Early life
Born in Tokyo in 1977, Imai moved from Shibuya to Tokuyama City (currently Shūnan City) in Yamaguchi Prefecture, when she was eight years old. However, it is stated in her official profile that she was born in Yamaguchi Prefecture. She has stated that she graduated from Tokuyama High School, was vagabond for around a year, before entering Meiji University's School of Arts and Letters, majoring in Drama and Theatre Arts.
In late April 2020, she uploaded her Youtube channel.
Career
In 1998, Imai won the Grand Prize for the Voice Actress category at the ENIX Anime Awards (エニックスアニメ大賞) while she was still studying. Subsequently, she debuted in the following year in the drama CD Toki no Daichi〜Hana no Ōkoku no Majo〜. In 2001, she was chosen as an assistant of the radio show, Tomokazu・Miki's Radio Big Bang.
At one point of time in 2006, Imai once thought of giving up her job as a voice actress, but could not bear to leave the voice acting of her role as Chihaya Kisaragi in The Idolmaster to others.
Imai left her agency ArtsVision on April 5, 2007. She then free-lanced under the agency Kaleidoscope for 7 months.
On April 22, 2009, Imai released her first major debut single, "Day by Day / Shining Blue Rain" under the 5pb. Records label. In the same year, she transferred to her current agency, Early Wing on December 1.
She landed her first lead role as Kiiko Kawakami in the OVA Kuttsukiboshi in 2010. As she began expanding her singing career, she held her first solo live concert on December 25, 2010, and has since held concerts around the period of her birthday in May, as well as December.
On April 18, 2012, Imai was awarded the Best Female Character Voice award at the Famitsu Awards in 2011.
Imai is one of two members of the musical duo Artery Vein, along with Eri Kitamura. The unit mainly performs theme songs for the Corpse Party series. Imai's song "World-Line" is used as the second ending theme to the 2018 anime series Steins;Gate 0. Her song "Believe in Sky" was used as the opening theme to the 2019 anime series Pastel Memories.
