Horie Yui (堀江由衣, born September 20, 1976) is a Japanese singer and voice actress. She is affectionately nicknamed “Hocchan” (ほっちゃん) by her Japanese fans.
She debuted in 1997 in the video game Voice Fantasia and for several years had minor roles in various anime. She landed her first leading role as Haruka in Kurogane Communication. The turning point in her career was not until 2000, when she won the role of Naru Narusegawa in the popular anime Love Hina. Other notable and defining career moments were taking the role of Tohru Honda in the anime Fruits Basket in 2001, and releasing her 1st music album (Mizutamari ni Utsuru Sekai) in 2000. She has since become one of the most popular anime voice actresses in Japan.
Horie Yui formed a temporary unit called Yamato Nadeshiko with the popular voice actress Yukari Tamura in 2001. They released two singles, “Mou Hitori no Watashi” (もうひとりの私) and “Merry Merrily”—the latter of which was an insert song in the Love Hina Christmas Special. In October 2005, she founded Aice5, a J-Pop group consisting of 4 other voice actors, to help launch their careers. Aice5 was officially disbanded on September 20, 2007. She has collaborated with a few other artists, such as Unscandal in 2005 and Kurobara Hozonkai, a goth band in 2007.
Horie Yui was affiliated with Arts Vision. However, she eventually left the agency in mid-2007 and became a freelance voice actress. Today, she’s affiliated with VIMS, a division of I’m Enterprise. She has published seven independent musical albums. Nearly all of them incorporate at least one track from an anime she has worked with. She currently releases music under the Starchild label (a subdivision of King Records).
Her radio show is “Horie Yui no Tenshi no Tamago” (堀江由衣の天使のたまご) and can be heard on the station JOQR (文化放送) (AM 1134 kHz) at 10:00 pm on Sundays. Click HERE to listen!
She won the award for Best Supporting Voice Actress in the 4th Seiyu Awards.
She also played the role of Kushieda Minori in “Toradora!“, an anime that I have already introduced HERE before!
Here are some of here songs!
And here is an extra picture of Horie Yui with Watanabe Mayu from AKB48 (introduced HERE!)
Also, visit her official website HERE!
The Rising Sky 