j1m0ne's blog

The youngest member of the Music Ray’n quartet (Takagaki Ayahi, Tomatsu Haruka & Toyosaki Aki are the others), Kotobuki Minako (寿 美菜子) is a name you should keep in mind as the spring and summer anime seasons approach – I think you’ll be seeing it pop up in a lot of cast announcements from now on.

I covered her briefly in a Music Ray’n feature I did in 2007, but at that point precious little was known about her. With Minako’s three seniors having already made their mark on the scene since then, it seemed just a matter of time before Minako got her chance to shine and that time might be now.

17-year old Kotobuki hasn’t done as much in the first 3 years of her career as her seniors thanks to both school and her location – her hometown is in Hyogo which is around 3(?) hours away by shinkansen from Tokyo, and has thus far limited to bit-part roles and guest characters in various anime (Minami-ke, Tytania, Jigoku Shojo) as well as appearing in Music Ray’n events, but nothing much in the way of regular work. That is all set to change as Minako will be graduating from high school next month and moving to Tokyo, following a similar career path to Tomatsu Haruka.

Already, it looks like Music Ray’n are trying to push Minako onto a quick breakthrough, with major roles in three 2009 anime announced so far – tomboyish Rika in romance show Hatsukoi Limited., Kotobuki Tsumugi in Kyoto Animation’s K-ON! and Kaho in this summer’s Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou. On the idol side, there’s her involvement with the Ray’n idol group Sphere, plus she’ll be singing the opening & ending themes for K-ON! alongside the three other main girls Hikasa Yoko, Sato Satomi & Toyosaki – the quartet also host the radio show.

Despite her young age, Kotobuki’s voice is fairly mature – let’s just say that of the MuRay girls hers is the least moe; ranging somewhere from low (can do male voices) to mid-high (can’t do loli voices) with a clear and calm tone to it. You can listen to her fortnightly personal voice message, catch a bit of her in the Hatsukoi Limited CM and watch her co-presenting Dolly Variety, a show about..dolls. Of course her voice acting ability is still up in the air, but Minako must have some level of talent to have ended up as one of the top 3 in the initial Music Ray’n auditions when she was just 14 years old.

Looks-wise, Minako definitely does not look 17… Inoue Kikuko looks more 17 than she does, if you ask me =_= From certain angles, she kind of resembles Yuna Ito, at other times she reminds me of Kimura Madoka. Of the Music Ray’n girls, she’s closest to Tomatsu Haruka because of their ages (Tomatsu is one year older), and is also the laid-back, quieter one of the group, countering two airheads and a loud, obnoxious idiot. Normal, and also kinda boring – but we’ll see if she has a more interesting personality lurking underneath in coming months.

All in all, 2009 is shaping up to be a good year for Minako and with the backing of Sony and Lantis, expect to hear a lot more from her in the future.

Links:
Music Ray’n’s Official Kotobuki Minako Website
Blog – Minakorobi Yaoki
Kotobuki Minako @ ANN