Suzuko Mimori

Early life

Suzuko Mimori was born Suzuko Kurokawa on June 28, 1986. During her childhood, Mimori aspired to become a musical actress and dancer. After attending a children's musical with her parents, she developed an interest in singing and dancing. She began studying ballet at the age of seven and initially aimed to become a ballerina. Ballet was a familiar part of her life, as she watched recitals with friends who practiced ballet and often heard her father's collection of ballet music at home. She attended an all-girls integrated junior and senior high school.

Influenced by her younger sister, she saw Les Misérables at the Imperial Theatre during junior high school, which led to her interest in musicals. She joined her school's musical club midway through junior high school and continued participating during high school. She was later inspired by the Takarazuka Revue production The Rose of Versailles 2001 – Oscar and André, which motivated her to pursue admission to the Takarazuka Music School. She advanced to the final round of the entrance examination but was not accepted. Although her sister was a fan of voice actress Mayumi Iizuka and subscribed to Seiyū Grand Prix, Mimori herself showed little interest in voice acting at the time. She was skilled in both English and music and considered pursuing a career related to English if her aspirations in performing arts did not succeed.

Mimori studied jazz dance, tap dance, and vocal performance at the Mariart Studio and also received vocal training. Before dropping out to pursue her voice acting career, she attended Komazawa University.

Career

At age 17, Mimori made her first stage appearance under her birth name with Mariart in June 2006 as part of the ensemble cast in Me and My Girl at the Imperial Theatre, the venue where she first encountered musicals. She continued to perform mainly in musicals and stage productions under the stage name "Suzuko Kurokawa". During this time, she felt a sense of urgency about potentially remaining only an ensemble or background dancer. She had her first leading role in the stage production Kimi ni Sasageru Uta – A Song For You.

During one performance in which Mimori played the main character, Bushiroad president Takaaki Kidani was in attendance. Through an introduction from her uncle, who worked at Bushiroad at the time, she was offered a role in Tantei Opera Milky Holmes. Prior to that, Mimori attended Komazawa University, but dropped out to concentrate on her career. When her contract with her previous agency expired, she transferred to Hibiki, a Bushiroad subsidiary, and began her voice acting career in 2008, under the stage name Suzuko Mimori.

From July to October 2009, she was a member of the singing group Cutie Pai as Suzy (which is the diminutive form of her given name). She appeared on a variety of television series and in musical activities as one of the four lead members of the Milky Holmes voice acting unit, which is named after the series. From 2011 to 2016, Mimori was a member of Lily white, a sub-unit in the Love Live! multimedia project, alongside Aina Kusuda and Riho Iida.

As a member of the Milky Holmes voice acting unit, she appeared in various musical and variety television programs.

In 2015, she won the Singing Award at the 9th Seiyu Awards as a member of μ's.

On December 31, 2015, she appeared as a member of μ's on the 66th NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen, marking her first appearance on the program.

From July to October 2016, she held her first nationwide solo tour, Mimori Suzuko Live Tour 2016 "Grand Revue", performing songs from her albums in non-fixed order. She prepared for the tour with intensive strength training, later remarking jokingly that it "didn't help much" and that lung capacity seemed more important.

Balancing voice acting and stage acting

After the start of her voice acting career, Mimori temporarily stepped away from stage performances. She returned to the stage for the first time in five years in Cardfight!! Vanguard ~Virtual Stage~, performed from January 5 to 11, 2016, portraying the role of Kourin, whom she had previously voiced in the television anime series. A sequel production followed in 2017.

Since 2017, she has continued to appear as Hikari Kagura in Shōjo☆Kageki Revue Starlight, a media mix project that combines musical theatre and animation. When she was first approached by Bushiroad president Takaaki Kidani—who had originally guided her into voice acting—she initially declined, believing she had already concluded her journey with stage performance. After being asked to reconsider, she ultimately decided to accept the role.

From November 2019 to January 2020, she appeared as Anita (double cast) in the Japanese-language Season 1 production of the Broadway musical West Side Story. Following her involvement in Revue Starlight, she has actively pursued both her voice acting and stage acting careers.

In a 2021 interview, Mimori expressed that while she has a "dream" of continuing to work as a voice actress for the rest of her life, her dream as a stage performer will not be complete until she stands in the principal "center, position zero" role at the Imperial Theatre, the place where her stage career began.

Personal life

She was raised in a household where her father, who was almost unusually fond of opera and classical music, and her mother, who enjoyed somewhat edgy rock and rhythm & blues, constantly played their respective favorites—Georg Friedrich Händel from her father's side, and Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix from her mother's side. Businessman Fumio Kurokawa, who served as president of Dex Entertainment and as a vice president of Bushiroad, is her cousin.

Just before joining Hibiki, she attended a stage play starring Mitsuko Mori and felt admiration, thinking, "I want to make acting my lifelong work just like she did." She proposed to her agency that she would like to use the stage name "Mori Suzuko," but they were reluctant, saying, "Mori won't show up in search results." Later, the suggestion "Mimori," incorporating the number "3," which she liked, was readily accepted. The nickname "Mimorin" was also conceived at this point. (Friends from her school days and shortly after she became a voice actress call her "Suzu," while co-performers and fans who know her as "Mimori Suzuko" mainly call her "Mimorin" or "Mimo-san.")

In Seiyū Grand Prix, she has presented her own illustrations and a column inspired by reader submissions under the pseudonym "Okuzushi M. Romi." The name "Okuzushi Romi" is a reverse reading of her stage name "Mimori Suzuko" when written in Roman letters.

In the final episode of TV Kanagawa's Kids Gekijō!!, she performed three roles: herself, Sherlock Shellingford, and the Nekomimi Kuma-san character from the Kids Nekomimi Corner—partly because Tantei Opera Milky Holmes was being featured. A parody of "Nekomimi Kuma-san" also appears in the anime Tantei Opera Milky Holmes.

When she appeared as a secret guest at Sora Tokui's talk event "Miracle Aozora Night ~Aozora, Shūrai~" held at Shinjuku Loft PlusOne, she performed the Nekomimi Kuma-san theme song.

She was a classmate and friend of actress and singer Sayaka Kanda during junior high school. On August 28, 2015, during the first day of "Animelo Summer Live 2015 -THE GATE-," they reunited as members of μ's (Mimori) and TRUSTRICK (Kanda), respectively. When Kanda passed away on December 18, 2021, Mimori commented, "We hardly had chances to meet, but as classmates aiming for the same path, she was someone who always inspired me. Why? I can't believe it. I wanted to see her shine even more. Seeing her do so would have made me think, 'I have to work hard too,' and I wanted to feel that again. Please rest in peace... my deepest condolences."

Filmography

Discography

Books

Photo-books

(2013) Mimorinn (Ponikyan Books) (みもりんっ（ぽにきゃんBOOKS) (Pony Canyon, Photographer: Masafumi Nakayama) ISBN 978-4-901637-95-4