Maaya Sakamoto

In "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba" (studio Ufotable), Sakamoto provides the Japanese voice of Tamayo, a demon who allies herself with the protagonists. The part adds to an unusually broad résumé of anime performances she has built since the early 1990s, when she first stepped behind the microphone. By the time she joined the production she was already among the most recognized voices in the medium, having lent her talents to leading and supporting characters across dozens of series, including Haruhi Fujioka in Ouran High School Host Club, Ciel Phantomhive in Black Butler, Shinobu Oshino in the Monogatari franchise, Merlin in The Seven Deadly Sins, and Echidna in Re:Zero. Tamayo therefore sits within a career defined by range, from heroic figures to morally complex roles such as the demon she portrays here.

Sakamoto made her voice acting debut in 1992 as Chifuru in Little Twins, then earned wider attention as Hitomi Kanzaki in The Vision of Escaflowne. Her later anime credits span a remarkable spread of titles, among them Leila Malcal in Code Geass: Akito the Exiled, Jeanne d'Arc in Fate/Apocrypha, Shiki Ryōgi in The Garden of Sinners, Eto in Tokyo Ghoul, Princess Tomoyo in Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, Lunamaria Hawke in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell: Arise, and Quinella in the third season of Sword Art Online. She is also a prolific dubbing artist for the Japanese versions of foreign films, voicing Padmé Amidala throughout the Star Wars saga and serving as the regular dub voice for actress Natalie Portman. In video games she has played Aerith Gainsborough in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Aigis in Persona 3, Lightning in the Final Fantasy XIII titles, Ling Xiaoyu in Tekken, and Maki Harukawa in Danganronpa V3.

Alongside her acting, Sakamoto has sustained a successful music career singing in both Japanese and English. She launched it with the single "Yakusoku wa Iranai" in collaboration with composer Yoko Kanno, released under Victor Entertainment on April 24, 1996. Several of her singles reached the top ten of the Oricon chart, including "Tune the Rainbow," "Loop," "Ame ga Furu," and "Triangler"; the last of these peaked at number three and stayed on the chart for twenty-six weeks. Her albums have fared comparably well, with Shōnen Alice and Yūnagi Loop both entering the top ten, while You Can't Catch Me, issued on January 12, 2011, became her first release to top the chart. She marked her thirtieth birthday with a concert at the Nippon Budokan.