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Born on March 31 1980 in Itabashi, Tokyo, Japanese singer and voice actor Maaya Sakamoto first came to national prominence at the age of 16, starring as Hitomi Kanzaki in the TV anime series Vision of Escaflowne. The bilingual singer—who sings in both English and Japanese has been featured as the voice of Padmé Amidala in the Japanese dub versions of Star Wars: Episode I, II, and III as well as performing the dub voice of Natalie Portman in various films—released her debut single "Yakusoku wa Iranai" in collaboration with Yoko Kanno under Victor Entertainment in April 1996. She cracked the Oricon top ten with subsequent singles "Tune the Rainbow" (2003), which was used as the ending theme for anime television movie RahXephon: Pluralitas Concentio, "Loop" (2005), which was used as the ending theme for the first season of Tsubasa Chronicle, "Ame ga Furu" (2008), which was used as the ending theme for the mecha anime Linebarrels of Iron, and "Triangler," which was used as the opening theme for the mecha anime Macross Frontier. "Triangler" reached number 3 on Japan's Oricon weekly chart and became Maaya Sakamoto's best-selling single at the time. Her albums have also fared well on the charts, with Shōnen Alice (2003) and Yūnagi Loop (2005) both reaching the top 10 on the Oricon album chart. 2011's You Can't Catch Me became her first album to go to number one, and she spent the next two decades building on her vast repertoire of J-pop, film roles and anime theme tunes, peaking at number 11 with 2019 album Kyo Dake no Ongaku and reaching number 14 with the Duets mini-album in 2021. In 2023, she released the single "Mada Tōku ni Iru / un_mute" for The Fire Hunter / Revenge anime TV series.
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