Squeeee!!! Sakamoto is one of my top 3 favorite female seiyuu (voice actor/actress). As usual, I’ll list the roles first. But she’s been in tons of anime, so for simplicity’s sake I will only list the roles that I have heard personally. Feel free to point out favorite roles of hers that you think of. After the list, I may include notes, my first time hearing the seiyuu, and my favorite role she played. Let’s get started then.

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Roles

(Arakawa Under The Bridge) Nino

(Black Butler franchise) Ciel Phantomhive

(Canaan) Alphard Alshaya

(Carole and Tuesday) Crystal

(Code Geass: Akito The Exiled) Leila Malcal

(Cutie Honey Universe) Honey Kisaragi

(Danmachi) Artemis

(Death Note) Kiyomi Takada

(Escaflowne and Vision of Escaflowne) Hitomi Kanzaki

(Evangelion movies) Mari Illustrous Makinami

(Fate/Apocrypha) Ruler

(Fate/Grand Order) Leonardo Da Vinci

(Fruits Basket (2019)) Akito Sohma

(Ghost in the Shell) (movies and series) Motoko Kusanagi

(Hellsing Ultimate) Rip Van Winkle

(Kara no Kyoukai movies) (The Garden of Sinners) Shiki Ryougi

(Kimetsu no Yaiba) Tamayo

(Made In Abyss) Lyza

(Monogatari series) Shinobu Oshino

(Nanatsu no Taizai) (The Seven Deadly Sins) Merlin

(Ouran High School Host Club) Haruhi Fujioka

(Persona 3 movies) Aegis

(Psycho-Pass) Rikako Ouryou

(Re:Zero 2nd Season) Echidna

(Soul Eater) Crona

(Tokyo Ghoul Root A and Tokyo Ghoul Re) Eto

(Usagi Drop) Masako Yoshii

(Wolf’s Rain) Harmona

(Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei) (The Tatami Galaxy) Akashi

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Notes

Maaya Sakamoto is widely loved and recognized for her great talent and skill with voice-acting. One of her biggest earlier roles was “The Major” (Kusanagi) in Ghost in The Shell. She is also praised for her performances as Ciel in Black Butler. Miss Sakamoto has always set herself a bit apart with her unique-sounding voice, which she also uses in her music. She’s also “different” in the sense that she plays many strong or unusual female characters (such as Shiki and Haruhi) and does not rely on a purely feminine voice. Her roll as Ciel showed that she can play young boy characters excellently. There’s so much this seiyuu can do. I’m a huge fan.

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First Time Hearing

The first anime I ever watched all the way through was Wolf’s Rain. Miss Sakamoto plays the relatively minor character of Harmona, but even so, I was captivated by her voice at once. I never forgot that voice. I was pleased to encounter her again as Takada in Death Note and Haruhi in Ouran, the next two animes I watched. This season (Summer 2020), I’m greatly enjoying Sakamoto’s performance as Echidna in Re:Zero. So as you can see, my anime-watching history started off with this voice actress, and continues to follow her in modern anime as well.

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Favorite Role

My three favorite roles of Maaya Sakamoto are Haruhi Fujioka, Shiki Ryougi, and Crona. Haruhi might be the role that is dearest to my heart, but for our purposes, let’s pick Crona. I wanted to choose this character because of their interesting and one-of-a-kind nature. Despite Funimation’s infamous mistranslations, the sex or gender identity of Crona is never revealed in Soul Eater. Other refer to Crona as “aitsu/koitsu” which is similar to “they/them” in English. Maaya Sakamoto played this character well as someone who can use her acting to be feminine, masculine, and blends of both. Crona is an emotional and quirky character, and Sakamoto also delivers on these fronts, able to cry and scream convincingly.

With that, I’ll wrap things up. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you’ve learned a little something about Maaya Sakamoto. Enjoy your day!

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Other Posts in This Series:

Kana Hanazawa

Megumi Ogata

Yoko Hikasa

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PATREON