Hello everyone, we got an article from Kaede Hondo, the voice actress behind Mikuru Kobayashi from Star Detective Precure! In this article she gives an account of the Detective Conan collaboration from her unique perspective as well as her dream of also being a dubbing voice actress. It probably wouldn’t be as interesting hearing about it from my perspective because I wasn’t in the voice recording booth at the time. If you’d like to know my perspective, we watch Precure every single week on my Discord server!
Anyway, let’s hear it then!
Translation by “nui”, Editing by me. Kaede Hondo’s CUREtto Resolution! was originally published on asahi.com in May 2026. Original Link: https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASV5Y1H6KV5YUCVL013M.html
Did She Want to Play “Sleeping Kobayashi”? Kaede Hondo‘s Dream is to be a Two-Way Player in Anime and Dubbing!
build note: “Two-Way Player” is sports terminology used to describe players that excel in both offensive and defensive play. In football, they can be called “box to box midfielders” as they are able to defend in their own box while also carrying the ball forward to attempt to score goals. You also rarely get outfield players taking over goalkeeping duties when no dedicated goalkeepers are available, most recently seen with Olivier Giroud for AC Milan taking over duties in a match against Genoa in 2023.
Welcome to “Kaede Hondo’s CUREtto Resolution!” This is our monthly column where the cast of the currently airing anime “Star Detective Precure!” (ABC TV/TV Asahi networks, Sundays at 8:30 AM) share their thoughts. This month, we have Kaede Hondo, who plays Mikuru Kobayashi, a girl aiming to be a great detective, and Cure Mystique. To start things off she shares some behind-the-scenes stories from Episode 18 (airing May 31), featuring the collaboration with Detective Conan. Her partner, Cure Answer, will also be appearing in the Detective Conan anime broadcast on Yomiuri TV/Nippon TV networks on June 6 at 6:00 PM (excluding some regions).
Seeing “Inspector” in the Script for the First Time
I found out about the Detective Conan collaboration a few weeks before the voice recording. Some of the cast members were pulled aside by our producer, Souya Aramaki, who said, “Actually…” and we were all incredibly surprised. Hikari Senga, who plays Cure Answer, was even more shocked than I was. It wasn’t just a cute “Kyaa!”, it was more like, “Uwaaa! No way!” When I get surprised, I tend to get quiet, so I just took it in with a single “Oh…” and then the shock gradually sank in over time.
First of all, “Star Detective Precure!” and “Detective Conan” air on completely different broadcasting networks. I imagine crossing that boundary is incredibly difficult, something almost unimaginable. But because we share the same “Meitantei” theme, I think the cooperation, love, and hard work of many people made this collaboration a reality. I went into the recording thinking it was an amazing, almost historic event. From the Detective Conan side, Minami Takayama who plays Conan Edogawa, Akemi Okamura who plays Ran Mouri, and Rikiya Koyama who plays Kogoro Mouri came to the studio, and we were able to record together. It was a very special space.
I know Detective Conan very well, and of course, I am familiar with Takayama-san and the others’ voices. I was building up so much excitement leading up to the recording, wondering how their world and the world of Star Detective Precure! would merge. I saw the word “Inspector” in a Star Detective Precure! script for the very first time. Even from little things like that, it felt more like Detective Conan. Come to think of it, because the Star Detective Precure happen to solve the cases first in this world, we just never saw any police officers. But the police do actually exist in this world too!
Conan and Shinichi, Switching in a Flash
There are four microphones set up in the Star Detective Precure! recording studio. When there are many cast members, we have to constantly switch places and step up to the mics to perform. We call this “mic work,” but because of how the story flows on the Star Detective Precure! set, we usually do not have to do such intense mic work. However, for this episode, we had more people than usual, so we had to swap in and out quite vigorously. But the guest cast members are seasoned legends, so their mic work was so smooth and reassuring that it made me wonder if they had been working with us since episode one. I really felt how amazing they are. Moreover, when Senga-san mentioned she was nervous, they told her, “This is your home turf.” I think they were trying to convey the feeling of “It is going to be okay” and “Let’s have fun doing this together.”
Speaking of the acting, Conan Edogawa has parts where he talks like an innocent elementary schooler saying, “Hey, hey, lady!” which coexist with his cool high school detective Shinichi Kudo monologue parts where he thinks, “Wait a minute…”. I was really looking forward to seeing how those parts would be recorded. I imagined they might record them at different times, but Takayama-san performed them smoothly in one continuous flow, which really moved me. Right there on the spot, “Conan-kun” and “Shinichi” switched in a flash, and I just thought, “Wow, Takayama-san is so cool!”
To begin with, just hearing the voices of Ran-neechan, Kogoro-san, and Conan-kun right next to me was a bizarre feeling. It made me realize I was not just watching TV. A moment that made me think, “I know this!” was when Conan-kun’s watch tranquilizer dart accidentally hit Anna-chan. Instead of “Sleeping Kogoro,” a deduction show by “Sleeping Anna” began, and I was so jealous of Senga-san in that scene. I could tell that Senga-san had prepared a lot to follow the tradition of “Sleeping Kogoro” while interpreting it in her own way. I wanted to do a “Sleeping Kobayashi” too. I thought it was so nice.
Overlapping with Mikuru-chan…
Since Mikuru-chan is a detective otaku, she definitely knew about “Sleeping Kogoro.” She was able to meet the idols she never thought she would meet, and they worked hard together to solve the case. I think it was an episode that strongly solidified her feelings of wanting to do her best as a great detective.
In the beginning of Star Detective Precure!, Mikuru-chan was so overjoyed about “becoming the Star Detective Precure she admired” that she leaned too far forward and sometimes spun her wheels. Lately, she has built strong relationships with her partner Anna-chan and fairies like Pochitan. I feel like she is developing the calmness to be considerate of others and the attitude to cooperatively solve mysteries. Beyond the moments captured in the TV anime, she has her own life, and I think she is doing her own thinking in various situations that we cannot see.
Mikuru-chan, who keeps running forward fuelled by her admiration, overlaps with my past self, and I understand her feelings perfectly. I used to be so preoccupied with what was right in front of me, and while it was incredibly fun, I would sometimes overlook things. It is exactly how I was when I first started working as a voice actress.
Two-Way Player, Let’s Stop Just Admiring It?
For a long time, I have really admired voice actors who can do foreign dubbing jobs just as well as animation, and I think they are so cool. A senior actor I worked with on a children’s anime set when I was a rookie, who taught me even basic things like how to turn the script pages, also does wonderful acting in foreign dubs. When I work with people like that on anime sets, they deliver such fantastic performances that words cannot describe, and I am deeply impressed. My current goal is to become like that someday.
In anime voice recording, there is no original audio, so you can act based on your own imagination and intuition. Sometimes you can even throw a little playfulness into the performance. In contrast, foreign dubbing is recorded with the raw audio of the original actors’ performances already there. The BGM and sound effects are also present, which gives it a great sense of realism, but you cannot stray too far from the original acting. I feel it is necessary to stay close to the original performance while also valuing human emotion.
For example, even in an angry scene, there was a time I got too carried away by the emotion of “being angry” and received feedback that I might be overdoing it a bit. When I looked at the actor’s facial expression, their movements were certainly strong, but their face was not actually that severe. So I had to control my acting, deciding to try it in a slightly more subdued tone. Because you are acting with a completed work right in front of you, I felt that dubbing requires a different set of skills compared to anime.
Ever since I started my voice acting career, I kept saying, “I want to do both anime and dubbing,” but I was only putting the words out there. Thankfully, I have been blessed with many animation jobs. After about 10 years since my debut, I suddenly thought, “Wait a minute. I want to start doing dubbing soon too!” I brought this up to my manager at my agency, asking, “Do you remember? I actually really, really want to do dubbing,” and we had a serious consultation about my career plan as a voice actress.
From that point on, over the past year or so, I have been making my desires known more strongly with the help of various people, and I have started getting opportunities to do dubbing. I am still studying hard. I certainly get a lot of stimulation from animation jobs, including Star Detective Precure!. By stacking up the work and roles I have done over these past 10 years, I think a certain image of “This is what Kaede Hondo is like” has been established to some extent. I am very grateful for that, and I want to cherish it.
However, I felt like if I just kept going without changing, I would get bored of myself. I have always lived valuing the feeling of “fun,” so if that “fun” disappears, I won’t be able to continue. If I stop here, there will be no growth. That is why I absolutely want to achieve my dream of being a “two-way player” in anime and dubbing right now. To me, “admiration” is not just a dream, but a goal to turn into reality.
Article Author: Takumi Terui
