Early years Nomura was born in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture on March 31, 1938. She was adopted by relatives living in Osaka Prefecture when she was two years old. As the war intensified, Nomura and her family evacuated over to Gifu Prefecture. Once the war came to an end, she returned back home. Because she was the only one with a different surname, she thought her younger siblings were merely relatives. From an early age, Nomura loved radio dramas and wanted to pursue a career in radio dramas and voice acting. During her time at Kanagawa Gakuen Junior and Senior High School, she joined their drama club, with her coaches being Yoshiya Nemoto and
Naoki Sugiura. In her third year of high school, Nomura applied for a theater company established by the Tokyo Announcement Academy, but she was rejected due to her young age, though she got heavily encouraged to join the acting training department, so she started attending the academy's acting department every Sunday. Once Nomura graduated from training school, she appeared on programs by the producer who instructed her. At the beginning of her career, she usually worked as an actress on commercials and TV dramas. Initially, when she was in her early twenities, she passed the
Fuji TV weathercaster audition and became their first weather girl, but since the weather forecast was done every morning, she was unable to make time to film for live-action dramas, and her voice acting jobs grew. She officially began working in the voice acting industry three to four years after she started her career in acting. By her early twenties, Nomura would often show her face, and since the weather forecast ended at 8:00am, she was able to do other work like dubbing songs used in commercials, acting in television commercials, and dubbing for foreign films afterwards.
Personal life In 1973, Nomura married
Kenji Utsumi. She met Utsumi while she was on
Speed Racer and their wedding ceremony took place at a white church in
Hawaii, USA, with
Tadashi Nakamura and his wife serving as their matchmakers. They were married for nearly 40 years until his death in 2013.
Appearing in popular anime In 1976, Nomura was selected to replace Yoshiko Yamamoto as the voice of Wakame Isono in
Sazae-san. In 1978, Nomura was selected to voice
Nobita's love interest and closest friend
Shizuka Minamoto in
Doraemon, which premiered in April the following year. Both Wakame and Shizuka were well known characters, so Nomura's voice became widely known with Japanese audiences. In regards to voicing both iconic characters, she once said, "Wakame-chan in "
Sazae-san" was a difficult role. If you make it too much, it will stand out, and if you only act naturally, it won't sound childish, so you also need to be cute. The more I did it, the more difficult it felt. I wonder if Shizuka's voice was a good match. It was a role I was good at, so it was easy to play, and I was able to really dig deep and show various sides. Someone was surprised the other day and asked me "Wakame-chan and Shizuka-chan were the same voice actor?" As a voice actor, I was like, "I did it!"" After Nomura had previously worked with the Sannoh Theatre Company, Kindai Gekijo Theatre Company,
Tokyo Actor's Consumer's Cooperative Society, T.A.P. and
Aoni Production, she joined her husband's company
Ken Production in 1984 in order to help operations. At the time, there were only seven people in the company and they were called the "Seven Samurai". In 2005, Nomura decided to step down from the role of Wakame on
Sazae-san in order to focus on production work. Around the same time, she also stepped down from the role of Shizuka on
Doraemon due to the anime's transition to a reboot with a new voice cast. She was succeeded by
Makoto Tsumura (
Sazae-san) and
Yumi Kakazu (
Doraemon) that same year.
Current activity In 2005, she received the Rikiya Tayama Award at the 14th
Japan Movie Critics Awards along her
Doraemon co-stars
Nobuyo Ōyama,
Noriko Ohara,
Kazuya Tatekabe, and
Kaneta Kimotsuki. In November 2006, she won a special award at the 11th
Animation Kobe alongside the other four. In March 2007, she received the 3rd Achievement Award at the
Tokyo International Anime Fair 2007 alongside the other four. In 2009, Nomura voiced the Disemboweled Tiger in
Kämpfer, her first anime voice acting role in the four years since leaving
Doraemon and
Sazae-san. In the first episode, Nomura herself appears in a magazine alongside co-star
Yukari Tamura and in the eleventh episode, she co-stars alongside her husband
Kenji Utsumi as a married couple for the first time in years. In 2016, at the 10th
Seiyuu Awards, Nomura received the Lifetime Achievement Award alongside
Sachiko Chijimatsu and
Tadashi Nakamura. In 2023, she received the Commissioner for Cultural Affairs' Award. ==Personality/Characteristics==