Asano Masumi leaves ARTSVISION for Aoni Production
Quick piece of news: Asano Masumi, a Seiyuu Award Best Personality winner and member of the now-defunct Aice5 has become the latest big name to leave the tainted ARTSVISION agency for pastures anew. Asano made the announcement on her site’s BBS earlier this morning. She has quite a lot of credits to her name, including Mariya in Otoboku, Osana Najimi in Doujin Work, Izumi in Kore ga Watashi no Goshujin-sama and Sonsaku Hakufu in the Ikkitousen series, a role that she will be reprising in the upcoming Great Guardians iteration.
This marks the second time Masumin has moved agencies, having moved upstairs from I’m Enterprise to Artsvision (the two agencies are in the same building) exactly 5 years and 1 month ago (1 April 2003 if you can’t count). Her profile on the ARTS site has already been erased, and the new one on Aoni has popped up, although it mysteriously stills shows the data for Ohmoto Makiko.
The week the Matsuda Sakumi scandal broke, Asano denied any knowledge of the whole incident (yeah, sure) but it seems that she would prefer to distance herself from the whole matter altogether, like many of her former ARTSVISION colleagues who have now left. That includes Aice5 bandmates Takahashi Chiaki and Horie Yui, and many other major names like Kobayashi Yumiko, Mitsuishi Kotono & Kuwatani Natsuko.
And this may be completely unrelated (there is no way to find out anymore) but Tomisaka Akira, voice of heroine Kate Ashley in RED GARDEN and of Kuuya in Utawarerumono also resigned from ARTSVISION last October and retired from the seiyuu business altogether at the age of 28.
Anyway, a fresh start for Asano and she now joins one of the major agencies which has a vastly talented array of seiyuu on their books including the likes of Nonaka Ai, Hirohashi Ryo, Kuwashima Houko, Okiayu Ryotaro, Midorikawa Hikaru and Furuya Tohru. Best of luck to Masumin in her future endeavours!
Sigh. Soon the building will be empty — expect for Hayami Saori at I”m Enterprise. Masumin is one of my favorites, partly becuse she was one of the first seiyuu I ever really noticed, in Uta-Kata, and partly because she is such a dangerous humorist. Your photo of the big cat is one of the most atypically glamorous I’ve seen. Lovely.
Yow, Masumi “Masumin” Asano is hawt, though fellow seiyuu keep saying she’s putting on the weight. Still, I haven’t bothered to get any of her new works (no Aice, etc) but I loved to hear her in A Little Snow Fairy Sugar and Yumeria. Although in Uta-kata, I get her confused with the main heroine’s voice. I like her singing voice in solo. Plus she’s easy on the eyes on camera, based on her interview in Kasimasi. As far as this agency news is concerned, I am ignorant, but thanks for connecting the dots.
There’s lot of small fry leaving I’m Enterprise of late, and one of them even got fired (Ohsawa Tsumugi) but I don’t think they’re in danger of any of their big fish (Tamura Yukari, Ueda Kana, Nakahara Mai) jumping off the boat anytime soon.