Yuu Asakawa (voice of Megurine Luka)

Yuu Asakawa (born March 20, 1975) is a Japanese voice actor who works as a freelancer. She was born in Tokyo.

Career

She was a member of the "Dorikan Club" formed in "SOMETHING DREAMS Multimedia Countdown". She is proficient in English conversation and was entrusted with the English announcements for hip-hop band RIP SLYME's concert at Nippon Budokan. She is also extremely skilled at martial arts, specifically Judo.

On February 22, 2007, it was announced that she had married fellow voice actor Shotaro Morikubo but on January 14, 2009, they divorced.

On January 30, 2009, Megurine Luka was released. Luka is a part of the Vocaloid voice synthesis software franchise and was well received. Asakawa provided her voice samples for the software.

On October 1, 2014, she announced that she would be leaving Arts Vision, which she had belonged to since her voice acting debut, and would thereafter work as a freelancer.

Asakawa's Twitter handle is @Julia320. 320 is a reference to her birthday while she has explained that she has always loved the name Julia and wanted to be referred by it in various stages of her life.

Yuu and Megurine Luka

Crypton Future Media had organized Asakawa to provide her voice for Megurine Luka even before the idea of Hatsune Miku was created. She was chosen due to her ability to speak both Japanese and English but the software was always intended for the Japanese market. Because of scheduling conflicts, and the scope of the software itself, Hatsune Miku was released before Megurine Luka's software was completed. As a result, Megurine Luka was the fourth of the Vocaloid 2 characters to be released. The software was also ranked as the 3rd most popular Vocaloid product that Crypton Future Media had sold.
To fans, though, who had already known Asakawa from her extension voice acting career, the delay in Megurine Luka's software caused no real concern. Almost immediately, music featuring her voice was appearing on video platform Nico Nico Douga, and Asakawa was initially stunned yet grateful.
In many of the earlier concerts that were held, Asakawa would join other Vocaloid voice suppliers on stage and perform a question and answer segment with them, as well as acapella versions of known Megurine Luka songs. With a natural talent for singing, her covers were well received by the audience.

Yuu and Anime

At the age of 22, Asakawa broke into the voice acting world providing the voices for two anime series, Those Who Hunt Elves 2 as Rena, and Super Mashin Hero Wataru as Mario (not affiliated with the Nintendo character). But it wasn't until the following year, when she provided the lead character's voice for 3 separate anime series, that Asakawa would become a household name for anime fans. In her 23-year career, she has been in over 80 anime series, over 10 theatrical anime films, and over 20 web-based anime series.
Asakawa will often be invited as a special guest for overseas anime conventions where she will hold panels in English and sometimes perform songs or speak in a character's voice for them.
From 2010 to 2012, Asakawa was a co-host to the YouTube series OtakuVerseZero with Patric Macias, who currently works for Crunchyroll. The program, sponsored by the Japanese Internet radio station K'z Station, explored anime and other Japanese sub-cultures in and around Tokyo. The series proved moderately successful (roughly 10s of thousands of views per episode) and was ultimately not renewed after its third season. In its final episode, Asakawa discusses itasha, cars with anime sticker decals, and approaches a group who are cosplaying as Vocaloid characters.

Yuu and Games

Asakawa is a huge fan of games. She has stated on many occasions to have loved Final Fantasy XI. In addition to playing games regularly, she has voiced in no less than 100 different game franchises including rhythm game maimai, Azur Lane, Final Fantasy XIII, and Granblue Fantasy.
On February 9, 2018, she created her YouTube channel that focuses on Let's Play-style gaming videos. In her live streams, Asakawa will play through a game, while often chatting with her fans or replying to their comments. Because of this style of casual conversations, she has attracted a lot of attention from overseas fans as well as other voice actors. The channel has amassed 15k subscribers and she has streamed over 30 games. Despite Asakawa having a busy schedule, she will almost always stream for a couple of hours at the minimum during evenings in Japan to allow her fans from all around the world to enjoy her content.

Links

… tacit consent … - Official blog
Yuu Asakawa (@Julia320) - Twitter
Yuu Asakawa - Facebook
Otaku-Verse Zero