This turned out to be a long delayed update, sorry about that.
Due to the Tōhoku quake last year, all of Japan got engulfed by a huge grief,
and for me personally it was a year that made me pay my last respects to people
special to me, turning it a year with a great sense of loss to me.

On regular years I look back on the year when work closes for the year,
and declare my ambitions for the next year that will take me a step forward,
starting the new year with a fresh attitude,
but while I remained in a vacant state in which the willpower
to do that didn't well up in me the new year eventually began.

To be frank, after the sorrowful service for director Morita, I turned away from reality,
letting the days go past just like that until the year ended.
Wanting to show the director how much more I had grown,
and wanting to work towards being able to be with him again,
were the strong feelings that have been a great motivation all this time,
so with the death of director Morita,
it also felt at that time that I had lost the
spiritual support that kept me going in this job.
But while reading the letters he once sent me and looking at the photos made on the set,
I no longer thought it was something I should feel depressed about.
The director surely wouldn't want to see me being depressed, I thought.
So just like when all of Japan joined hands to move forward after the quake,
I too pledged to once again recover my determination.
Facing forward again, I'm now writing my first blog entry for the new year.

I didn't quite know how to begin with this first update since last year.
All of you who've been waiting for it, thank you very much.

To start with, I want to give my belated sincere thanks
to all my fans who have supported me all through last year,
and to all of you who have been reading this blog.
I've been in many television dramas last year,
so it may have been a year in which I seemed to be closer to you than ever before.

With all this drama work I've been really busy every day,
and I kept being surprised by how fast the year was passing by.
My own growth or how I'm developing through the year is something
I surely haven't been able to sense anything of,
but I like to believe that all that invisible daily growth adds up.

2011 passed by like a storm, leaving me flabbergasted,
but instead of 2012 ending before I notice it,
it'd be nice if I properly spend each day with care, and finish the year with care.
I want to invest even more energy and devotion into each and every job I do.
Please favour me this year too, everyone.
We'll meet the first time this year while I'm
promoting the movie "Magic Tree House".
I can't wait to show you my first challenge as a voice actress.
It's tough to keep a hold on this feeling of impatience.
I'll do my best to make 2012 a fun year for you.
Please look forward to it.

By the way, to do this year properly, I bought a notebook on new year's eve.
When I write down my schedule for the new year in my new notebook,
I remember the feeling of anticipation and tension I had
when I got my timetable for the new school year in middle and high school.
The fortune I drew on my first shrine visit of the new year yesterday was "Excellent Luck"
with a Beckoning Cat on it. I believe that this fortune will bring nothing but good times. (笑)
That's why I'm sure this will be a great year.
I pray that this will be an even greater year for all of you.

Voice acting work is a world full of professionals, and I knew how great Yamadera Kōichi-san (Jack's father), who I'd be working with was, so wouldn't it be ridiculous to take up the challenge to cross that fence? The director's who had seen my former works said, "You're just right for Jack's voice", but that seemed strange to me. "What, me?", I thought (笑).

The director gave me the advice that it was fine not to try to be like an eight-year-old, or like a boy. Just letting people imagine Jack's reliable personality with his strong sense of responsibility and his fear of leaving the beaten track with my natural voice would be nice. So I thought I'd just played him the way he felt to me while I watched Jack on the screen, and when I got an OK from the director after I spoke the first and second line I continued on like that.

They recorded me while I listened to the earlier recorded voice of Mana-chan, but that never seemed strange to me (笑). I was earnestly trying to turn completely into Jack while I watched the images of him. I've got a younger brother myself, you see, so I could also empathize with having to be that much of a reliable older child. But Mana-chan didn't have my voice as inspiration, so her dubbing must have been harder than mine.

When I first heard my voice on my début work as an actress, I was surprised by how totally different it sounded from how I imagined my voice to be. Whether is was because it passed through a microphone I didn't rightly know, but as my career progressed I learned how to use my voice to make it sound close to my normal voice. But when I consciously set out to do Jack's voice this time, I remember the strange "What's that!?" sensation I got from it (笑). So I worried whether people watching the movie would recognize it properly as a boy's voice, or how they'd react to it.

I acted in a tokusatsu drama in my début, so I got familiar with yelling "Ahh" or "Uhh" during the battle scenes, and also with dubbing. However, through this work I recognized for the first time that one's voice is also one of the important means of expression. For example, until now I showed the feeling of having your breath taken away with my facial expression and my body, I didn't show it with just my voice. I learned this more or less, so it'd be nice if I make use of this experience and show it on screen from now on. I also realized again that professional voice actors are great.

Rather than playing outside with friends, I preferred to stay at home. I was an indoor type who liked to study, play piano, do calligraphy, etc. So as a child I lived a life relatively close to that of Jack. If pushed to say, I was like a boy, with hardly any interest in the fantastical. For example, during Tanabata, when everyone at school would write dreams like, "I want to run a pastry shop", or, "I want to be a bride", on their tanzaku, only I would write, "I want to be a doctor" (笑).

That's true, yes. We had bookshelves full of books at home, so also thanks to my parents' influence I was quite familiar with books when I was young. After starting with folk tales from Japan and the rest of the world, I read famous books like "Little Women", "Anne of Green Gables", and "Daddy-Long-Legs" in the lower grades of elementary school. Animation I saw were "Doraemon", "Sailor Moon, "Cutey Honey", etc. I liked "Detective Conan" next, which I remember watching it a lot.

What made the originals popular with children all over the world can be found in this wonderful work too, so I hope you'll be excited to watch it together with friends, your father or your mother. It'd be nice if you see the importance of the bond between the siblings and of not giving up until the job is done. And I don't mind if you don't notice that it's me doing the voice of Jack (笑).

When you become an adult you tend to lose your curiosity and sense of adventure, but you still have your challenged innocence without the timidity of a child. Through this work I felt the greatness of the strength these two children have. I was happy that they made me remember the fun of going to strange places or to take on things never done before. We've had many bitter experiences lately, so I hope people who've lost their spirit or who've barricaded themselves will snap out of it and challenge themselves again thanks to watching this work.

In a complete change from her image as Miss Reiko in the TV drama "The Mystery will be solved after Dinner", Kitagawa Keiko performed the difficult role of an eight-year-old boy in her first challenge as a voice actress. Her true feelings are still unknown so close before the opening day, but we can say with certainty that "Magic Tree House" is a step along the way on her often mentioned ideal of becoming an "actress who changes like a chameleon". Even though her image and place in society are well known, we hope we'll experience her stoic "actress spirit" as she ventures out into new fields.

© Mary Pope Osborne / "Magic Tree House" production committee
(This translation is as always a, hopefully ignored, unauthorized derivative work...)

The movie "Magic Tree House" opens country-wide on January 7