Maaya Sakamoto - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Born in Tokyo, Sakamoto grew up within a family of her parents and her older brother. Her leading role she was given was Chihuru in the 1993 OVA Little Twins, but the one that gave her more recognition was the one of Hitomi Zanzaki in the TV anime series The Vision of Escaflowne in 1996. In this anime she also made her debut as a singer under the production of Yoko Kanno, who was in charge of the soundtrack of the same anime. Her first single, "Yakusoku wa Iranai", was used as the anime's opening theme and released on April 24, 1996. From then, she would start singing music for several anime series she would be working on as a voice actress, with its production being exclusively in charge of Yoko Kanno and her music crew, which includes a selected number of lyricists and composers, as Yūho Iwasato, Gabriela Robin, Shanti Snyder, Tim Jensen and a few others. For her singing career she would be working almost exclusively with Yoko Kanno for almost a decade. In October 1996 she began her first radio program on Nack 5, becoming a radio personality. Her first album, entitled Grapefruit, was released on April 23, 1997.

In 2003 she made her debut as an actress in the Japanese version of Les Misérables, in which she played Éponine. She starred the TV drama Suekko Chnan Ane San-nin, and also played the leading role in the short film 03+. This year also, her single "Tune the Rainbow" became her first Top 10 single in Japan, peaking at number 9 in the Oricon weekly charts. On October 12 of this same year, Sakamoto's fourth album Shōnen Alice was released. This became her first Top 10 album, and also her last one to be produced exclusively by Yoko Kanno, for after this she would start to become more involved in the music making process and the production of her records. Thus, Yūnagi Loop, her fifth album released on October 26, 2005, was co-produced by herself and musician Mistuyoshi Tamura, whom she would continue working in her subsequent records. The album's lead single "Loop" peaked at number seven in the Japanese charts, becoming her highest chart peaking single at that time.

In 2008, She and Kanno worked together and reunited for making "Triangler", song that was used as opening theme for the TV anime series Macross Frontier. "Triangler" was a massive success, becoming a Top 3 single in the Oricon charts, and also her biggest selling single to date. The song was later included in Sakamoto's sixth album, Kazeyomi, which was released January 2009. For promoting this album, Sakamoto began her first low-scale national tour, on which she held a three concerts at the Nagoya City Art Theatre, the Osaka Welfare Pension Hall and the Tokyo International Forum. The tour was later released as her first live DVD on August 11, 2011.

In 2010, she celebrated her 15th anniversary in the industry releasing the greatest hits album Everywhere, and also giving a concert at the Nippon Budokan both on March 31, the day of her 30th birthday. In 2011, her seventh album You Can't Catch Me became the first number one record of her career in Japan.