Which Seiyuus Get the Most Work?

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.