Yui Horie

In late 2012, Horie created and voiced the 3D animated character Miss Monochrome. Her first appearance was in The Adventure Over Yui Horie III ~Secret Mission Tour~ concert, acting as the antagonist who wanted to turn the world black and white. The character has since had a self-titled anime series, with the premier season televised on October 1, 2013 . The opening theme song, Poker Face, was released as a musical single. Other notable appearances include the iOS game Girlfriend Beta, a self-titled manga series and cameos in other anime.

Horie was affiliated with Arts Vision. However, she eventually left the agency in mid-2007 during an unrelated scandal in the agency's top management and became a freelance voice actress. Today, she's affiliated with VIMS, a division of I'm Enterprise. She has published seven independent musical albums. Nearly all of them incorporate at least one track from an anime she has worked with. She currently releases music under the Starchild label (a subdivision of King Records).

In October 2005, she founded Aice, a J-Pop group consisting of four other voice actors, to help launch their careers. Their debut single was "Get Back", released March 13, 2006. Aice was disbanded on September 20, 2007 at their farewell concert "Final Aice5 Party LAST Aice5" at the Yokohama Arena. During this time, they released six singles and one album. Their album "Love Aice" was released on February 26, 2007, remaining in the Oricon charts for four weeks with a highest rank of eight. Aice has since been revived, announced on July 17, 2015, with the intention to release a new single on September 30 and have their comeback concert on November 22.

Horie has collaborated with a few other artists. In 2004, she released "Scramble" together with Unscandal. This ska inspired song was used as an opening theme song for the romantic comedy anime School Rumble . And in 2006, she formed the goth band Kurobara Hozonkai (lit. "Black Rose Preservation Society"), with Horie taking the stage name of YUIEL. This band released the album "A Votre Sante!!" in 2008 and has been relatively inactive since.

In 2003, Horie established herself as a popular singer when her third album "Sky" peaked at 10th in the Oricon charts.

Early in 2002, Horie's first solo concert tour kicked off on January 26 at the Club Diamond Hall in Nagoya, a 1000 capacity venue. "堀江由衣 First Live Tour", lasted a total of 6 nights, travelling to Tokyo and ending on February 11 in Osaka at the Matsushita IMP Hall. In 2002, she voiced Ayu Tsukimiya in the anime adaptation of Kanon, an adult visual novel that she had also voiced in 1999. Horie released her first collection of music videos on July 29. The 27 minute VHS tape was called Yui Horie CLIPS 0 〜since '00〜'01〜, featuring interviews, making-ofs and notably the music video for "Love Destiny" the theme song of the 2001 anime adaptation of Sister Princess.

In 2001, Starchild established her official fan club called Kuroneko Union (黒ネコ同盟 , Kuroneko dōmei, lit. "Black Cat Alliance") , where member benefits included fan events, priority seating in concerts, bimonthly newsletters, and access to exclusive merchandise. The first meeting, which was named "Black Cat Rally Vol.1 - Akasaka BLITZ" was on July 21, where they held a rally and a quiz show.

She is one of a handful of Japanese idol voice actors that rose to prominence in the 2000s, whose popularity today has been attributed to their solid experience and long-term interaction with their fan base, as opposed to the contemporary norms of youth and beauty in the entertainment industry. As a result of her ongoing success, she has performed solo at large music venues, such as the Nippon Budokan in 2009 and the Yoyogi National Gymnasium's First Stadium in 2015, each with capacities of approximately 14,000 and 13,000, respectively. Her official fanclub is the "Black Cat Alliance".

2000 also saw Horie publish her first photobook, Kingyobachi Puranetto (金魚鉢プラネット , Fishbowl Planet) , and the release of her debut album, Mizutamari ni Utsuru Sekai, through the Starchild label which featured two songs from Love Hina.

Whilst still training and under the representation of Arts Vision, Horie was able to make her voice actor debut in the 1997 PlayStation and Sega Saturn game, Voice Fantasia: Ushinawareta Voice Power. Her first leading role was in the 1998 anime Kurogane Communication, of which she sang the theme songs, "My best friend" and "Dear Mama". These two songs were released as Horie's first single under the Pony Canyon music label. In 1999, with the increasing number of eroge and visual novels being adapted to anime, Horie was able to win a major role as Multi, a robotic girl, in the romantic anime To Heart.

In 1995, during the first year of college, Horie auditioned at the Japan Voice Acting Institute for a scholarship, the voice training school for Arts Vision. She can be quoted as saying “I went for an audition instead of hunting for a job, hahaha....”. Horie graduated after 4 years of training. During this time she entered the SME Voice Actor Audition in 1996, winning the Namco Prize, (with Ayako Kawasumi winning the Special Award). On August 28, 1996, Horie and 21 other voice students (including Yukari Tamura) were unveiled at Nippon Cultural Broadcasting Inc.'s "SOMETHING DREAMS '96" at the Tokyo International Exhibition Centre as the Dorikan Club, a group of aspiring voice actresses.

Yui Horie (堀江 由衣 , Horie Yui, born September 20, 1976) is a Japanese voice actress and singer affiliated with VIMS and Starchild. She has been affectionately nicknamed "Hocchan" (ほっちゃん ) by her Japanese fans. She debuted as a voice actress in 1997, releasing her debut single "My best friend" on November 18, 1998 . Since then, she has been involved in excess of 350 productions in addition to promotional material, concert performances, as well as charting several albums and singles. She won the award for Best Supporting Voice Actress in the 4th Seiyu Awards.