Urara Takatsuji

"I didn't like my voice before, but now I hope I can bring happiness to people through voice acting. I will express myself as a voice actor and an idol!"

Urara Takatsuji (Currently known as Urara Hinaga) was born on April 9, in Chiba Prefecture, but raised in Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan. Her nickname is "Rettan". As a former digital seiyuu idol in 22/7, Urara portrayed Yuki Tojo via both voice acting and motion-capture physical acting. She was one of the three "hidden gems" members of the group.

Prior to the consent of using their names for voice roles, Urara went under the alias "Ura no Neko," a likely reference to her love for cats.

Urara was officially dismissed from the group on November 1, 2021.

Urara's image color was violet.

Biography
Urara has an older sister.

Since she was a baby Urara has lived with a cat, and around the time she left to Hokkaido she had two. She also kept a dog.

Urara wasn't good with studying and school, and has always had a case of School Refusal. During her elementary school days she used to think about what her future would be like if she didn't attend school. She secluded herself in her room and considered herself a Hikikomori.

During middle school, Urara participated in a chorus contest where all of the classes would compete to see who was the school champion. During her class's turn, her friends pointed out how it was hard to hear anyone else's but Urara's voice, which caused Urara to be insecure about her voice. As her class did not end up winning, she felt as if she dragged them down because of her singing voice.

At that time, she started getting into anime and idols, and she had an admiration for voice actresses. Uncertain about what she should do for her future, when she heard of the Digital Idol Seiyuu audition she thought that it was the only thing she could do, so she applied to it, without telling her parents. Her mom only found out when a letter of acceptance from Sony Music came in. Urara didn't know what to do at the time, but when she told her mom about it her mom was very supportive, and told her she should do what she wants to do.

Her career began on 24 December 2016 upon successfully passing 22/7 auditions and joining the unit.

Her contract was terminated on November 1, 2021, due to breach of contract relating to absence from work without permission and being unable to be contacted.

After roughly 5 months, Urara resurfaced again under the name Urara Hinaga on social media. She is currently a self proclaimed NEET and posts regular blogs of her daily life as well as poems.

Goals
Beyond becoming a well-established seiyuu, she stated that she would like to become a seiyuu for games like Pokémon and Yokai Watch.

She has also stated that she wanted to been featured in radio shows as apart of her seiyuu carrier. Urara also wants to try being a YouTuber. This was later fulfilled when she created her own YouTube Channel.

Urara wants to become an UTAU and wants to sing alongside Teto Kasane before she dies.

Seiyuu Influences

 * Sumire Uesaka
 * Although she has not played the game, she likes the seiyuu in the Japanese localization of League of Legends
 * Chinami Nishimura

Interests
Urara is an anime otaku, and has a wide range of knowledge in different genres, but she particularly likes shoujo and yuri titles. Her favorite series is Precure, but she also watches titles like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aikatsu! Aikatsu], Pripara, Houseki no Kuni, etc. Lately she's been mostly reading yuri manga, and has been enjoying Aoi Hana in particular. Although she knows someone who really likes Gundam, Urara has not been able to get into it.

Her favorite older anime is Card Captor Sakura and her favorite character in the show is Tomoyo. Her favorite anime girl is Reika Aoki (Cure Beauty). She often talks about how she loves Reika in her streams, blogs, and even in Niina's Newspaper. She also has a Cure Beauty dakimakura. She likes Virtual Youtubers a lot, and often mentions Aoi Fuji as her oshimen. She likes the mouth in Aoi's 3D model in particular.

Urara also likes video games. She owns a Nintendo Switch Lite. She owns Pokémon Sun. She has played Animal Crossing Pocket Camp and the Professor Layton series. She is especially fond of Fantasy Life.

Although she has recently wanted to play MMORPGs or other online games, she doesn't yet own a PC. She would like if a Sword Art Online-style VR system would exist.

In Nogizaka46, she likes Erika Ikuta, Ayane Suzuki, and Renka Iwamoto.

She is a big fan of Anisong Singers.

She has stated that she likes radio shows, and liked being in 22/7 Warikirenai Radio.

Urara can draw and sometimes drew for her fellow 22/7 member's birthdays.

Quirks
Despite her name being Urara, she asks people to call her "Rettan", which is a cutesy name formed by an alternative reading of the kanji 麗 (can be read as "urara" or "rei", so "re-ttan"). Urara also doesn't like being called by her last name, but she doesn't mind Mizuha calling her by it.

She used to live with five cats. Marimo and Sorachi have been with her for a while. In May 2018 they adopted two stray cats, Ai and Mei. In July 2018 she adopted Haru. She kept another cat named Kuro for 10 years, but it passed away 3rd January 2018. Despite being a cat person she also likes dogs (and other animals). The names Ai and Mei were chosen by Urara's mother. Ai has big eyes, so "Eye/Ai". And because they were adopted in May, the other one got "Mei/May" as a name. She noted how they resemble Virtual Youtuber Kizuna Ai and 22/7 Mei's names. However, as of the return of her hiatus of May 2020, Urara moved out to live by herself and so she no longer lives with her cats, and they instead are staying at her mother's place.

Urara said she would like to become a cat. Moe gave her a kitty ear headband. For Urara's birthday, Moe also gave her a cat plushie called Kousuke.

Her favorite Pokémon types are Psychic, Ghost, and Grass. She briefly favored Fairy over Grass when Pokémon Sun was released.

Since she was a child, her mom used to read picture books to her, and this sparked some interest in getting good at recitations.

When Urara says something she thinks was funny, she often echoes it under her breath and laughs.

Urara is learning English.

Behind the scenes
During the provisional character assignment phase, she was assigned Miu, and when it was determined that she would not have the role, she said that if anyone else were to portray Miu, she wanted it to be Nagomi.

Urara stated that if she were male, she would want to be a man who was really cool, and that she would want a girlfriend who was like Kanae or Ruri. Urara called Chiharu her older sister.

Urara is close to fellow members Moe and Ruri. She and Ruri attended Comiket 2017 together. They also attended Fuyucon. The two also went to an SAO exhibition event to commemorate it's 10th anniversary.

Urara claimed that Aina's and her thoughts are complete opposites to each others. Urara is sometimes surprised by the way that Aina thinks, but the positivity from Aina helps Urara out.

On February 5, 2020, it was announced that due to undisclosed health issues, Urara would take a break from 22/7 and related activities. She was receiving medical treatment and in the care of a physician. On May 15, 2020, Urara returned from her hiatus and resumed her activities with 22/7.

On May 18, 2018, management granted her an individual official Twitter account. On May 23, 2019, management granted her an individual official Instagram account. However, both were terminated 6 hours after the announcement of her reassignment.

On November 1, 2021, it was announced that Urara had been dismissed from 22/7 due to breach of contract relating to absence from work without permission and being unable to be contacted. Her blog addressing her sudden departure can be seen here. It is claimed that her intentions behind her sudden disappearance was that she was not willing to continue being a member of 22/7, and regrets not mentioning her want for a graduation due to struggles with physical and mental health earlier with staff.

She later writes in a blog that for a period of time she had a hard time replying to LINE messages, where it even came to the point of being too afraid to check SNS at all.



Gallery
For more images of this voice actor please refer here.

Trivia

 * Urara was the youngest member of 22/7 in the original lineup.
 * It was revealed by Sally that Urara was in middle school when 22/7 debuted.
 * Urara's mother majored in French.
 * During the auditioning process for 22/7's lineup, Urara, Sally, Aina, and Reina were in the same audition group.
 * Urara has bad eyesight and wears eye contacts, although she also has glasses.