Minami-ke Comes Back After 14 Years With Its Whole Original Voice Cast. Fans Say Nobody’s Voice Has Changed

The three Minami sisters are coming home in April 2027, and so is every voice that has ever answered to their names. Minami-ke: Korekara, the fifth TV series of Coharu Sakuraba’s slice-of-life comedy, showed its teaser, its teaser visual and its broadcast month at the Minami-ke Special Event 2026 on Sunday, 8 November. The cast page on the official website lists 21 names, and every one of them is a returning voice.

Rina Sato is Haruka again, the dependable eldest sister who keeps a warm eye on the other two. Marina Inoue is back as Kana, the loud middle sister the official site introduces, with some affection, as Japan’s national representative in idiocy. Minori Chihara returns as Chiaki, the youngest, who delivers brutal lines in a sleepy voice. It’s the first new TV series since Minami-ke: Tadaima in 2013.

The teaser opens on the family’s familiar apartment block and Haruka calling her sisters to eat, Anime!Anime! reports, before Kana and Chiaki start bickering and their school friends and the other Minami family pile in. You can hear it below, and you’ll know within seconds whether the voices sound the way you remember.

Hear the voices: Rina Sato’s Haruka opens the Minami-ke: Korekara teaser, and the returning cast follow. Video: Hakuhodo DY Music & Pictures, on YouTube

Fans did the maths, then checked their ears

The first series aired in 2007, and fans noticed. In posts gathered by ABEMA TIMES, one fan wrote: “I’m more surprised that it’s been 20 years since the first season aired.” Another pointed at the cast: “When it started they were all new young voice actors, so you really feel time passing.”

Kana and Chiaki, voiced again by Marina Inoue and Minori Chihara. Image: "Minami-ke Korekara" Production Committee

The reaction that matters most to a voice actor was the shortest. “Nobody’s voice has changed,” one post read. Another wrote: “It’s been so damn long, but it’s just like it was back then. I could cry.” And one listed three shows in a row: “Amazing. Spice and Wolf, Nanoha, Minami-ke, my youth keeps coming back one after another.”

For a slice-of-life comedy, that’s the whole game. The show runs on small rhythms, the sighs and comebacks between sisters, and the cast are picking those rhythms up again after more than a decade of other work. Matching a character’s pitch, energy and timing after a gap this long is a harder test than most recasts.

Hosaka, Fujioka and a name fans didn’t expect

The supporting cast is back in full. Nana Mizuki returns as Toma, Rika Morinaga as Makoto, Tetsuya Kakihara as Fujioka, Eri Kitamura as Uchida and Aki Toyosaki as Yoshino. Daisuke Ono is Hosaka again, and fans were especially happy about that. “Glad to see Reiwa-era Hosaka looking as healthy as ever,” one wrote. Another: “We get to see the Ono D world again!” Ono D is the nickname fans use for Ono himself.

Hosaka, voiced again by Daisuke Ono. Image: "Minami-ke Korekara" Production Committee

One name drew a double take. Momoko Ohara is credited again as Shuichi, and a fan quoted by ABEMA TIMES wrote: “Momoko Ohara, who had retired, is coming back!” Neither the official site nor the outlets carrying the cast list have said anything more about her return, so Voice Over Herald is treating it as what it is: a fan’s surprise, and a credit on the cast page.

The full cast is completed by Saori Goto, Ao Takahashi, Yoshino Nanjo, Tatsuya Hayama, Reiko Takagi, Ryoko Ono, Ayaka Saito, Saeko Chiba, Hiroyuki Yoshino, Shinji Kawada and Shintaro Asanuma, all in the roles they played before, according to Anime News Network’s report on the cast and staff.

The person running the booth hasn’t changed either

In Japanese anime, the sound director runs the recording sessions, coaching the actors at the microphone and shaping how a scene sounds. For Korekara that’s Yasunori Ebina again, and Anime!Anime! notes that Ebina and composer Yasuhiro Misawa have worked on Minami-ke the whole way through. Sound effects designer Naoto Yamaya is back too, and Takamitsu Kono returns to oversee the scripts after doing the same job on Tadaima.

Kana, voiced by Marina Inoue since 2007. Image: "Minami-ke Korekara" Production Committee

Almost everything around them is new. Jun’ichi Kitamura (Catch Me at the Ballpark!, Fluffy Paradise) directs at LIDENFILMS, the fourth studio to animate the show. Nobuhiro Ando designs the characters, Masaru Sato and Midori Kikuchi are the art directors, Saki Kurata is the colour key artist and Yuki Tsuchimoto is director of photography. Daume, which made the first series, no longer exists, Anime Trending notes. So the same voices will be recorded by the same booth team for an entirely new crew of animators.

“Please don’t expect too much”

The official announcement ends with the series’ oldest joke. “This story matter-of-factly depicts the everyday lives of the three Minami sisters,” it says. “Please don’t expect too much.” The introduction page goes further: “Even as time passes, nothing changes at the Minami house.” For a cast being asked to sound exactly as they did, that’s less a joke than a job description.

Sakuraba’s manga has run in Kodansha’s Weekly Young Magazine since 2004, has passed five million copies in print according to Anime!Anime!, and reached its 29th collected volume on Friday. The new anime was first announced in July 2024 at a Tanabata event for the franchise’s 20th anniversary, and the Korekara subtitle, meaning roughly “from here on”, was revealed in November 2025.

VoiceEditSuiteMarked-up scripts, ready to record.Drop in the script and the casting brief. Audition Director marks the emphasis, breaths and pauses, and gives you three ways to read it.See how it worksYour recordings are never used to train AI.

No exact premiere date, broadcaster or streaming partner has been named yet. The official site says only that the series starts in April 2027. Until then, there’s a teaser where Haruka calls everyone to dinner, and a lot of people who grew up with that voice are answering.

Sources: Minami-ke Korekara official website (news, introduction, and cast and staff pages); Anime News Network; Anime!Anime!; ABEMA TIMES, quoting fan posts on social media; Anime Corner; Anime Trending; Final Weapon. Quotations from Japanese sources are translated by Voice Over Herald. Images: “Minami-ke Korekara” Production Committee. Video: Hakuhodo DY Music & Pictures, on YouTube.

Lee este artículo en español: Minami-ke vuelve después de 14 años con todo su elenco original de voces. Los fans dicen que a nadie le cambió la voz

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