Maaya Sakamoto Voice Actress

Maaya Sakamoto (born March 31, 1980) played the role of Mari Makinami Illustrious, an Evangelion pilot and third party operative that was first introduced in the 2nd installment of the Evangelion Rebuild movie series, ‘Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (not) Advance’ in 2009. She also had the same role in the following movie, ‘Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (not) Redo’ and will also play Mari in the up-and-coming installment of the series in 2020 ‘Evangelion 3.0+1.0’.

Start of Career

Maaya Sakamoto is one of the top voice actresses in Japan and has also established herself as an acclaimed singer and actress.

She started her voice acting career at a very early age, featuring as ‘Chifuru’ in “Little Twins” at the age of 12. Soon after, she became a renowned star at the age of 16, when she voiced ‘Hitomi Kanzaki’ in the anime series ‘The Vision of Escaflowne’ in 1996. In the same series, she also sang the opening song, ‘Yakusoku wa Iranai’ marking her solo singing debut. The popular composer Yoko Kanno was the producer of this song and this was the start to a long-term relationship resulting in many collaborations in the future.

In addition to her roles as Mari Makinami Illustrious, she is also very famous for being the voice behind, ‘Kiyomi Takada’ in ‘Death Note’ and for voicing ‘Lunamaria Hawke’ in ‘Gundam Seed Destiny’.

Achieving Fame

During the same time when she got her first break, Sakamoto started to write lyrics for her own songs. She released her first album ‘Grapefruit’ with Kanno on April 23, 1997. It was the first of four records that Sakamoto released. The majority in which Kanno had a hand in the production. Kanno and her music crew had a lot of influence in her music career, to the point where she was working with Kanno exclusively for nearly a decade.

In addition to her solo songs, she performed the theme songs for a variety of different anime series. Including, Clamp School Detectives (1997), Record of Lodoss War (1998), and Cardcapter Sakura (1999).

To add to her singing and voice acting career, Sakamoto also debuted as a radio host and was the presenter in her own radio program titled ‘Sakamoto Maaya no Naisho-banashi’ in October 1996.

Sakamoto has remained in the voice acting industry since the beginning of her career but she started to take lesser roles in order to complete a higher education. She graduated with a major in Sociology from Tokyo University in 2002.

Video Game Roles

Sakamoto had a successful career in video game characters roles. Some of the most significant roles include voice overs in the Final Fantasy franchise. She started with the franchise playing the voice of ‘Aerith Gainsborough’ in the popular Final Fantasy 7 game. Then in 2009, she was chosen to be the main character, ‘Lightning’ in the Final Fantasy 13 game.

Acting Career

In 2003, Sakamoto started her career as a theatre actress. Her first main role was Éponine in the Japanese version of the musical ‘Les Misérables’. In the same year, she made her drama debut in the TV drama, ‘Suekko Chouan Ane San-nin’. Also she was given the lead role in the short file ‘03†’ directed by Hidenori Sugimori.

Music Career

In 2003, Sakamoto released her fourth and last album ‘Shonen Alice’ that was exclusively produced by Yoko Kanno. This was the last album between the pair as Sakamoto broke the alliance in order to have more creative freedom and control in her singing career. The album ‘Shonen Alice’ was the first of her albums to make the Top 10 in the Oricon charts.

Two years later in 2005, she released her fifth album, the first without Yoko Kanno, called ‘Yunagi Loop’. Co-produced with Mitsuyoshi Tamura, she continued to work with him on her future albums. The album’s main single ‘Loop’ was the ending theme for the TV anime series ‘Tsubasa Chronicle’. Ranking 7th in the Oricon charts, it became her highest chart ranking at the time.

Reunion with Yoko Kanno

In 2008, Sakamoto reunited with Yoko Kanno for her 15th single,’Triangler’ that was the opening theme for the TV anime series ‘Macross Frontier’. It was an instant hit and reached the Top 3 single in the Oricon charts. It also became her best-selling single, with more than 90,000 copies sold. She included the song later in her sixth album, ‘Kazeyomi’, released in January 2009. The song received a lot of public interest and peaked within the Top 3. In order to promote the album, she went on her first national tour that went around Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. She then released the tour as her first live DVD on August 11, 2011.

First Spot at Oricon

In 2010, Maaya Sakamoto released her greatest album ‘Everywhere’ on March 31 to celebrate her 30th birthday and also her 15th anniversary in the entertainment industry. In 2011, she released her seventh album ‘You Can’t Catch Me’ which became her first album to secure the top spot in Oricon Charts.

Marriage

Maaya Sakamoto got married to her fellow voice actor and co-star Kenichi Suzumara on August 8, 2011.

Links

Maaya Sakamoto Official Website
[All Music Biography] (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/maaya-sakamoto-mn0000895854/biography
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