[SIZE="5"]5. Sakamoto Maaya (坂本真綾)[/SIZE]
Now here's a name that I'm pretty sure everyone here is familiar with. Much like Mizuki Nana, she's an incredibly popular singer in addition to being a popular seiyuu. I'd imagine even among people who prefer dubs, she's well known because of the glut of anison she's done.
She essentially got her singing and seiyuu start going with Escaflowne, performing both the OP, Yakusoku wa Iranai, and the main character, Hitomi. As someone who's more familiar with her later works and watching Escaflowne for the first time a few weeks ago, I was struck by how young she sounded in Escaflowne. And I guess from that you could extrapolate that she's kind of a big deal now.
As for her voice itself, I think that it has a fairly narrow range. What's surprising is how different she can make each of her characters sound with that range. For instance, Crona from Soul Eater is a very insecure, emotionally unstable character with low self-esteem, while Haruhi from Ouran is a very blunt and deadpan character. You even have her doing similar characters who still have minor differences in personality that you can tell from her voice. Mari from Eva 2.0 and Shiki from Kara no Kyoukai are both people who enjoy killing and combat, but one enjoys it like it's a game, full of excitement, while the other is near emotionless and much more subdued.
I mentioned that she's also done a ton of anison. In addition to Escaflowne, she's done songs for Cardcaptor Sakura, RahXephon, Wolf's Rain, Tsubasa Chronicle, Macross F, and Kobato. In fact, in May 2008, she became the first seiyuu to chart on the Oricon Top 10 for four consecutive weeks with Triangler (KIIIIIIIIIIIIIMI WA DARE TO KISU WO SURU), the first OP for Macross Frontier. It's interesting to note that she's worked with Yoko Kanno for the majority of her earlier musical releases.
So what's she been up to recently? Well, in the last year or two, she's had some anison pushed out with Triangler for Macross F and Magic Number for Kobato. Her major defining role of the last few years has been as Ryougi Shiki in Kara no Kyoukai. She's also landed a pretty major role as Mari Illustrious Makinami, the new character in Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0: YOU CAN (NOT) ADVANCE. And she's been showing up as leads in smaller shows like Arakawa Under the Bridge and The Tatami Galaxy.
Major RolesArakawa Under the Bridge - Nino
Kuroshitsuji - Ciel Phantomhive
Canaan - Alphard
Death Note - Kiyomi Takada
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny - Lunamaria Hawke
Ouran High School Host Club - Haruhi Fujioka
RahXephon - Reika Mishima
Soul Eater - Crona
The Vision of Escaflowne - Hitomi Kanzaki
The Tatami Galaxy - Akashi
Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance - Mari Illustrious Makinami
Kara no Kyoukai: The Garden of Sinners - Shiki Ryougi
