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Monica Jean Rial (born in Houston, Texas) is an American voice actress, ADR director, and scriptwriter who works for Funimation and ADV Films.
Biography[]
Monica Jean Rial was born on October 5, 1975, in Houston, Texas. When she was young, her family would often visit Spain. She would translate for her younger brother some of the European Spanish-dubbed cartoons, which included anime shows Doraemon and Dragon Ball Z, often imitating the various characters. Rial studied ballet, tap, and jazz, but transitioned to musical theater when she was 12. She studied acting through high school as well as college at the University of Houston. In an interview with Otaku News, Rial mentioned voice actor inspirations from The Simpsons, Family Guy and Beavis and Butt-head.
Her first voice-over role was some walla in the 1999 dub of Martian Successor Nadesico. In an interview with Otaku News, Rial said she had to talk for two minutes straight as folks in a crowd telling the Jovians to go home. She would later land main character roles as Miharu in Gasaraki, Natsume in Generator Gawl, and Hello Kitty in Hello Kitty's Animation Theater, the last of which was one of ADV's best-selling DVDs. In 2001, she voiced Izumi in the baseball anime Princess Nine and in 2002, she got to voice Hyatt in Excel Saga, which she listed among her absolute favorites.
In 2009, Rial began voicing Bulma in Dragon Ball Z Kai, Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and Dragon Ball Super replacing Tiffany Vollmer since 2010, Oracle Fish in Battle of Gods, and casted as the same roles in Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’ as well as Coco in Dragon Ball Z: Broly - Second Coming
She is also a writer for Funimation and ADV Films, and usually writes under the pen names Dorothy Garrett and Lisa Blanchard.
Personal life[]
Monica's father, Manuel Ray, is from Spain and she has two other siblings, Miguel Angel (born March 1, 1984) and Natalie Michele (born January 29, 1996), who the latter is also a voice actress as her. Her mother, Donna Boyd Jean Rial, passed away from cancer on February 29, 2024.
She is engaged to Dallas-based real estate agent, Ron Toye III. Rial formerly dated Illich Guardiola in the 1990s.
Filmography[]
TV and OVA[]
- A Certain Magical Index - Index
- Beyond the Boundary - Mitsuki Nase
- Call of the Night - Nico Hirata
- Chained Soldier - Sahara Wakasa
- Dragon Ball - Bulma (2009 to present)
- Fairy Tail - Mirajane Strauss
- Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions - Kuzuha Togashi
- Mitsuboshi Colors - Sat-chan
- My Hero Academia - Tsuyu Asui
- NAKAIMO - My little sister is among them! - Konoe Tsuruma
- Shimoneta: A Boring World Where the Concept of Dirty Jokes Doesn't Exist - Anna Nishikinomiya
- The Demon Girl Next Door - Yuko Yoshida
- The Saga of Tanya the Evil - Tanya von Degurechaff
- Tonari no Seki-kun: The Master of Killing Time - Rumi Yokoi
Trivia[]
- Monica and Natalie had provided the leads in the Fall 2022 anime series provided by Sentai Filmworks as Vermeil in Vermeil in Gold and Nazuna Nanakusa in Call of the Night respectively although Monica has voiced Nico Hirata.
- She and Jamie Marchi run a two episode podcast entitled We Will Be in Touch, which covered the Mignogna case throughout 2019.