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generasia:Featured article for 2010 week 29

Hayashibara Megumi

Hayashibara - Shuuketsu no Sadame promo.jpg

Hayashibara Megumi (林原めぐみ) is a Japanese pop artist and a anime seiyuu. She is currently signed to KING RECORDS and she is signed with Star Child management. Over the course of a twenty year career, she has become one of Japan's most popular seiyuu having over 236 roles credited to her name, and she has won Animage's most popular seiyuu award twelve times. In the 1990s she rose to prominence as the leader of the third seiyuu wave, and she is the best selling seiyuu ever with over 3,670,693 copies of her releases sold.

As a child she was inspired by Ikeda Akiko's role in the anime Galaxy Express 999 and decided that she wanted to become a seiyuu. Right after graduating from high school Hayashibara started nursing school. While going to nursing school, Hayashibara came across an ad at a local bookstore for open audition with Art's Vision (a seiyuu management company). She impressed the judges and was offered a deal. In 1986 she started training with them and made her debut playing several minor roles in Takahashi Rumiko's Maison Ikkoku.

In 1989, Hayashibara hit the big time taking major roles in series such as Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket (playing Christina MacKenzie), Ranma ½ (playing the female version of Saotome Ranma), and Alfred J. Kwak (playing the title character). Her debut single was also released that year, "Yakusoku da yo", which was a character single for Alfred J. Kwak. Not long after Hayashibara released "PULSE" on the Futureland record label, which featured collaborations with TWO-MIX's Nagano Shiina and singer-songwriter Karashima Midori.

In 1991 she went major and signed with KING RECORDS. Her popularity started to take off in 1995 when she voiced Slayers' Lina Inverse. She released a string of successful Slayers tie-in singles and "Give a reason" became her biggest hit, as well as the second best selling single from a seiyuu. Her seventh studio album, bertemu was the first seiyuu album to chart in the top three and her eighth album Iravati is the best selling album from a seiyuu. In the 2000's Hayashibara's career started to slow down; she begain taking on less roles and releasing less music. However in recent years she has begun increasing her activity. In 2008 and 2009 she recorded music for the new Slayers series and the new Shin Sekai Evangelion films. On July 21st 2010, Hayashibara will release her 14th studio album, CHOICE and her 51st single, "Shuuketsu no Sadame".