Rikako Aida

Rikako Aida was born on August 8, 1992 in Tokyo Prefecture, Japan. She has used a variety of stage names, switching out her family name with Momoi (桃井) & Itou (伊藤). Her nickname is "Rikyako". She voices Riko Sakurauchi, one of the main characters in Love Live! Sunshine!!.

Her image color during concerts is sakura pink. Her call-and-response is "Biichi, Sukecchi" to which the audience replies "Sakurauchi!", after which she asks "Suki na tabemono wa?" ([Her] favorite food is?), and is finished with the audience replying "Sandwich!". After the appearance of Riko Sakurauchi's signature line "Riko-chan beam!" in Episode 2 of the second season of the anime, Rikako occassionally uses it as part of her call and response.

Background
Rikako Aida's family consists of her parents and herself. She owns a dog named Koushi.

As a student, she was more concerned with her hobbies.

Her childhood dream was to be a singer, and she idolized ever since she was young. She also liked  since childhood and her favorite character is Sailor Venus, also known as Aino Minako. She has liked Sailor Moon until now and has merchandise of the series. She said that she used to dress up as Sailor Moon at an age as young as 6 years old.

In high school, upon watching a certain anime, she thought that it would be nice if she could voice act as well. She realized that becoming a voice actress would not be easy, so she started giving it her all to become one.

Before becoming a voice actress, she acted in movies and stage plays.

Her current agency is Ken Production.

Personality
Being an only child, Rikako gets envious of people who have siblings. She always played with dolls, origami,, and simple games such as. But if she were to have siblings, she would play with them.

She appears to be an indoor-type of person. She has a weakness towards insects and painful things such as injections. She describes herself as a sloppy person who does not mind minor details much. Her room is extremely tidy and is filled with lots of PET bottles.

Hobbies & Skills
She is working hard at making cooking one of her talents and specializes in egg dishes. Her specialty dish is tomato curry. She likes mango-flavored food and sour food. She drinks liquor in moderate amounts, and she likes a drink called which often contains alcohol. Her favorite ice cream is. Her favorite fruits are pineapple, peach and grapes.

Her favorite school subjects are arts and crafts, and music. She dislikes other subjects. Her interest in art seemed to continue from her childhood. She usually scored around fourth place in art class. Despite these bold claims it is evident she lacks artistic talent in certain areas - however she actually said she has never looked at any of her drawings and thought they were bad despite even her manager acknowledging her art was horrifying. Her infamous elephant can be seen in a second year panel where Shuka even states that it is scary while the staff laugh. Rikako herself seems to to be grinning and smile whilst hiding herself a little behind the sketch pad.

Her talents include speaking English and playing the guitar. She also claims to be good at table tennis. She has taken Judo lessons as well.

Her ability to speak English might have been due to the fact that she lived in Pasadena, California (a nearby suburb of Los Angeles) for three years. Rikako says that she feels as if she’s forgotten most of her English; she can follow movies but struggles with real life conversations. She can read, write and understand English however speaking it is a bit difficult. According to Anime Expo reports, her English pronunciation is said to be pretty good. There is also a video of her describing Riko in English floating around the internet.

Besides Los Angeles, she has gone to South Korea as well. She had said that if she was to go on an outing, her ideal place for it would be Los Angeles and New York. A country she wants to visit is France.

She likes a television series called  and her favorite movie genres are mystery or suspense. She likes the character named from .

She idolizes fellow voice actress and voice actor.

Marugoto Rikako
Marugoto Rikako is a radio and talk show hosted by Aida Rikako herself. Marugoto Rikako translates to “All About Rikako” and is indeed what the show is about! She begins with an opening and reads fan mail for the first half of the episode, and then completes a challenge for the second half. She states in episode one that she came up with the logo and the title herself which she is quite proud of.

Interviews

 * For a collection of translated interviews and videos, please refer to Translated Voice Actress Content.

Health issues
On November 25, 2022, Rikako tested positive for COVID-19.

Etymology

 * The name Rikako means "pear" (梨) (ri), "fragrance, fragrant" (香) (ka) and "child" (子) (ko).
 * Rikako's surname Aida means "meeting, tryst, date, rendezvous" (逢) (ai) and "field, rice paddy" (田) (ta/da).

Trivia

 * Her favorite Aqours character is Yoshiko Tsushima.
 * Her favorite part of the "Kimi no Kokoro wa Kagayaiteru kai?" PV is when Riko and Chika Takami cuddle in the bus at the end.
 * She believes in ghosts.
 * In an amusement park, her favorite ride is the roller coaster.
 * She is the oldest in the group.
 * Her favorite Disney character is Alice. (From Alice in Wonderland).
 * During her appearance on Kane-Tomo Seiyuu Laboratory, Rikako is interrogated and asked about information sent in by those close to her - in this case her mother. It is revealed that she actually sleeps with her eyes open. She claims to close them when she goes to sleep and they somehow open afterwards.
 * Rikako admitted herself that she used to get into intense fights with her mother probably due to their smaller than usual age gap and she said that hair-pulling was even involved.
 * The choice to do Judo was not her own. Rikako says her mother took her into a dojo one day without warning.
 * Her favorite move in Judo is tripping her opponent's leg and then sweeping their other leg so they lose balance and fall on their backs. She demonstrates this maneuver in her episode of Kane-Tomo Seiyuu Laboratory on Kaneda.
 * Due to living in LA for three years, upon returning to Japan Rikako found herself forgetting her schoolbag because she never needed to take one with her whilst in America. She forgot it consistently for a week and a half before finally managing to correct herself.
 * Her favorite food is umeboshi (pickled plums!). Arisa Komiya and Aina Suzuki mention during UraRaji Episode 15 that Rikako has a ridiculous plum intake and could probably be lured away by ume the same way Ruby was baited with candy by Chika in the anime. They state that before a live performance, Rikako absolutely annihilated a packet of umeboshi backstage in no time at all, leaving Arisa very concerned since it has a high salt content.
 * Rikako also made her debut in the Gundam franchise (also animated by Sunrise) as a young Chall Acustica, a character from Mobile Suit Gundam 00P debuting in SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays as a voiced character. She is also the second voice actress to be featured in the Gundam franchise since Kubo Yurika, who voiced Eco Turbine in Mobile Suit Gundam IRON-BLOODED ORPHANS.
 * Rikako is the fourteenth voice actress in the Love Live! franchise to be diagnosed with the coronavirus disease after Tomoyo Kurosawa (Tsuki Watanabe), Nako Misaki (Chisato Arashi), Moeka Koizumi (Shioriko Mifune), Miyu Kubota (Karin Asaka), Natsumi Murakami (Ai Miyashita), Akari Kito (Kanata Konoe), Sayuri Date (Kanon Shibuya), Aguri Onishi (Ayumu Uehara), Mayu Sagara (Kasumi Nakasu), Nagisa Aoyama (Ren Hazuki), Kaori Maeda (Shizuku Osaka), Riho Iida (Rin Hoshizora), and Hinaki Yano (Yu Takasaki).

Gallery

 * Please refer to this voice actress' Image Gallery.