Why Chizuru From Rent-A-Girlfriend Sounds So Familiar

Chizuru Ichinose from the anime "Rent-a-Girlfriend" may seem like a sweetie at first, but the truth is that she can have quite the cold shoulder. When protagonist Kazuya Kinoshita initially hires her to play the part of his girlfriend, he is surprised by how warm and friendly she appears, but becomes annoyed when he learns it's a front. She is only as kind and caring as she needs to be for her clients. When the curtain is pulled, she often couldn't care less.

Even so, she does have a sensitive side, which happens to come out as hers and Kazuya's relationship develops — otherwise, "Rent-a-Girlfriend" wouldn't be the successful romance anime that it is. However, fans have taken a liking to Chizuru for more than her multi-layered personality. If you haven't heard it before now, the actress providing Chizuru's voice, Sora Amamiya, is actually incredibly prolific. Here is why Chizuru from "Rent-a-Girlfriend" sounds so familiar.

While Amamiya had earlier minor roles in series like "Tonari no kabutsu-kun," as well as a few fairly prominent recurring roles in shows like "Log Horizon," "One Week Friends," and "Blade & Soul" (via IMDb), it's fair to say that her first major breakout role in an internationally popular series came with "Tokyo Ghoul." In this series, she plays the ghoul Touka Kirishima, who serves as one of the central characters in the series and its 2018 sequel, "Tokyo Ghoul:re," and is depicted as the love interest of protagonist Ken Kaneki.

That same year, Amamiya landed her first protagonist role in "Akame ga Kill" as the titular heroine Akame. Like Touka, Akame's personality is seemingly cold, but also hides a soft side. Unlike Touka, however, Akame is no supernatural creature. Instead, she is a trained assassin spearheading a revolution against a tyrannical empire.

On top of playing two central characters in both "Tokyo Ghoul" and "Akame ga Kill," as well as landing another recurring role as Honoka Mitsui in "The Irregular at Magic High School," Sora Amamiya booked yet another central role in a popular shonen franchise that you've probably heard of. As Elizabeth Liones in "The Seven Deadly Sins," Amamiya served as one of the core members of the titular knights. Elizabeth is also the love of their leader, Melodias, but she's not just a love interest. In battle, her light magic proves devastating.

Amamiya's role in "Seven Deadly Sins" extends beyond voicing Elizabeth, however, as she also sings several of its theme songs. This includes the ending theme for "The Seven Deadly Sins: Wrath of the Gods," as well as the most recent addition to the series, "The Seven Deadly Sins: Dragon's Judgement." This may not come as a major surprise for those familiar with Amamiya's career, as she is also a professional singer who regular performs in the voice actress trio known as TrySail (via Soranews24).

It seems the life of an anime voice actor never slows down, and actors often find themselves working on multiple ongoing series at once. In Sora Amamiya's case, her workload ramped up even further in 2015 when she joined the casts of three notable shows.

First up is "Punch Line," the comedic, supernatural-superhero anime from studio MAPPA ("Jujutsu Kaisen") in which Amamiya portrayed Mikatan Narugino, a.k.a. the superheroine known as Strange Juice. The second of these series was "Ninja Slayer," animated by studio Trigger, in which she played a cyberpunk ninja named Yamoto Koki.

In terms of popularity, however, "Monster Musume: Everyday Life of Monster Girls" easily takes the cake. Amamiya also joined the cast of this series in 2015 as Miia, the half-snake Lamia who finds herself shacked up and head-over-scaled with protagonist Kimihito Kurusu. "Monster Musume" would end up running for two years.

You can't walk five feet in the world of anime without tripping over something "KonoSuba"-related. The comedic take on the isekai genre swiftly became an extremely lauded and popular franchise following its debut in 2016, and it just so happens that Sora Amamiya had a large part to play in that popularity.

In "KonoSuba," she plays the role of Aqua, the water goddess who resurrects protagonist Kazuma into a fantasy world before becoming the first member of his rag-tag party. This gang of misfits becomes the main source of the show's comedy, something which Amamiya and her costars work very hard to create in the booth.

"The comedic tempo in 'KonoSuba' is especially quick because it makes everything much funnier," Amamiya said in an interview with DDNavi (translated by whimsicaltranslations). "You only have moments to react appropriately to what's being said to you, and the lines could be delivered in any number of ways, so you could say it challenges you both physically and mentally."

The years following the release of "KonoSuba" (which is still ongoing, mind you) proved ever-more fruitful for Sora Amamiya. She appeared in video games like "Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age" (2017) and "Persona 5 Royal" (2019), in which she played Sumire Yoshizawa.

Furthermore, her anime resume continued to grow as well. She appeared in "Overlord" in 2018 as the albino lizard Crusch Lulu. She also appeared in an episode of "Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai," starred in the anime adaptation of the "Azur Lane" video game franchise, and continued to portray Aqua in the "KonoSuba" spinoff, "Isekai Quartet." Finally, 2018 saw Amamiya take up the role of Kozue, the main love interest of the titular hero in "Baki" and its sequel series.

Anime fans probably know Sora Amamiya from many different places. Even this list only scratches the surface of what Amamiya has really been in, both before and since her role as Chizuru. Being a voice actor in the anime industry often entails a heavy workload, so don't be surprised if one day you tune into a new series, just to hear what sounds almost like Chizuru, Aqua, or Elizabeth.