Maaya Sakamoto (坂本 真綾, Sakamoto Maaya, born March 31, 1980) is a Japanese actress, voice actress and singer. She made her debut as a voice actress in 1992 as the voice of Chifuru in Little Twins, but is better known as voice of Hitomi Kanzaki in The Vision of Escaflowne. Other major roles in anime include Riho Yamazaki in Nightwalker: The Midnight Detective, Moe Katsuragi in Risky Safety, Princess Tomoyo in Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, Haruhi Fujioka in Ouran High School Host Club, Sayaka Nakasugi in Birdy the Mighty, Ciel Phantomhive in Black Butler, Shinobu Oshino in Monogatari, Merlin in The Seven Deadly Sins, Shiki Ryōgi in The Garden of Sinners film series, Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell: Arise, Quinella in Sword Art Online, Ruler in Fate/Apocrypha, Echidna in Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World, and Tamayo in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.
In the Japanese localization of overseas dubs, she has voiced Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars films and series, as well as performing the dub voice for Natalie Portman in numerous films.
In video games she voices Aura and Natsume in .hack, Lisa Hamilton / La Mariposa in Dead or Alive, Maki Harukawa in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, Aerith Gainsborough in Kingdom Hearts and the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Aigis in Persona 3, Lightning in the Final Fantasy XIII games, Ling Xiaoyu in Tekken, and Alisa Ilinichina Amiella in God Eater.
As a singer, she has performed songs in both English and Japanese. She released her debut single "Yakusoku wa Iranai" in collaboration with Yoko Kanno under Victor Entertainment on April 24, 1996. Her singles "Tune the Rainbow", "Loop", "Ame ga Furu", and "Triangler" have all reached the top 10 Oricon singles chart: "Triangler" in particular charted at number 3 and remained charting for 26 weeks. Her albums have had similar success, with Shōnen Alice and Yūnagi Loop both reaching the top 10 Oricon albums chart; and her album You Can't Catch Me, released on January 12, 2011, became her first release to ever reach number 1. She held a concert at the Nippon Budokan on March 31, 2010, her thirtieth birthday.