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Voice Actress Izumi Kitta to Study Abroad for 1 Year in Great Britain

Voice actress Izumi Kitta revealed on her official blog on Thursday that she will study abroad in Great Britain for one year beginning in June. Kitta noted that Great Britain is the home of Sherlock Holmes, the character that inspired the Project Milky Holmes multimedia franchise she was involved with.

Kitta said she hopes to broaden her experiences and grow as a person. She wants to "power up" both her voice-actor and personal lives. Kitta will continue to appear at events in the months leading up to her departure.

The Project Milky Holmes multimedia franchise's idol unit — composed of Kitta, Suzuko Mimori, Sora Tokui, and Mikoi Sasaki — held their final performance at Tokyo's Nippon Budōkan arena on Monday. The group disbanded as of the concert.

Project Milky Holmes began in February 2009, and Mimori, Tokui, and Kitta started a radio show in December 2009. The franchise then branched into anime, games, manga, and novels in the following year. The four main voice actresses (with the addition of Sasaki after auditions) played young female detectives named after famous characters in mystery literature. The voice actresses formed a unit in February 2010 and made their singing debut in June 2010. They performed at the famed Nippon Budōkan venue in December 2012 and appeared in overseas events.

The franchise has inspired four Detective Opera Milky Holmes television anime series and several anime specials. An anime film opened in Japan in February 2016, and the most recent special aired that New Year's Eve.

According to the project's website, the staff had vowed from the beginning to last a decade. The unit originally planned to hold the final concert in Yokohama, the real-life setting of the anime's story.

Source: Izumi Kitta's blog