Co-op.As for the two quite young seiyuus who have impressed me recently: Hayami Saori comes in with 73 episodes and Yuuki Aoi with 50, both well down the list. Although they were both still in high school in 2009 and not working full-time, that still puts Hayamin ahead of established names like Maeno Tomoaki, Chihara Minori, and Makino Yui; and Yuuki ahead of Ise Mariya and Hirakawa Daisuke. I think this shows that being successful and appearing in many episodes are not exactly the same thing.In fact, I don't think we can assume that the seiyuus with the most work make the most money. For one thing, older seiyuus are paid more per episode than younger ones. For another, I expect bit parts get paid less per episode than starring roles.Here is a list of the top sixty names, ordered by new episodes of all broadcast anime (but also giving episodes of new anime starting in 2009). For those who can read Japanese, here is a link to the Japanese Anime Cast Wiki from which the info comes. total new 1 292 201 Kugimiya Rie 釘宮理恵 2 249 169 Noto Mamiko 能登麻美子 3 242 193 Sawashiro Miyuki 沢城みゆき 4 230 60 Orikasa Fumiko 折笠富美子 5 215 189 Tomatsu Haruka 戸松遥 6 209 73 Nakamura Yuuichi 中村悠一 7 209 183 Fukuyama Jun 福山潤 8 199 104 Fujiwara Keiji 藤原啓治 9 190 102 Takagaki Ayahi 高垣彩陽 10 189 117 Koyasu Takehito 子安武人 11 182 133 Yahagi Sayuri 矢作紗友里 12 181 138 Toyosaki Aki 豊崎愛生 13 180 53 Yoshino Hiroyuki 吉野裕行 14 178 77 Konishi Katsuyuki 小西克幸 15 174 162 Kitamura Eri 喜多村英梨 16 174 50 Sakaguchi Daisuke 阪口大助 17 171 159 Horie Yui 堀江由衣 18 170 152 Irino Miyu 入野自由 19 170 49 Takeuchi Junko 竹内順子 20 169 117 Toyoguchi Megumi 豊口めぐみ 21 165 153 Ono Daisuke 小野大輔 22 164 131 Paku Romi 朴璐美 23 163 147 Kanemitsu Nobuaki 金光宣明 24 159 79 Kuwashima Houko 桑島法子 25 158 123 Oohara Sayaka 大原さやか 26 155 66 Matsumoto Yasunori 松本保典 27 155 118 Tanaka Rie 田中理恵 28 155 127 Hirano Aya 平野綾 29 153 118 Itou Shizuka 伊藤静 30 153 134 Sakurai Takahiro 櫻井孝宏 31 152 2 Ootani Ikue 大谷育江 32 152 119 Satou Rina 佐藤利奈 33 152 127 Fujimura Ayumi 藤村歩 34 151 118 Shiraishi Ryouko 白石涼子 35 149 149 Endou Aya 遠藤綾 36 147 141 Koshimizu Ami 小清水亜美 37 146 118 Nazuka Kaori 名塚佳織 38 143 101 Asanuma Shintarou 浅沼晋太郎 39 142 124 Inoue Marina 井上麻里奈 40 141 112 Hamada Kenji 浜田賢二 41 140 96 Mizuki Nana 水樹奈々 42 139 122 Watanable Akeno 渡辺明乃 43 137 112 Kakihara Tetsuya 柿原徹也 44 134 102 Ishida Akira 石田彰 45 134 58 Saitou Chiwa 斎藤千和 46 133 48 Miki Shinichirou 三木眞一郎 47 133 68 Miyasaka Shunzou 宮坂俊蔵 48 131 111 Nonaka Ai 野中藍 49 131 55 Yukino Satsuki 雪野五月 50 129 115 Namikawa Daisuke 浪川大輔 51 128 61 Okiayu Ryoutarou 置鮎龍太郎 52 128 107 Kaida Yuuko 甲斐田裕子 53 127 115 Ueda Kana 植田佳奈 54 127 115 Nomura Kenji 乃村健次 55 127 87 Morikawa Toshiyuki 森川智之 56 126 102 Hayami Shou 速水奨 57 125 113 Nabatame Hitomi 生天目仁美 58 125 85 Miyake Kenta 三宅健太 59 125 70 Wakamoto Norio 若本規夫 60 123 61 Kanda Akemi 神田朱未 The wiki includes the caveat that data cannot be guaranteed accurate. One thing for sure, this list counts far more appearances than are listed on each seiyuu's page in Anime News Network or even Japanese Wikipedia. It claims to include all roles credited on screeen for each 30-minute TV anime. Longer TV anime count as multiples of 30 minutes. Anime for timeslots shorter than 30 minutes (e.g., 5 minutes, 15 minutes) aren't counted.In any case, if these figures are accurate, it shows how a seiyuu at least has a chance of making a living of some kind. That wasn't obvious to me before.Seeing Morinaga Rika at the bottom of the list bothered me, so I checked up on her in Japanese Wikipedia and in her blog: she appeared last year in episodes of Saki and Minami-ke O-kaeri, and a Tales of Vesperia movie, but although she appeared in a recent Seto no Hanayome live event, she is now devoting her time mainly to live music performances, particularly with her club band function code(). Her blog is active and she is very active on twitter.The 29-year-old Rika will be a "chorus girl" with Speed-ID at the multi-band overnight live event at Live Space Marz Shinjuku this coming Saturday. Note the pretty tattoo.
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