Mao Ichimichi Makes More as a Voice Actress

Mao Ichimichi makes more as a vocie actress than as Luka.

Mao Ichimichi has always loved manga and anime. She was the fourth assistant in the Weekly Shonen Jump’s reader submission corner titled Jump Tama-G from 2010 – 2014. In those years, she was cast in the popular tokusatsu series Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. As part of the role, she attended voice recording sessions to dub over the in-suit scenes. Those sessions led to her pursuing a career as a voice actress.

After the series wrapped up, she made her debut role as a voice actress in the show titled Cookin’ Idol Ai! Mai! Main! where she voiced the character Kirakira. She also received her stage name stylized as M・A・O. Fun fact about her voice actress name, Ichimichi didn’t make it up herself. According to her, her name was written like that in the first script she ever got but she decided to use it because she really liked how it looks like an emoji.

From then on, whenever she’s cast as a voice actress, she would be credited under her pen name: M・A・O. Likewise, whenever she’s cast as an actress, she would be credited under her stage name: Mao Ichimichi. The disctinction decides how she will be getting paid.

Toei’s Pay Rate

Tori Matsuzaka (portrayed Takeru Shiba in Samurai Sentai Shinkenger) briefly talked about it on Bananaman no Ketsudan wa Kinyoubi!, a variety show on Fuji TV. Matsuzaka talked about his water-heavy diet. Due to the low wages paid to new actors and hero actors in particular, the star would often find himself subsiding on water and would try to drink more than necessary so as to make his stomach feel full.

The only actor who ever gave us any actual rate is Fumika Shimizu, who said that she was only paid about 50,000 yen a month (about 500 USD) despite working more than ten hours a day. This rate was confirmed by many in the entertainment industry such as Shinobu Sakagami, who said that the rate Shimizu mentioned was the standard for debut actors.

Gravure Pay Rate

So we can assume Ichimichi made 50,000 yen a month just for appearing in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. She could have possibly made more as she did photoshoots on the side, but models don’t make that much for appearing in those magazines. According to Gravure Idol Manami Hashimoto, idols get almost next to zero unless it’s for a weekly magazine. Not even their agencies get much. This is because the photos are considered “advertising” for the models and their agencies. The only time they’d get paid is if they are in a photo(s) that are on a long page that is folded and sealed into the binding to prevent browsing (usually for explicit material). And only then would they make about 100,000 yen (about 1,000 USD). The reason for this is because magazines with sealed pages sell more.

Voice Actress Pay Rate

So I won’t go into too much detail in how much a voice actress gets paid but I did want to talk about the basic rates.

Masako Nozawa explains the Seiyuu Ranks.

Every voice actor is placed in the lowest rank. Which is 15 and it only goes up from there instead of going down to 1. This is because this number determines how much a voice actor is paid. Those who are rank 15 make 15,000 yen (about 150 USD), those who are rank 16 make 16,000 yen (about 160 USD) and so on. These rates are for half-hour anime episode recording sessions instead of an hourly rate.

For example, a rank 15 voice actor attends a recording session for a half-hour anime episode. Even if it takes ten hours to record all their lines, they will only be paid 150,000 yen. If a rank 20 voice actor comes in to record for that same anime and only has to record a single line, then they will still get to be paid 20,000 yen.

That said, there’s no way to tell how long Ichimichi has to stay in a booth to record lines for let’s say Raptor in Uchuu Sentai Kyuranger, but it’s definitely way more pay and less physically exhausting if she only had to attend dubbing once a week. This would give her time for more roles.

Even if she only was still at rank 15. And I’m pretty sure she does not have to wake up at 4:00 AM (the time filming begins for Toei’s tokusatsu productions) either.

Source: Narinari, August 2014 Issue of Paradise R, Excite Viking More!, Zenbu, Iichau ne

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