Marika Kouno
Marika Kouno is an actor, born 1994.
Marika Kouno has been voicing anime since 2013, first with Mausu Promotion and later with Aoni Production. Her first lead came in 2015, in Seiyu's Life!, a series about voice acting, and it arrived with a second job attached: she and the rest of the main cast formed the group Earphones, and she has recorded as a singer ever since.
Her core register is the bright, small, slightly breathless girl, and there are plenty of those in the credits, from Mitsuboshi Colors to Hinako Note and Slow Start. Taken alone that would make her one of a hundred. What makes her worth following is how often she is cast against the register. Silence Suzuka in Umamusume: Pretty Derby is a study in restraint, quiet in a very loud show. Mahiro Oyama in ONIMAI is a young man stuck in a girl's body, which means playing a boy's manner through a pitch he has no idea how to operate, and the joke only lands because she keeps the two layers separate.
She also inherited Mimi Tachikawa for the 2020 Digimon Adventure:, taking on a character an entire generation already had a voice for, and she has kept a steady line of supporting work running through the isekai boom, in Re:ZERO, In Another World with My Smartphone, By the Grace of the Gods and a dozen more besides.
Movies (5)
TV (41)
- Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- (2016)
- Kaguya-sama: Love Is War (2019)
- After School Dice Club (2019)
- Mitsuboshi Colors (2018)
- Chillin' in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers (2024)
- Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online (2018)
- Beast Tamer (2022)
- A Condition Called Love (2024)
- Yowayowa Sensei (2026)
- Dr. STONE (2019)
- In Another World with My Smartphone (2017)
- Raven of the Inner Palace (2022)
- Umamusume: Pretty Derby (2018)
- To Be Hero (2016)
- ONIMAI: I'm Now Your Sister! (2023)
- Digimon Adventure: (2020)
- Cautious Hero: The Hero Is Overpowered but Overly Cautious (2019)
- In the Land of Leadale (2022)
- The Shiunji Family Children (2025)
- By the Grace of the Gods (2020)
- Show by Rock!! (2015)
- Love Flops (2022)
- In the Heart of Kunoichi Tsubaki (2022)
- How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom (2021)
- Blue Archive the Animation (2024)
- Akiba's Trip The Animation (2017)
- Saint Seiya: Saintia Sho (2018)
- Yuuki Yuuna Is a Hero (2014)
- Scarlet Nexus (2021)
- If It's for My Daughter, I'd Even Defeat a Demon Lord (2019)
Where to start with Marika Kouno
The demonstration piece is ONIMAI: I'm Now Your Sister!. Whatever you make of the premise, the performance underneath it is doing something technically difficult in nearly every scene, and it is the single clearest argument for her.
For the opposite pole, Umamusume: Pretty Derby, where Silence Suzuka is written as stillness surrounded by noise and Kouno underplays her almost to a whisper. Then Mitsuboshi Colors for the pure comic version of the voice, and Kaguya-sama: Love Is War to hear how little she needs in order to land a joke from a supporting seat.
Digimon Adventure: is the interesting one for anyone raised on the original, since Mimi is not a role you can quietly take over. Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- and Blue Archive the Animation cover the fantasy work, and Scorching Ping Pong Girls is the deep cut worth the trouble.