Michiko Nomura


Michiko Nomura is a Japanese actress, voice actress, and sodanyaku.
She is known for her roles as Shizuka Minamoto, Maya the Bee, and Wakame Isono.

Biography

Early years

Nomura was born in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture on March 31, 1938. She was adopted by relatives living in Osaka Prefecture when she was two years old.
As the war intensified, Nomura and her family evacuated over to Gifu Prefecture. Once the war came to an end, she returned back home. Because she was the only one with a different surname, she thought her younger siblings were merely relatives.
From an early age, Nomura loved radio dramas and wanted to pursue a career in radio dramas and voice acting. During her time at Kanagawa Gakuen Junior and Senior High School, she joined their drama club, with her coaches being Yoshiya Nemoto and Naoki Sugiura.
In her third year of high school, Nomura applied for a theater company established by the Tokyo Announcement Academy, but she was rejected due to her young age, though she got heavily encouraged to join the acting training department, so she started attending the academy's acting department every Sunday.
Once Nomura graduated from training school, she appeared on programs by the producer who instructed her. At the beginning of her career, she usually worked as an actress on commercials and TV dramas. Initially, when she was in her early twenities, she passed the Fuji TV weathercaster audition and became their first weather girl, but since the weather forecast was done every morning, she was unable to make time to film for live-action dramas, and her voice acting jobs grew. She officially began working in the voice acting industry three to four years after she started her career in acting. By her early twenties, Nomura would often show her face, and since the weather forecast ended at 8:00am, she was able to do other work like dubbing songs used in commercials, acting in television commercials, and dubbing for foreign films afterwards.

Personal life

In 1973, Nomura married Kenji Utsumi. She met Utsumi while she was on Speed Racer and their wedding ceremony took place at a white church in Hawaii, USA, with Tadashi Nakamura and his wife serving as their matchmakers. They were married for nearly 40 years until his death in 2013.

Appearing in popular anime

In 1976, Nomura was selected to replace Yoshiko Yamamoto as the voice of Wakame Isono in Sazae-san. In 1978, Nomura was selected to voice Nobita's love interest and closest friend Shizuka Minamoto in Doraemon, which premiered in April the following year. Both Wakame and Shizuka were well known characters, so Nomura's voice became widely known with Japanese audiences.
In regards to voicing both iconic characters, she once said, "Wakame-chan in "Sazae-san" was a difficult role. If you make it too much, it will stand out, and if you only act naturally, it won't sound childish, so you also need to be cute. The more I did it, the more difficult it felt. I wonder if Shizuka's voice was a good match. It was a role I was good at, so it was easy to play, and I was able to really dig deep and show various sides. Someone was surprised the other day and asked me "Wakame-chan and Shizuka-chan were the same voice actor?" As a voice actor, I was like, "I did it!""
After Nomura had previously worked with the Sannoh Theatre Company, Kindai Gekijo Theatre Company, Tokyo Actor's Consumer's Cooperative, T.A.P. and Aoni Productions, she joined her husband's company Ken Production in 1984 in order to help operations. At the time, there were only seven people in the company, so they were originally called the "Seven Samurai".
In March 2005, Nomura decided to leave the role of Wakame Isono on Sazae-san in order to solely focus on production work. Around the same time, she also stepped down from her role as Shizuka on Doraemon due to the anime's transition to a reboot with a new voice cast. She was succeeded by Makoto Tsumura and Yumi Kakazu.

Current activity

In 2005, she received the Rikiya Tayama Award at the 14th Japan Movie Critics Awards along her Doraemon co-stars Nobuyo Ōyama, Noriko Ohara, Kazuya Tatekabe, and Kaneta Kimotsuki. In November 2006, she won a special award at the 11th Animation Kobe alongside the other four again. In March 2007, she received the 3rd Achievement Award at the Tokyo International Anime Fair 2007 alongside the other four a third time.
In 2009, Nomura voiced the Disemboweled Tiger in Kämpfer, which was her first anime voice acting role in the four years since she left Doraemon and Sazae-san. In episode 1, she herself appears in a magazine alongside co-star Yukari Tamura and in the eleventh episode, she co-stars with husband Kenji Utsumi as a married couple for the first time in years.
In 2016, at the 10th Seiyuu Awards, Nomura received the Lifetime Achievement Award alongside Sachiko Chijimatsu and Tadashi Nakamura.
In 2023, she received the Commissioner for Cultural Affairs' Award.

Personality/Characteristics

Her voice type is mezzo-soprano.
In her early twenties, Nomura was mostly hired to voice child characters, as the idea was that someone her age at that time could voice children. When she started voice acting, she was often cast to voice young characters. She voiced boy characters in shows such as the first series of Perman and Serendipity the Pink Dragon, but after that started voicing girl characters more often. Nomura admitted that she preferred voicing young boys, as she felt like young girl roles weren't that interesting to her.
Nomura was often cast in quiet character roles, the worst of which was her role in the first Babel II film, in which behind the scenes she was told that she had no real talent.
Her late husband was Kenji Utsumi, who was also a voice actor and the former CEO of Ken Production. They have a son.
During her time voicing Shizuka on Doraemon, Nomura admitted to feeling a sense of tension frequently to try to stay young so that Shizuka's voice wouldn't sound old. In the Doraemon manga, Shizuka referred to Nobita as either "You", "Nobi-chan", or "Nobita-kun" interchangeably, but Nomura decided to have Shizuka refer to him as "Nobita-san" in the anime. In response, the manga unified to have Shizuka refer to Nobita as "Nobita-san" as a reverse import from the anime, and has been kept as part of Shizuka's character in the 2005 anime.
Nomura was friends with Nobuyo Ōyama and Noriko Ohara, and they went on overseas trips during their time on the Doraemon anime together.
Since she left the Doraemon franchise along the other voice actors in 2005, Kazuya Tatekabe, who voiced Gian, died in June 2015, Kaneta Kimotsuki, who voiced Suneo, died in October 2016, and Noriko Ohara, who voiced Nobita, died in July 2024. After Nobuyo Ōyama, who voiced Doraemon, died in September 2024, Nomura is currently the last surviving regular cast member of the 1979 Doraemon animated television series.
Nomura's hobbies are dancing, tai chi, aerobics, and wearing kimonos. She is a fan of the Hanshin Tigers. In a post-recording interview for Kämpfer, she said that when she was initially offered to voice for the show, she accepted because she was a fan of the team.

Successors

The following voice actors took over Nomura's voice acting roles after she chose to step down in March 2005.

Filmography

Television animation

Theatrical animation

Original video animation

  • Doraemon: Nobita to Mirai Note : Shizuka Minamoto

Video games

  • Doraemon 3: Nobita to Toki no Hougyoku : Shizuka Minamoto
  • The Doraemons : Shizuka Minamoto
  • Doraemon 4: Nobita to Tsuki no Oukoku : Shizuka Minamoto
  • Doraemon: Nobita to Fukkatsu no Hoshi : Shizuka Minamoto
  • Doraemon: Nobita to Mittsu no Seireiseki : Shizuka Minamoto
  • Doraemon 2: SOS! Otogi no Kuni : Shizuka Minamoto
  • Doraemon 2: Nobita to Hikari no Shinden : Shizuka Minamoto
  • Doraemon 3: Nobita no Machi SOS! : Shizuka Minamoto, Reina
  • Doraemon 3: Makai no Dungeon : Shizuka Minamoto
  • Boku Doraemon : Shizuka Minamoto
  • Doraemon: Minna de Asobō! Mini Dorando : Shizuka Minamoto

Drama CD

Live-action

  • Doraemon, Haha ni Naru Ōyama Nobuyo Monogatari : herself
  • Sono Koe no Anata e, herself

Soundtrack