Yui Horie

Yui Horie (堀江 由衣) is a Japanese voice actress and singer affiliated with VIMS and Starchild.

She has been affectionately nicknamed "Hocchan" (ほっちゃん) by her Japanese fans.

In 1995, during the first year of college, Horie auditioned at the Japan Voice Acting Institute for a scholarship, the voice training school for Arts Vision.

She can be quoted as saying "I went for an audition instead of hunting for a job, hahaha....".

Horie graduated after 4 years of training.

During this time she entered the SME Voice Actor Audition in 1996, winning the Namco Prize, (with Ayako Kawasumi winning the Special Award).

On August 28, 1996, Horie and 21 other voice students (including Yukari Tamura) were unveiled at Nippon Cultural Broadcasting Inc.'s "SOMETHING DREAMS '96" at the Tokyo International Exhibition Centre as the Dorikan Club, a group of aspiring voice actresses.

Whilst still training and under the representation of Arts Vision, Horie was able to make her voice actor debut in the 1997 Sega Saturn game, Voice Fantasia: Ushinawareta Voice Power.

She debuted as a voice actress in 1997, releasing her debut single "My best friend" on 1998-11-18.

Since then, she has been involved in excess of 350 productions in addition to promotional material, concert performances, as well as charting several albums and singles.

She won the award for Best Supporting Voice Actress in the 4th Seiyu Awards.

Her first leading role was in the 1998 anime Kurogane Communication, of which she sang the theme songs, "My best friend" and "Dear Mama".

These two songs were released as Horie's first single under the Pony Canyon music label.

In 1999, with the increasing number of eroge and visual novels being adapted to anime, Horie was able to win a major role as Multi, a robotic girl, in the romantic anime To Heart.

The following year, Horie succeeded in auditioning for the lead female role of the TV anime adaptation of the shōnen manga comedy Love Hina, as Naru Narusegawa.

Love Hina was a huge hit, with sales of over one million DVDs.

The high popularity at the time lead to Lycos Japan using the anime to advertise its search engine and other services, with narration from Horie.

This was to be her first CM.

The ascending popularity of Love Hina spawned a lucrative franchise of OVAs, Drama CDs and games, of which Horie reprised the star role.

In regard to their rising fame, Horie worked with Yukari Tamura and form the group Yamato Nadeshiko (やまとなでしこ).

She is one of a handful of Japanese idol voice actors that rose to prominence in the 2000s, whose popularity today has been attributed to their solid experience and long-term interaction with their fan base, as opposed to the contemporary norms of youth and beauty in the entertainment industry.

This group had two debuts in 2000, on April 30 at the Yoyogi National Gymnasium and May 13 at Nagoya's Nadia Park Complex.

The first of these was called "Yamato Nadeshiko Debut Kinen First Live ~suddenly 1000 seconds live in Yoyogi~", which happened during the "Dorikan Club Fifth Anniversary Event".

Together they would release two singles, "Mō Hitori no Watashi" (もうひとりの私) in 2000 and "Merry Merrily" in 2001, the latter being used as an insert song in the Love Hina Christmas Special.

2000 also saw Horie publish her first photobook, Kingyobachi Puranetto (金魚鉢プラネット), and the release of her debut album, Mizutamari ni Utsuru Sekai, through the Starchild label which featured two songs from Love Hina.

In 2001, Starchild established her official fan club called Kuroneko Union (黒ネコ同盟), where member benefits included fan events, priority seating in concerts, bimonthly newsletters, and access to exclusive merchandise.

The first meeting, which was named "Black Cat Rally Vol.1 - Akasaka BLITZ" was on July 21, where they held a rally and a quiz show.

Early in 2002, Horie's first solo concert tour kicked off on January 26 at the Club Diamond Hall in Nagoya, a 1000 capacity venue.

"堀江由衣 First Live Tour", lasted a total of 6 nights, travelling to Tokyo and ending on February 11 in Osaka at the Matsushita IMP Hall.

This collaboration ended with a seven date concert tour during June 2003, including stops at Sapporo, Nagoya, Osaka and Tokyo.

As a result of her ongoing success, she has performed solo at large music venues, such as the Nippon Budokan in 2009 and the Yoyogi National Gymnasium's First Stadium in 2015, each with capacities of approximately 14,000 and 13,000, respectively.

Her official fanclub is the "Black Cat Alliance".

Some of her notable roles in anime include Naru Narusegawa in Love Hina, Izayoi Riko/Cure Magical's speaking voice in Witchy PreCure!, Multi in To Heart, Tohru Honda in Fruits Basket, Ai in Dōbutsu no Mori, Ayu Tsukimiya in Kanon, Yuki Cross in Vampire Knight, Hanyuu and Maria Ushiromiya in, respectively, Higurashi When They Cry and Umineko When They Cry, Miss Monochrome in Miss Monochrome, Minori Kushieda in Toradora!, Tsubasa Hanekawa in Monogatari, Chie Satonaka in Persona 4, Kōko Kaga in Golden Time, Carla in Fairy Tail, Ai-chan / Ai Hyperion Λ in Honkai Impact 3rd, and Wiz in KonoSuba.

Born in Tokyo, Horie spent much of her younger years as a latchkey kid.

As an only child, (at that time) she would spend most of her time alone, playing outside of her residence after school until 7pm, when her parents would return from work.

In junior high school, she joined the volleyball club but did not enjoy it much.

Horie refers to her time at junior high and high school as her 'dark era'.

Early childhood interests included watching the anime series Dirty Pair.

She was fascinated by the main premise as a detective.

She would act out scenes from memory with a school friend and also record herself with a cassette player.