'With Such Seasoned Veterans Gathered Around Us...' Voice Actor Fuka Izumi on the 'Reassurance' She Felt Recording Nia Liston: The Merciless Maiden

A warrior once known as the "Godslayer Hero" is reincarnated as Nia Liston, a frail girl who looks ready to collapse from illness at any moment. Having overcome her sickness and begun a second life as a young lady of the Liston family, Nia craves deadly battles with strong opponents, hidden behind her appearances on the family business's "Magic Vision" broadcasts and her life at the academy...

The TV anime Nia Liston: The Merciless Maiden, which has been airing since October 6, 2026, tells the story of Nia Liston, a girl who looks delicate but is really a warrior hungry for combat, a striking contrast. Linokis Funk serves the noble young lady Nia as her maid, and is voiced by voice actor Fuka Izumi.

This article shares highlights from our interview with Izumi, covering her impressions of the series, its appeal, and stories from the recording sessions.

——To start, could you tell us your first impression of Nia Liston: The Merciless Maiden?

Izumi: The first thing I read was the manga adaptation, and the world is only slightly different from the one we live in, so it felt very familiar. For example, Magic Vision is portrayed much like the people who scrambled around when TV was spreading across Japan, so even though it's a fantasy, I found it very easy to read.

My impression of the original novel is that its prose lets the world and its atmosphere come naturally to mind, so that just by reading it you can sense the height of the sky and the humidity in the world where Nia and the others live.

——The Magic Vision setting is a key point in the story, too. Nia and the others work hard to popularize it, but if you were to make a program yourself, what kind of program would it be?

Izumi: It comes down to what strategy you take. In the story, I imagine many channels do glamorous things because they want to spread Magic Vision, but I thought there could also be programs that go after something a bit more low-key. For example, a 10-minute show of beautiful women running up a hill, or a show of a middle-aged gentleman eating a meal alone in solitude lol.

——If I lived in that world, I'd end up watching that without thinking lol.

Izumi: I think it would be groundbreaking in that world. I'd like to make a show that tired adults can watch lightly in an instant! I also think there would be demand for a vlog-style 10-minute program capturing glimpses of the everyday lives of the nobility. Commoners have probably rarely seen how nobles live, let alone how their maids live.

——The maids in this series are all so distinctive that I'm curious lol. Returning to my question, what is your impression of Nia, whom Linokis supports as her maid?

Izumi: It's her cuteness, first of all. She's outrageously cute, but the contrast is part of her charm: despite her looks, in battle scenes she takes people down as if scattering flower petals. She can be a bit tsundere toward Linokis, but she doesn't treat everyone the same way, and she is natural and unpretentious with Linokis.

When Honoka (Honoka Inoue, who voices Nia) says difficult lines in a very serious tone, the gap with what's inside gets even stronger and her cuteness becomes far more convincing. And even when she's just speaking cutely, I felt the fearsome side of Nia came across tremendously.

——I heard that the main cast recorded together.

Izumi: Yes, we recorded together. As the episodes go on, more appealing characters appear, and Taku Yashiro, who plays Anzel, Yoko Hikasa, who plays Fressa, and Satoshi Hino, who plays Gandolf, have enormous experience, so their timing is in perfect sync. Their takes during rehearsals were hilarious, but you can't hear that in the finished episodes lol.

——So they really let loose during the rehearsal recordings before the real takes lol.

Izumi: It's such a shame, but sound director Hiromi Kikuta even doted on Gandolf, saying "Gandolf is so cute!" over the girl characters lol.

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