A female seiyuu has been arrested for killing a 3-year-old girl she was in the process of adopting.
Police arrested the “woman seiyuu,” who lived in Tokyo’s Suginami ward with her 42-year-old husband and 2 daughters, on manslaughter charges after her 3-year-old foster-daughter-to-be “Miyuki-chan” died under suspicious circumstances.
The incident came to light when the infant was discovered in the basement of a Suginami apartment in 2010 by one of the woman’s daughters, collapsed by the stairs.
She was confirmed dead after being conveyed to hospital, where an autopsy revealed she had apparently received severe blows to the head and back. Autopsy reports suggested she had likely not been the victim of regular abuse, but that the injuries were consistent with having been beaten.
Police began a child abuse investigation, and soon assembled a case against the seiyuu, alleging she had caused the child’s death through brain damage after beating her.
The woman denies the charges, saying she “thinks she must have fallen down the stairs.” Investigators say the corpse lacked signs of a tumble, and that there were bloodstains in her room.
The seiyuu in question was not named in the initial reports, prompting intense speculation as to her identity:
“Who is it?”
“Who!?”
“A female seiyuu!? Who?”
“At least give us her age!”
“Tell us the agency…”
“Clues:
Seiyuu
Woman
Suginami
Foster parent
We can’t pinpoint her with just this…”
“Why did they press charges a year after the crime?”
“Why did they feel the need to identify as a seiyuu anyway?”
“You lot have been trolled… it’s an ordinary child abuse case and the mention of a ‘woman seiyuu’ gets you all going.”
“If only we knew her major role!”
“She might not even be an anime seiyuu.”
“It’s probably just some third-rate minor fringe eroge seiyuu anyway.”
“It’s scary enough that she was abusing her in a basement, but if this turned out to be some eroge seiyuu…”
“She probably just calls herself a seiyuu.”
‘[…] seiyuu woman (43) […]'”
“She’s 43…”
“There are thousands of freelance seiyuu with no agency and tens of thousands of self-proclaimed seiyuu. Could be anyone.”
“Remember their official ages can differ from their actual ages.”
“[…] police arrested 43-year-old seiyuu Shizuka Suzuike on manslaughter charges […] she went by the stage name of Shizuka Yuna […]”
[According to Wikipedia, most of her work consisted of narration for TV and advertising – however, she is credited with voicing Ai Makihara in the 18+ eroge Triangle Hearts 2 and 3, seemingly proving 2ch’s speculation right…]
“Her real age is out now, now she’s in real trouble.”
Interesting. I was thinking she fell down the stairs too. 3 year olds aren’t terribly good at negotiating steps. I wonder how they’re going to explain the bloodstains in the bedroom. But why would she have wanted to kill her? I don’t want call it intentional. Was it an accident? Punishment gone too far and made to look like an unfortunate accident? Or could it have been jealousy? Maybe one or both of her own daughters killed Miyuki and staged it to look like she fell down the stairs. I don’t know about anyone else but I’ve never known 3 year olds to be good at negotiating stairs.
Woah! That’s fucked up!
Bad for anime but……
She’s no one important, moving on.
I thought this was gonna be another Aya story. Instead, it’s about a minor ero voice actress? Still sad either way. Like other posters here, I think the preliminary police accusations somehow suck. The child is found dead at the base of some stairs in a basement & only the woman is implicated? Definitely seems like there’s more behind this than just beatin’ the child too severly. After all, if anyone in that family killed the child, I would assume they wouldn’t believe anyone else in that house wouldn’t notice a corpse in the basement eventually. Someone’s covering up or being set up.
Goddamn, the media’s agenda is the same no matter where you go.