Reiko Takagi
Reiko Takagi is an actor, born 1973.
Reiko Takagi has spent a good part of her career playing boys. The credits gathered here make the pattern hard to miss: Tadase Hotori in Shugo Chara!, Yoshitaka Waya in Hikaru no Go, Sakura Kusakabe in Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan, Thomas in Emma: A Victorian Romance, Kouta Tatsumi in Battle Spirits: Heroes. Japanese animation has always cast adult women as adolescent male leads, and Takagi is one of the performers that convention was built for.
Her run here starts in the late 1990s with Lunaris Anbra in Shadow Skill and Silvia Kakihana in the film Gundress, then finds its signature in 2000 with Kaolla Suu in Love Hina, a part she carried through both of the show's specials. What she does well is speed. The delivery is bright and elastic, able to bend a line into a squawk without dropping a syllable of it, which is why the comedies keep coming back to her.
The range is wider than the type suggests. She is the violinist Kahoko Hino in La Corda d'Oro: Primo Passo and returns to the same franchise years later as a different lead, Kanade Kohinata. She is the flat, deadpan Maki in Minami-ke, Jewelry Bonney in One Piece, and Hiyori Sarugaki in the Bleach films. Born in Osaka, she also works as a narrator, and her game credits include Cassandra Alexandra in the Soulcalibur series.
Movies (5)
TV (25)
- One Piece (1999)
- Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! (2020)
- Hikaru no Go (2001)
- Ace Attorney (2016)
- Shugo Chara! (2007)
- Love Hina (2000)
- Emma: A Victorian Romance (2005)
- At the Mercy of the Sky (2009)
- Minami-ke (2007)
- Midori Days (2004)
- Shadow Skill (1998)
- Yamibo - Darkness, the Hat, and the Travelers of the Books (2003)
- Asura Cryin' (2009)
- Divergence Eve (2003)
- Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan (2005)
- Battle B-Daman (2005)
- Kujibiki Unbalance (2006)
- Wan Wan Celeb Soreyuke! Tetsunoshin (2006)
- Patalliro Saiyuki! (2005)
- Battle Spirits: Heroes (2011)
- Haruka Nogizaka's Secret (2008)
- La corda d'oro: Blue♪Sky (2014)
- La Corda d'Oro: Primo Passo (2006)
- Tomica Hero: Rescue Fire (2009)
- Ultra Maniac (2003)
Where to start with Reiko Takagi
Most people come through Love Hina, and it earns that position: Love Hina hands Takagi the loudest, fastest register she has and lets her run in it for a full series. The two follow-ups, Love Hina Christmas Special: Silent Eve and Love Hina Spring Special - I Wish Your Dream, are for people who already like the show.
For the boy roles, Hikaru no Go is the serious one. Waya is a real supporting character in a genuinely good drama about competitive go, and nothing in the performance winks at the audience. Shugo Chara! and Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan use the same trick at opposite ends of the tonal range, the first sincere, the second cheerfully deranged.
Two more are worth the time. Minami-ke casts her as the straight woman and gets most of its laughs out of her, and Emma: A Victorian Romance is a quiet, slow period piece that sits at the far end of her filmography from everything else in this list.