Kotono Mitsuishi

Kotono Mitsuishi, born December 8, 1967, in Tokyo, is kind of a legend in the anime world. If you grew up anywhere near the '90s anime boom, you’ve probably heard her voice even if you didn’t know it—she’s got that energy you can’t fake. She’s most famous for her roles in the Evangelion franchise, which is basically a rite of passage for anime fans. Mitsuishi voices Misato Katsuragi, the fast-talking, beer-chugging major who’s as flawed as she is lovable. And honestly, the way she brings Misato to life? It’s wild. She nails all those emotional whiplash moments, going from goofy to heartbroken to dead serious, sometimes in the same scene. Her work isn’t just limited to the original 1995 series. Mitsuishi stuck with Evangelion through all its weird, mind-bending sequels and movies—like “Shin seiki Evangelion Gekijô-ban: Air/Magokoro wo, kimi ni” in 1997 and the more recent “Evangelion: 3.0+1.01 Thrice Upon a Time” in 2021. That’s decades of playing a character, and it shows. You can hear the years in her voice; there’s more grit, more heartbreak, more everything. Besides Evangelion, she’s done a ton of other stuff—honestly, her résumé is stacked—but for a lot of people, she’ll always be Misato. Mitsuishi’s got this way of making even the weirdest anime moments feel real, which is probably why she’s still such a big deal after all these years.