Konomi Suzuki: The Fiery Hot Star of the Anison World

By Yoshitaka Tsujimoto / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

12:00 JST, December 27, 2024

Anison (anime song) singer Konomi Suzuki is popular for her sweet appearance and powerful voice. The singer debuted and conducted Asian tours in four consecutive years from 2016-2019. On Nov. 23 this year, she appeared at Animax Musix, one of the three major anison festivals in Japan.

An anime theme song lasts 89 seconds, during which characters like protagonists and villains appear in various sequences set to rapidly shifting music. The job of an anison singer is to skillfully match that intensity.

When given a new song, Suzuki first carefully reads the original work the anime is adapted from as well as the anime’s script. This way, she can pinpoint what her heart should focus on.

“Doing the work of immersing myself is very important. It expands my capabilities,” she said.

In recent years, each of her anison projects has been created as “a song for Konomi Suzuki,” rather than written in advance.

“I share [with the creative team] everything I want to do with the song, such as what kind of voice I want to use, that such and such words resonate nicely, or that I want to bring out a bright part of my voice.”

Through this customization, she strives to reach new heights.

Vocal surgery

Born on Nov. 5, 1996, Suzuki was a third-year junior high student when she dove into the world of anison.

“It’s Konomin, aka Konomi Suzuki. I’m 15!” she said as she went on stage at Animax Musix at the Yokohama Arena in November 2011.

Shortly after, she came out on top at the All-Japan anison grand prix, a now-defunct national anison competition that attracted more than 10,000 applicants.

“I was still a child yet to achieve anything, but I was accepted by so many the moment I entered the world of anison. They taught me that’s how anison events are,” Suzuki said.

Taking singing and dancing lessons from a young age, by the time she was in elementary school she was singing on the street in Shinsaibashi, Osaka.

As a junior high school student, she sang in a club and sold her own tickets. It was around that time she encountered a song from the anime “Macross Frontier” and became fascinated with anison.

In the year following her All-Japan anison grand prix win, she made her anison singer debut with “Choir Jail,” the theme song of “Tasogare Otome x Amnesia” (“Dusk Maiden of Amnesia”), even though she was still in high school. A few years later, she made up her mind to move to Tokyo and dropped out of university, eventually encountering what was to become her signature song — “Redo,” the theme of the series “Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu” (“Re:Zero –Starting Life in Another World-”).

In 2018, she tried her hand at voice acting for the first time with “Lost Song,” spending one year in acting classes before taking on the challenge of lending her voice to its lead character.

“For a singer, you have to sing at a fixed tempo, but when you’re saying a line, you have to adjust depending on emotion. Wordless lines, like ‘… !’ are difficult, too,” she said.

The acting lessons, where she had to express various emotions, such as happiness, anger and sadness, turned out to be a good opportunity for her to learn about herself and her tendency to suppress her emotions.

“At first, I wanted even people who didn’t know me to think I was a good singer. But that is actually not the point. I learned it was more important to break out of my shell and take on new challenges,” she said.

One day, she began feeling something wrong in her throat. The timbre of her voice changed, too, and her voice became breathy. A medical examination found that she had vocal nodules; the often turbulent, changeable nature of anime songs had strained her vocal cords. After sitting with the problem for four years, she decided to undergo surgery in 2020, when she was unable to perform live due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Favorite environment

The last project before her operation was “Bursty Greedy Spider,” the theme song for “Kumo desuga Nanika?” (“So I’m a Spider, So What?”). The anime tells the story of a high school girl reincarnated into a little spider in another world who grows up to defeat a powerful enemy.

“At the time, I was worried about the surgery, but I wanted the song’s listeners to feel the excitement of being able to meet a new me and sing even better songs. I gave the songwriter ‘return of the king’ as a key phrase and then she wrote me the song,” she said.

One year after the operation, Suzuki chose Animax Musix as the first event to return to in full health. Despite it being a remote event with no audience, she could feel that she was back as she sang her heart out.

Singing on the street as an elementary school child, she never felt a warm reception. But now, as soon as she steps on stage, fans wave glow sticks in her signature red and shout her nickname, “Konomin!”

“I work toward that moment and present that to the audience. They really go wild and lose themselves in it. As I age, my vocal cords and the way I think change, so I can never sing in exactly the same way at every concert. That’s why I love that atmosphere,” she said.

Before she knew it, she had developed a routine of having someone pat her on the back before going on stage.

“That’s the moment Konomi Suzuki changes from her normal self to the fiery red Konomi Suzuki. I become filled with a fighting spirit,” she said.

Konomi’s favorite anime

Among the anime she has sung the themes for, Suzuki is particularly fond of “No Game No Life” and “Re:Zero –Starting Life in Another World-.”

“They’re really funny and many people have seen them. Even when I go overseas, fans wait for me holding posters or cosplaying,” she said.

Her anime recommendation right now is “Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo” (The Pet Girl of Sakurasou”), for which she sang the theme song, “Days of Dash.” It marked her second theme song following her debut.

“It’s about someone surrounded by many talented people who worries about not having any talent of his own, but who then becomes determined to stand up. It’s a comedy but also very realistic. I’m glad I came across it when I was a student myself. I hope many more people will watch it,” she said.