Chika Sakamoto

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Chika Sakamoto (坂本 千夏 Sakamoto Chika, alternatively translated as Sakamoto Chinatsu, born August 17, 1959) is a seiyū and J-pop singer who was born in Tokyo.

Chika usually gives voice to characters who are gender-benders of some flavour or another. For example, she voices Fushigi Yūgi's Nuriko and Here is Greenwood's Shun. While both are popular, her work for Fushigi Yūgi is what gained her the most popularity. She released a CD-single for this character which stayed in the top 10 charts. This was the first time for an anime single.

A young, anime-watching Sakamoto sang along to the opening themes of her favorite series when they came on TV and mimicked the characters' voices. "I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher or a young lady who sings and dances on childrens television shows, or maybe I could be a voice actor," Sakamoto said. In junior high school she started to take voice acting lessons. "I thought I had a good voice, but my friends kept telling me I had a weird voice, over and over again - so that germ of a dream blossomed inside me, saying "Maybe I can become a voice actress with the quality of voice I have." Following high school, Sakamoto went to a drama school and spent two years training in theatrical arts, not voice acting. She was too shy to tell her instructors she wanted to be a voice actor, until the two years were up and she wasn't chosen for the theater troupe linked to the school. "When the principal asked me what I wanted to do, I said in a timid voice I wanted to be a voice actor. The principal said "Why didn't you say that?" and I found myself a member of a production group before I knew it."

Sakamoto's best-known character with Animazement fans was Nuriko from Fushigi Yūgi. "Among all the Fushigi Yuugi characters, I could tell that Nuriko had a free lifestyle and a free will, and I could tell Yuu Watase's love for the character, and that the animators love him and breathed life into him," Sakamoto said at an interview session. "It was great to be cast in the role that was beloved by all of the production people." Sakamoto had to grow into the Nuriko role by reading Watase's manga, something she hadn't done until after she was cast as Nuriko (and she apologized to Watase at the interview session for not reading Fushigi Yūgi until after she got the role). "Sometimes I might have the opportuniy to prepare for my roles when I go through an auditon, but usually the results of those efforts aren't too rewarding. Or successfully, I look at the character's background and find something that clicks with me about the character; that's when I get into the role. But when I'm cast as a character, I do have a repsonsibility to give life to the character. If it's not given, I speculate about the character's background and things like the character's favorite foods." [1]

[edit] Trivia

She does the voice of Angelica Pickles in the Japanese dubbed version of Rugrats.

Appeared in Durham, North Carolina at Animazement Convention in May 2004 and May 2005.

[edit] Notable voice roles

[edit] External links

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