Mayumi Iizuka

Mayumi Iizuka (飯塚 雅弓, Iizuka Mayumi, born January 3, 1977) is a Japanese actress, voice actress, singer and disc jockey who was born in Tokyo. She is currently affiliated with Across Entertainment and her label is Lantis. She is an instructor at the Stay Luck training school Follow-Up. For her singing activities, she uses the alias Hoshi Mai (星 舞).

Her well-known roles as a voice actress include Kasumi (Misty) in the Pokémon series, Tron Bonne in the Mega Man Legends series and Claiomh Everlasting in the Sorcerous Stabber Orphen series.

Career
In 1980, at the age of three, Iizuka joined Theater Company Wakakusa through an acquaintance of her grandfather. The reason she joined the group was to learn etiquette. The company was stricter about greetings and etiquette than her lessons, and she remembers crying when she was told off. The following year, on January 11, 1981, she made her debut as a child actress playing the role of Tomiko in the TV drama Haru no Urara no Monogatari (TBS Television Toshiba Sunday Theater).[1] At Theater Company Wakakusa, she was taught to "keep showing people what only you can do," and even as a child, she spent her days desperately trying to achieve her dreams.

In 1983, due to her father's job transfer, she moved to Taichung City, Taiwan from the first grade to the fifth grade, during which time she took a break from performing. When she returned to Japan in 1989, she resumed her performing career with the same Theater Company Wakakusa. She had always personally wanted to return, and when she was in her fifth year back in Japan, she decided she will think about things in her own way and do her best in this world. In an interview in 2008, she said that she could not have done it alone to come this far, and she wanted to express her gratitude to her parents, grandfather, and family.

When Iizuka first resumed her activities, things did not go as she had hoped, and she often failed at auditions and didn't have any luck in getting roles. In fact, she was one of the last people to audition for the Wakaokusama wa Udemakuri! but she was not selected. It was to her chagrin that she was finally selected to play the role of a friend, and she recalls in her blog that it was a fun experience. At that time, Midori Yaegaki, the representative of the company at that time, told her that it was her own power that brought her luck, and she realized that it was no good to be weak and that she had to attract luck herself, and after she started to audition in that way, her appearances in dramas gradually increased.

In 1991, she made her voice acting debut as Tsuneko Tani in the movie Only Yesterday. The audition for the film was the first time she auditioned for voice acting, and at that time she had almost no experience with voice acting auditions, causing her anxiety due to not having the know-how, but she was full of desire to try it.

In 1993, Iizuka moved to Yaegaki Office, a directly managed production company of Theater Company Wakakusa. There were no senior members of her office who had debuted as voice actors, and her manager did not know what kind of scenes she would be in, so she often went to dub shows by herself. Although she lacked confidence, she went to the recording sessions with the feeling that her performances would be accepted there. From the age of 19, she began working more and more on TV anime series and OVAs, and from then on, her main activity was as a voice actress, but she still appears on stage and continues to work as an actress.

In 1997, she became widely known for her role as Kasumi in Pokémon. When she was in college, she was thinking of quitting if he didn't find a job that satisfied her by the time she graduated, and that is when she came across the role of Kasumi. Since then, she has expanded her activities and made her debut as a singer with the release of her album Kataomoi (Pioneer LDC) on August 27. In addition, she became the main personality for her first show "Weekly Animage: Mayumi Iizuka's It's Still Sunday!" which was aired from October 12th, and started her career as a radio personality. In an interview in 2008, she commented that her world has expanded and that made her realize that there is more than one dream.

In 1998, Iizuka performed her first concert, "VOICE ANIMAGE Presents Mayumi Iizuka First Concert" at Hall A, Tokyo International Forum. In mid-August 2010, she attended the 2010 Shenyang 2nd Anime and Computer Game Expo in Shenyang, China, and gave a small live performance and a speech in Chinese.

On February 28, 2014, she left Yaegaki Office and moved to Kenyu Office on March 1, 2014. On September 1, 2017, she moved from Kenyu Office to Across Entertainment.