Marina Horiuchi (堀内まり菜 – born April 29th, 1998) is a Japanese actress, voice actress, singer, dancer, and songwriter currently managed by Apollo Bay - a subsidiary of her original agency Amuse - and signed to Lantis Records.
She started her career in 2007 as a kid-model for Ciào along with the occasional commercial or stage-play before becoming one of the founding members of Junior-Idol group Sakura Gakuin, for which she went on to serve as its Third Student Council President. After graduating SG, she largely dropped off the radar before returning with a bang in 2018 as a multitalented tour-de-force, earning roles on television, stage, and in anime (a medium she's known to love).
Over her career, Marina has earned reputations for two things in particular – being incredibly professional, and being incredibly eccentric. For proof of the latter, see anything from her Sakura Gakuin days, plus her Youtube channel
and twitter (the latter known for her near-daily incredibly lame puns).
Marina has stated a fascination and affinity with fairies, due in large part to playing one in her very first onstage acting role (a couple years later, she portrayed herself as a fairy in a Sakura Gakuin skit) – as a result, some of her fans compare her to one.
She has an official website which contains absolutely zero fairies.
In Fall 2020, she joined three other young voice actresses also signed to Amuse or Apollo Bay to sing covers of older anime theme songs. In 2021, the quartet received the name "Healer Girls", released two EPs under Lantis, and got an anime written around their singing abilities in 2022. Marina, despite being the shortest of the four, has the deepest singing voice and often took low harmony if she wasn't singing lead.
Because Marina has dabbled in just about every medium imaginable, often in very small roles she does not consider worth listing on her résumé, what follows is not a complete list of her work.
Mixed-Media
- Sakura Gakuin - Herself (2010-2014)
- LiveRevolt - Hinata Tokino of FIREVOLT subgroup (2018- )
- The Idol-BU Show - Ami Akase of NO PRINCESS subgroup (2019- )
Stage Roles
- La Corda d'Oro - Lili the Fairy (2010)
- Akizakura Gakuen Choral Club - Asuka Sakurai (2016) (part of Sakura Gakuin's 2016 activities)
- The Disappearance of Rabbit Island - Hana (2019)
- Love Live ~ School Idol Musical - Rurika Tsubaki (2022-2024)
Voice Acting
- KutsuDaru. - Kaoru Nekota (2014)
- Sanrio Characters PonPon Jump - Antares (2017)
- Somali and the Forest Spirit - Witch of Hospitality (2020)
- The Seven Lucky Gods of Awaji Island - Miko (2020)
- iii icekurin - Francisco Minton XV (2021)
- Healer Girl - Reimi Itsushiro (2022)
Television
- Fishing Detective 4 - Yui Hasegawa (2013)
- ''Kinder TV ☆ Morning - Marina-chan (2018-2022)
- Anisong Days × Healer Girls - Herself (2020-2022)
Music
- Everything she's done under "Mixed-Media" and, of course, Sakura Gakuin
- Nano Story (2021) — her solo artist debut
- Sakura-iro no Melody (2021) – digital-only single
- Mizukagami no Sekai (2022) – 1st Single
- Just a Little Bit (2023) – 2nd Single
Tropes for Marina, her music, or her other work
- Anime Theme Song: This makes up a lot of her music output, which she's fine with, since she is an…
- Ascended Fangirl: Marina has said many times she's a lifelong anime fan and she stated a desire early on to sing anime theme songs and voice act. She succeeded in both.
- Author Appeal: Marina loves monorails for some reason, so one of the songs on her debut album is about them.
- Cheerful Child: Her shtick during Sakura Gakuin, even compared to the rest of the original lineup. She managed to carry her sunny disposition well into adulthood.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: She's sometimes cast as this type of character in children's shows. She also played it to the hilt during her four years in Sakura Gakuin. That is, if one assumes she was acting, since there's plenty of evidence in behind-the-scenes videos and her own social media that she really is completely out-to-lunch.
- Genki Girl: If the character she's playing isn't an eccentric nutcase, they're probably this.
- Gratuitous English: Her song "Welcome To Nanoland" has an introduction entirely in English (pronounced as well as she can), plus the English lyric "My name is Marina".
- Incredibly Lame Pun: During a variety show she used one to describe her friend, voice actress Hinata Sato, causing Hinata herself to go into a coughing fit from laughter.
- Shout-Out: The music video for her song "World of Water-Mirrors" is one for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, with a Tin (wo)Man and Cowardly Lion(ess) showing up and Marina herself as an extremely happy Dorothy.
- Singer-Songwriter: She officially became one in 2020, with her friend Yui Niitsu helping on composition.
- Sunny Sunflower Disposition: Marina's "Nano-Hana" music video has her literally painting a field of sunflowers on a blank white wall.
- Throw It In!: Discussed. During her music video Karappo no Watashi, Marina walks alongside a mountain lake. As she does so, a family of ducks swam by. Naturally, Marina stops and waves at them. Behind-the-scenes footage shows that that part was filmed late in the afternoon with a storm coming in, so very little shooting time left. Stopping to greet the ducks was such a "Marina" moment that the editors kept it.
