Misaki Kuno

About this playlist

Misaki Kuno is the cast’s first fully character-song-only artist: zero solo singles, zero solo albums, zero covers. Every track she has ever released is credited to a character she voices.

Where to start listening: track 1 — みんなのきもち — because Nina Ichihara is her longest-running character-song role, and this is the signature Nina solo. Three minutes in you’ll know whether the register is for you.

A catalog that is entirely character songs

Across thirteen years (2013–2026), Kuno’s Spotify presence consists entirely of character-credited tracks — thirty-plus across fifteen-plus roles. The shape isn’t thin in terms of track count; it’s thin in the specific sense that none of those tracks are credited to “Misaki Kuno” the way an artist’s solo single would be. Every credit line reads [character] (CV: 久野美咲). She has never released a solo single, a solo album, a solo EP, a covers record, or a digital-only drop under her own name.

That makes her the catalog equivalent of a character actor who works constantly and never headlines a film. Ayaka Ōhashi (for comparison) has solo albums. Aoi Yūki has solo EPs. Kuno has the roles.

The playlist thesis follows: her musical identity is the character-song catalog, not a subset of it, and the ten tracks below are a representative cross-section of the roles, not a substitute for an artist career she doesn’t have.

The roles that produce the music

Five roles carry most of the weight:

• Nina Ichihara — THE IDOLM@STER CINDERELLA GIRLS. Multiple solo tracks (as Nina) plus numerous Cinderella-ensemble contributions across ten-plus years of Imas releases. The single densest character-song-producing role in her catalog.
• Hisone Amakasu — Hisone to Masotan (Bones, 2018). The D-Pai five-member dragon-pilot ensemble and the Hisone-solo versions of the ED theme. Her most prestige-anime role to date.
• DJ Sheena — Otoppe (NHK E-tele, 2017 onward). A kids-TV animation she’s carried across multiple seasons; the theme song is her most broadly-recognized non-idol work.
• Do — Jahy-sama wa Kujikenai! (2021). The pocket-sized comedic sidekick opposite Ayaka Ōhashi’s Jahy.
• Misaki — Princess Connect! Re:Dive. One of the game-franchise ensembles that never became her signature role but produces ensemble character songs steadily.

Plus Chii-chan (the RO-KYU-BU! SS 5-nensei one-off ensemble — not the main RO-KYU-BU! unit, despite some database confusion), Chiyo (Prima Doll, mostly off-Spotify), Belphegor (Beelzebub-jou, mostly off-Spotify), and a long tail of single-episode or supporting roles. Labels follow the projects, not the artist: King Records for Cinderella Girls, Lantis for RO-KYU-BU! SS, NHK for Otoppe. No solo label affiliation because there’s no solo career to sign.

Elfnein and the GX alchemist cluster

Kuno joined Symphogear in GX (2015) as Elfnein — Carol Malus Dienheim’s homunculus, Carol’s last remaining alchemist-ally, and the character who carries the post-Carol alchemy knowledge into SONG for AXZ and XV. She’s the only GX-introduced alchemist character voiced by the Symphogear cast who survives the season as a recruited SONG ally rather than a defeated antagonist.

This matters for the music catalog in a specific way. The GX alchemist faction — Carol plus her four Autoscorer subordinates — is a five-member villain cluster in the Symphogear cast. Four got zero character songs; Elfnein got one. また逢う日まで appeared on the XV Character Song Album (2022), seven years after Elfnein’s GX debut, as a retrospective track on a retrospective album. It is the only character-song release in the entire GX alchemist cluster.

Structurally, this is the franchise’s character-song economy at work. Antagonists who die or vanish in-season get nothing. Antagonists who convert to ally and reappear across subsequent seasons — Elfnein in AXZ, Elfnein in XV — eventually earn a track. The Autoscorer trio (Leiur/Garie/Micha, voiced by Ishigami/Murase/Izawa in the Symphogear cast) are the counter-example in triplicate: three antagonists written out in GX, three character-song slates of zero. The fourth Autoscorer, Phara Suyūf, is outside the Symphogear cast entirely.

So Kuno’s Symphogear presence on streaming is exactly one track, but that one track is the entire output of the GX alchemist cluster. The Symphogear-songs sub-playlist for Elfnein is a one-track playlist, and the surrounding context — why one, why not zero, why not five — is the story it carries.

The ten tracks, in detail

1. みんなのきもち (Minna no Kimochi, 2015)

Nina Ichihara’s solo character song from THE IDOLM@STER CINDERELLA MASTER 035. Bright, gentle idol-pop fitting Nina’s earnest puppet-theatre-enthusiast character — she’s the youngest Cinderella Girls idol and Kuno’s longest-running character-song role. 4:28, full single length rather than one of the in-game short versions that dominate Imas streaming. Opens the playlist because it’s the single most identifiable Kuno-voiced track in the catalog.

2. Le temps de la rentrée ～ひそね ver.～ (2018)

The Hisone-solo arrangement of the Hisone to Masotan ED, credited under D-Pai but subtitled as Hisone’s version. Short at 1:32 — it’s the ensemble-album bonus version of a track that was released in several forms. Kuno-as-Hisone sits in a gentle-melancholic register that’s several registers away from Nina’s energetic idol-pop, and the jump between slots 1 and 2 establishes the playlist’s range before any other argument has to.

3. ウキウキオトッペ (Ukiuki Otoppe, 2017)

The theme of Otoppe, an NHK E-tele children’s animation running since 2017. Credited to “DJシーナ (CV:久野美咲), オトッペ” — DJ Sheena and the titular creatures. For listeners who encountered Kuno through NHK morning-TV rather than anime, this is the most-recognized track in her catalog. It’s also the only genuinely children’s-TV entry on the playlist, which is part of the honest breadth: her work is not only anime-adjacent.

4. Le temps de la rentrée (2018)

The full five-voice D-Pai ensemble version of the Hisone to Masotan ED — all five dragon pilots singing together. Paired with slot 2’s Hisone-solo version, the two tracks show the same melody in solo and ensemble arrangements and sketch how Kuno fits into an ensemble cast around her solo character.

5. 下級生Groove! (Kakyūsei Groove!, 2013)

From RO-KYU-BU! SS 5-nensei chim Character Songs — the in-franchise fifth-grade-team one-off ensemble CD, NOT the main RO-KYU-BU! unit that Iguchi/Hanazawa/Hikasa/Hidaka/Ogura fronted. The distinction matters because database listings sometimes conflate the two. Kuno was on the 5-nensei disc specifically. Slot 5 anchors her earliest Spotify-findable character-song work (2013) against the later-career slots around it.

6. 背伸びFirst Kiss (Senobi First Kiss, 2017)

A three-voice Princess Connect ensemble — Io (CV: Shizuka Itō), Misaki (CV: Kuno), Suzuna (CV: Sumire Uesaka). Kuno voices Misaki. The three-way split keeps her voice legible inside a denser ensemble than slot 4’s five-voice D-Pai, and the track’s cheerful-midtempo arrangement shows a different register from the melancholic Hisone versions.

7. おねえちゃんデスコ (Onee-chan Desco, 2019)

A second Nina Ichihara solo, from STARLIGHT MASTER SERIES GAME VERSION SONG COLLECTION Vol.4 — the in-game short arrangement at 2:04 rather than a full studio single. Nina at a later stage of the Imas release cycle, paired with slot 1’s みんなのきもち to show how the role sustained across years. Two Nina tracks is the right weight for Kuno’s densest role; three would over-concentrate.

8. いっこにこにこ (Ikko Niko Niko, 2021)

A Jahy-sama wa Kujikenai! comedic ensemble — Jahy (Ōhashi), Do (Kuno), and Arriman (Akio Ōtsuka). Kuno voices Do, the pocket-sized sidekick who speaks in cute chirping sounds. The track’s register is fourth in the playlist’s sequence: not Nina’s earnest idol, not Hisone’s melancholy, not DJ Sheena’s morning-TV, but tiny-voice comedic-chirping. A listener who’s been hearing polite idol-ballads for seven tracks hears something noticeably different at slot 8.

9. ハイファイ☆デイズ (Hi-Fi Days, 2016)

A five-member Cinderella Girls ensemble — Chie Sasaki, Momoka Sakurai, Nina Ichihara (CV: Kuno), Kaoru Ryūzaki, Miria Akagi. Game version short, pre-mega-hit-era (2016) Imas. Slot 9 goes to ensemble Cinderella rather than another solo — the Imas catalog is too large to represent only through solos, and the five-voice setting places Kuno inside the unit context that surrounds her solo Nina tracks.

10. チョーゼツよくできました◎ (Chōzetsu Yoku Dekimashita, 2013)

A second RO-KYU-BU! SS 5-nensei chim track, paired with slot 5 to frame the 2013 early-career era. The title translates roughly as “Supremely Well-Done,” which is the playlist’s final register — light, playful, ensemble-small. Ending on this rather than on an anthem closer is deliberate: her catalog does not contain an anthem closer, and pretending otherwise would misrepresent it. The honest close is quiet.

Her Symphogear contribution

Kuno voices Elfnein — introduced in GX as Carol Malus Dienheim’s homunculus, recruited into SONG after Carol’s defeat, and present through AXZ and XV as the research-side alchemy specialist. She’s the only GX-introduced alchemist character in the Symphogear cast who survives the season as a recruited ally.

Her Symphogear-music presence is one track: また逢う日まで, from the XV Character Song Album (2022), recorded seven years after Elfnein’s debut. It is the only character-song release anywhere in the GX alchemist cluster — Carol herself got nothing, the four Autoscorers got nothing, and this single retrospective album track carries the whole faction’s streaming-music presence. The Symphogear-songs sub-playlist for Elfnein is that one track.

What was considered and left out

Excluded because they’re Symphogear

• Elfnein’s また逢う日まで (XV Character Song Album, 2022) — the one GX-alchemist-cluster track. Moves to the Symphogear-songs sub-playlist rather than this playlist.

Considered but off-Spotify

• Chiyo character songs (Prima Doll, カミツレの歌, アイスクリームの歌) — not indexed.
• Belphegor character songs (Beelzebub-jou, あくまで恋煩い, らぶるブーケ) — not indexed.
• Battle Girl High School tracks (Chuuuuu♡Lip, Clover) — not indexed.
• Alternate Ayumi (Charlotte), Kate (Zvezda), and a long tail of smaller roles — mostly not on Spotify or credited ambiguously.

Considered and cut

• Additional Cinderella Girls ensembles beyond the two already carried (slots 1, 7 for Nina solo; 9 for ensemble) — four Imas tracks in ten would over-concentrate the franchise weight.
• Additional Jahy-sama tracks beyond slot 8 — Kuno-as-Do output is thin; one track is the honest count.

Companion playlist proposed

• Misaki Kuno · Character Songs — the remaining character-song catalog beyond this playlist. Nina Cinderella alternates (multiple GAME VERSION singles plus ensembles), D-Pai alternate versions, Priconne variations, and the rest as streaming availability allows. Probably fifteen-plus additional verifiable tracks, because the character-song catalog is her catalog.
• No solo companion exists or can exist. Zero solo output means no companion of that shape is structurally possible.

Final listen sequence

 1. みんなのきもち (2015) · Nina / Cinderella Master 035
 2. Le temps de la rentrée (ひそね ver.) (2018) · Hisone / D-Pai solo arrangement
 3. ウキウキオトッペ (2017) · DJ Sheena / NHK Otoppe theme
 4. Le temps de la rentrée (2018) · D-Pai ensemble (full version)
 5. 下級生Groove! (2013) · RO-KYU-BU! SS 5-nensei chim
 6. 背伸びFirst Kiss (2017) · Priconne 3-voice (as Misaki)
 7. おねえちゃんデスコ (2019) · Nina / Cinderella GAME VER
 8. いっこにこにこ (2021) · Do / Jahy-sama w/ Ōhashi
 9. ハイファイ☆デイズ (2016) · Cinderella 5-member ensemble
10. チョーゼツよくできました◎ (2013) · RO-KYU-BU! SS 5-nensei chim