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'17-Year-Old' Voice Actress Kikuko Inoue, Daughter Pose as Schoolgirls
posted on by Jennifer Sherman
The perpetually 17-year-old voice actress Kikuko Inoue and her actually 18-year-old daughter Honoka posed as high school students for promotional pictures. The mother-daughter duo are promoting Elecom's new "stereo headphones perfect for anime music."
The pair appear as good friends waiting on a train station platform during their commute to school. They use their special headphones to make the time go faster. The campaign marks the first time that the 52-year-old teenager and her daughter have posed together for uniform gravure photos.
The promotional pictures will appear on pages 58 to 61 of the December issue of Kadokawa's Monthly Newtype magazine, which will ship in Japan on November 11. Manga creator Masamune Shirow (Appleseed, Ghost in the Shell) designed Elecom's new earphones that Inoue and her daughter model. The EHP-SH1000 and EHP-SL100 earphones target young-hearted fans of anime music, and they went on sale in Japan this fall.
Elecom chose Inoue to promote their new products because she is a veteran voice actress who has performed more than 300 anime and game character songs. Her daughter Honoka is also a singer and voice actress. She made her live singing debut last December.
Inoue is known for portraying herself to her fans as an "eternal 17-year-old." She founded her own cult, 17-saikyou ("age 17ism"), with fellow voice actresses Yukari Tamura, Sakura Nogawa, Rina Satō and Yui Horie as followers. She has performed hundreds of anime roles including Oh! My Goddess' Belldandy, Ranma ½'s Kasumi Tendo, Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team's Aina Saharin, Space Battleship Yamato 2199's Starsha Iscandar, and Code Geass' Cecile Croomy. Inoue received the Kazue Takahashi Award at the 10th Annual Seiyū Awards this March. The award is given to a female performer who broadens the profession of voice acting in every form of media.
Source: Web Newtype via Hachima Kikō
