なぜ日本はこの声優を嫌うのか

なぜ日本はこの声優を嫌うのか

You know when you see an extremely talented person 
make god awful life decisions. That is Aya Hirano. Publicly hating on her own fans, having f-ed 
multiple band members on tour, marrying a guy without dating him then divorcing in 8 months for 
domestic violence. Honestly it’s a miracle that she even has a career. Whether she deserves 
it? You decide after hearing the full story. Aya was born in Nagoya 1987 but lived in New 
York as a young kid. It was there that she was exposed to a Broadway production of Peter Pan and 
first dreamt of becoming a musical star. However, moving back to Japan for school was rough. She 
faced constant bullying in elementary school and hated attending, but through those years, 
she held on to that dream. It was only at 8 years old that her talents showed: At 8 years 
old, she auditioned by herself for a local community musical and won a part. Mind you. 
This was her first time on stage and she won. It was soon that she had already made her mind 
up: She was going to work in entertainment. Her parents who worked in media supported her, 
but made her make a promise: If she was going down this path, it was going to be a lifelong 
commitment. Elementary schooler Aya agreed. But before any action could start, a huge hurdle 
of life came up: a brain tumour as a teen. These caused really bad symptoms like severe migraines, 
occasional blindness, loss of memory and surgery was considered, but the procedure could have 
permanently altered her voice so for her dream, she chose not to go through with it.
Somehow, even with this horrible condition, Aya managed to debut as a voice actor in 2001 at 
only 13 years old: Momo the monkey in the anime series Angel Tales. Throughout her teen years, 
she continued to get small roles like Lumière in Kiddy Grade, Ming Ming in Beyblade, Eyeshield 21 
and so on. But as she started university like any other kid would, life had other plans for her.
In 2006, as she started uni, Aya was cast as Haruhi Suzumiya. The anime became a massive hit, 
no an anime cultural icon and blew up. As the main heroine, naturally, Aya’s popularity also blew 
up like no tomorrow. Because of this, she started getting really busy with voice acting jobs so she 
just dropped out of college, which fair enough, with that fame who needs college? You have to 
understand, Haruhi alongside the song God Knows became so iconic that this single role made Aya 
one of the most popular voice actresses of all time. Aya’s breakout was soon followed by roles 
such as Layla in Nana, Piss Girl in Death Note, Sh*tposter in Lucky Star, Lucy in Fairy Tail and 
at that point, she was unstoppable. Bro I swear she was the main girl in every single big anime 
that aired back then. Sh*t was insane. At only 19, Aya won all these awards on screen that I don’t 
want to list out BECAUSE THAT’S HOW MANY SHE WON. Her fame was so crazy that she capitalized by 
becoming a top anisinger, like the CD for the Haruhi op sung by her sold out across Japan on 
release date. She was a sensation. She was a voice actress who managed to make her way into 
mainstream popularity in a time when anime was much more looked down upon than today. In that 
era, she was appearing on TV variety shows, invited to Anime Expo at LA. By 2011, she 
alone was estimated to have a total of 120 million yen in sales. Aya was quite literally on 
her way to possibly become the number 1 of all time. But then everything started tumbling down.
First, I need you to understand the concept of idol-seiyuus. Now, these voice actors weren’t 
exactly idols, but they sang, they danced, they were treated by fans like idols. So just 
like idols, dating was generally quite frowned upon. The first incident was on a late night 
TV variety show: Goût Temps Nouveau. Aya spoke extremely freely about things you wouldn’t 
expect a voice actress to talk about. She went on about having several boyfriends before, 
that she liked much older men, that she’s been cheated on before and so on. At the time she even 
said “I have someone I like right now”. This was already outrageous for an idol-seiyuu. Like career 
self-destruction level. But then she proceeded to say “I do like otaku, but I wouldn’t want to date 
an otaku-ish guy. “Many otakus were enraged. See, the appeal of an “idol-seiyuu” was that she was 
a pure v*rgin and otaku could fantasize about dating their dream woman who wasn’t sullied by any 
other man. Not only did Aya shatter that fantasy, but they felt as if Aya was looking down on them, 
the otaku, her very own fanbase. What do you mean you wouldn’t date us? Hate spread quickly online, 
and unfortunately, Aya’s attempt at damage control backfired tremendously. In her personal blog, 
she said: “Even though I finally managed to form a lifeline with everyone…”, which I presume 
meant “form a bond” with her fans. The thing is, “lifeline” in Japanese can also mean essential 
supply, like gas, water and electricity. So there were many people on 2chan, that took this 
line as “Wow Aya sees her fans as ATM machines”. Hate went rampant online and it was not just a 
minority. Even her official website became hard to access because of constant cyberattacks. In real 
life, there were many reports of fans cutting, burning her CDs and merch and even several 
death threats came to light, with police getting involved. 2chan also became a warzone. Trolls 
would use the insult “Lifeliners” to those who still supported Aya, as if they were just feeding 
Aya money, and this slang spread so far that now, idol fans who financially support idols in general 
are called “Lifeliners”. That was how far the hate had spread. Despite the backlash, the hate 
didn’t directly affect her voice acting career. Aya continued playing her many roles as usual, but 
the same couldn’t be said for this next incident. A year later in April 2011, Aya abruptly announced 
that she had been prohibited from taking on new anime voice roles since the previous year, 
but gave no details. Then, a month later, she released a new album, but then tweeted that she 
was ending her music activities with Lantis label and “taking a break” from music indefinitely. This 
was extremely confusing. Some thought it was due to the hate, but to stop at her prime now was very 
strange. All would be revealed in only 2 months, when a magazine called Bubka exposed that Aya 
had been s*xually involved with all of her live concert band members except the bassist. OK it’s 
more like the bassist was the only that didn’t have a photo leaked but yeah. Photos with Aya and 
these men on the bed kissing and such were leaked. Apparently after industry insiders realized, all 
the men were immediately removed from the tour. It’s speculated that one of them leaked the photos 
as revenge, but this is unverifiable. Point is, this was now a huge stain on Aya’s career with 
actual consequences. Because of this, her agency, Space Craft Entertainment, put the ban on her 
back then from accepting new anime roles as a sort of damage control, possibly knowing it would 
eventually get leaked. However, amidst the chaos, Aya left the agency in 2011. Lantis, Aya’s music 
label also dropped her for unprofessional conduct. Fans? They were outraged. As an “idol-seiyuu”, 
this was just too much, scandalous, her image went to ruins. People called for Aya to be removed 
from existing roles, which actually half worked, because she was removed for a role she was meant 
to play in a Kizumonogatari movie. Most of all, to this very day, people blame her, and 
mostly for this incident for Haruhi, you know that anime that blew up, never getting 
a season 3. Aya was pretty much hated in 10 different directions so she simply stayed silent 
on social media. This was supposed to be the final nail in the coffin for her voice acting career. 
However, this would somehow not be the end. Aya rebuilt her brand by jumping to a completely 
different industry: stage acting, which if you remember, was her childhood dream in the first 
place. She joined a new agency and actually did pretty good for herself, landing roles in all of 
these big stage plays. Aya was extremely talented in both acting and singing and was really able to 
shine. For one, stage actors don’t have the same idol-like pure expectations like many voice 
actors do so the hate didn’t really spread there. She also didn’t have to sing cutesy like 
an idol, she could actually show her strong, powerful singing voice. She did do a few small 
anime roles like in Gintama and Hunter x Hunter, but understandably tried keeping herself away 
from anime. I mean even up to this very day, Aya claims that she gets death threats whenever 
she tries going back to anime voice acting. Over the 2010s, Aya’s career surprisingly 
flourished, but in 2014, her father unfortunately passed away, a very difficult time. I don’t know 
what kind of holy power manifested but in the exact same year, apparently the brain tumour that 
existed since she was a kid finally disappeared. That’s crazy. Aya pushed forward in her career and 
eventually won awards and built up a whole second career around stage plays, even going back to New 
York that childhood place for voice training and to learn English. The decade after the bridge 
burning controversy was very well a success and Aya’s image did improve over the years. People 
appreciated her many talents in voice acting, acting and singing. Like, looking past 
her questionable decisions back then, to be this good in all fields is impressive. There 
were TV shows, challenges that showcased just how crazy good she was, like singing 10 anime songs 
in a row without missing a single note. In 2020, Aya did try approaching anime a bit again, posting 
herself doing the famous Haruhi dance, and did roles in Pop Team Epic and One Piece as well as 
continuing roles like Lucy. She wasn’t prominent in the voice acting industry, but she was there.
Aya had rebuilt her life over the past decade, and in January 2024, she announced her 
marriage to actor Masashi Taniguchi, which was a bit concerning, because it was a zero-day 
dating, like they just married without dating, 0 day fiancé. I think any reasonable person 
can say that this was maybe not a good idea, but fans congratulated her…until they 
announced their divorce on September 11, only 8 months later. What’s worse is that 
both sides in the divorce were claiming domestic violence on the other person. Alright so keep in 
mind this story is by a tabloid, so take it with a grain of salt. Apparently in April, 3 months 
after their marriage, the two had a dispute so bad that police had to be called to their apartment. 
After police questioning, Taniguchi left the house to live with an acquaintance, Aya was given 
a verbal warning to never approach Taniguchi again and the two started living apart. Both of 
them claim each other as the domestic ab*ser, but this was essentially a he said she said game 
with no evidence. However, Taniguchi apparently got government support for protective measures 
against domestic violence, leading people to side with him a bit more than Aya. They mutually 
filed for divorce that August and had a huge messy lawyer battle for a whole year before the 
divorce was finally settled in August 2025. Today, Aya’s career is doing ok, with 
stage plays, singing and some voice acting, but I can’t help but feel that she would 
have been so much bigger without all the controversies. I genuinely think she could have 
had a voice actress status surpassing HanaKana, but hey we’ll never know and perhaps she never 
actually wanted to be a voice actress, just a stage actor. Besides, a lot of the controversy 
was kind of her own doing. I feel mixed on this because on one hand, the toxic idol-seiyuu must be 
pure culture is really bad on the voice actress, like she can’t even have a personal life, it must 
feel so restricting. But on the other hand, Aya knew the rules and still chose to go ham on that 
TV show talking about her love life. She chose to hook up with all the band members, knowing it was 
unprofessional. And don’t even get me started on the 0-dating marriage and mess of a divorce. For 
now, it seems like more people buy the fact the she was the domestic ab*ser. Looking back, Aya’s 
love life is genuinely the perpetrator of every single bad thing that has happened, and while many 
people myself included wonder if perhaps she is the problem, I do also sometimes think whether the 
brain tumour has to do with it. I mean it couldn’t have been easy dealing with a brain tumour 
amongst all this right, and it maybe could have had some biological effects? Either way, no 
matter which side you stand on, Aya’s career is one of the most polarizing of all time. Well, 
considering what she did, things could have gone way worse for her so happy ending? Did she 
deserve everything? You tell me in the comments.

Aya Hirano is one of the most controversial seiyuu of all time. This is why.

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Credits:

Lisa footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPflMSitDvM

God knows guitar cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4rwtjkeUN0

#anime #seiyuu #haruhisuzumiya