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Maaya Sakamoto

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Maaya Sakamoto is a famous artist from Japan. She is a voice actress and a singer. In Japan, people who act in cartoons are called seiyuu. Sakamoto uses her voice to make characters feel real. She has voiced many well-known characters in anime. You might know her as Haruhi Fujioka from Ouran High School Host Club. She also voices Ciel Phantomhive in Black Butler.

Sakamoto does much more than just act in cartoons. She is also a very successful singer. She sings songs in both Japanese and English. Many of her songs have reached the top of the music charts. Her song "Triangler" was a huge hit. It stayed on the charts for 26 weeks. Her album You Can't Catch Me even reached number one in 2011.

Her career began many years ago in Tokyo. She started working as a voice actress at a young age. Her first role was Chifuru in the 1992 anime Little Twins. In 1996, she became very famous for playing Hitomi Kanzaki. This was a leading role in The Vision of Escaflowne. She also sang the opening song for that show. This song was her very first single.

For a long time, Sakamoto worked with a composer named Yoko Kanno. Kanno helped make Sakamoto's early music. They worked together for almost ten years. Sakamoto also worked with a musician named Mistuyoshi Tamura. Later, she began to help make her own music too. This is called co-producing. She even wrote her own songs for her album Singer Song Writer.

Sakamoto has many different talents to share. She has acted in live theatre musicals. She even hosted her own show on the radio. She played the role of Éponine in a musical called Les Misérables. In video games, she voices characters like Aerith Gainsborough. She also voices Lightning in the Final Fantasy XIII games. Sakamoto graduated from Toyo University with a degree in sociology.

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