Sally Amaki is an American singer and voice actress based in Tokyo, Japan. She is a member of the voice acting idol group22/7 which debuted in 2017 and is the group's "overseas representative." Within the group, she appears both as herself and as the animated character Sakura Fujima, for whom she provides the voice and motion capture.
Career
In 2016, Amaki moved from Los Angeles to Japan by herself to pursue voice acting, as she felt that anime brought a positive influence on her life and wanted to contribute back. She took and failed many auditions, in part due to her limited Japanese proficiency, until in December 2016, she successfully auditioned for Yasushi Akimoto's idol and anime girl group project, later named 22/7, despite her reluctance to become an idol in addition to becoming a voice actress. Since the group's introduction, Amaki has attracted an international audience after a montage of her joking around in English went viral on Twitter. After noticing Amaki had drawn in a large overseas fanbase, her character was rewritten as an English speaker. In May 2018, she and several other members of 22/7 have started their official Twitter accounts, where Amaki posts tweets in both English and Japanese. In June 2018, she became involved in 22/7's virtual YouTube marketing campaign as Sakura Fujima. In July 2018, Amaki and fellow members Mei Hanakawa and Reina Miyase appeared at Anime Expo 2018 in Los Angeles. On June 19, 2019, Amaki revealed that she has suffered from social anxiety disorder since she joined the group and announced that she would be absent from handshake events while receiving treatment.
Personal life
Both of Amaki's parents are Japanese who emigrated to Los Angeles and met and got married there, which makes her a second generationJapanese American. She has an older brother. Prior to moving to Japan, Amaki had trained in ballet and ice skating, the latter with the late Olympic figure skaterDenis Ten. Her first language is English and in addition to Japanese, she also speaks some French and Spanish. Amaki is a supporter for LGBT rights.
