Sally Amaki

"I'm Sally Amaki, the overseas rep of 22/7. I'm not as sociable as people say, but I will do my best to become a great voice actor with my huge American size smile!" Sally Amaki was born on April 26, in Los Angeles, USA. Her nickname is "Tenchan". As a digital seiyuu idol in 22/7, Sally portrays Sakura Fujima via both voice acting and motion-capture physical acting.

Prior to the consent of using their names for voice roles, Sally went under the alias "Hi no Hikari."

Sally's image color is yellow.

Biography
Sally was born and raised in Los Angeles. Her parents are both Japanese but met and married in America. Her mother looked up to Madonna when she was young so she came to America. Her father left Japan not because he had a specific goal but rather he “wanted to see the world!” Sally has an older brother.

Sally first attended elementary school with many Asians and Asian-Americans, and talked with her classmates about anime like One Piece and Naruto. However, for Third grade, she transferred to a new school, and none of her new classmates liked anime. In order to fit in, she began watching American dramas even though she didn't really enjoy them. She also pretended that she couldn't speak Japanese and had no interest in Japan. She was upset every Sunday because she dreaded having to return to school each week. She often stayed home and avoided attending class.

In junior school Sally joined cheerleading.

One day, a teacher wrote her a letter and told her that she liked the Sally who is happy as herself.

At home, she began watching Gintama and listened to Gintama seiyuu Tomokazu Sugita (杉田 智和) on the radio. From him, she learned what a seiyuu was, reigniting her interest in anime.

Sally began cosplaying and attending Los Angeles' anime convention, Anime Expo. She made friends with people who liked her cosplay and shared her interests.

With new-found confidence, Sally decided to seriously pursue her dream of becoming a seiyuu. She wanted to move to Japan and study voice acting. One of her teachers told her to follow her dreams, but her parents would not allow her, and her older brother was also opposed. Undeterred, she made her own money by making study materials for tests and selling them.

Before moving to Japan, Sally went to a voice training institute with the goal of voicing a character designed by Yukiko Horiguchi. During this time she claims that she was very a impatient person.

Sally moved to Japan in September, 2015 by herself and auditioned for various roles, but she couldn’t speak Japanese perfectly at first and failed auditions because she could not use honorifics properly. Sally felt really down and thought she was going to fail, but one day she had a change of heart and decided that if she was going to fail anyway, she at least wanted give everything a shot first. In her auditions she was told that her photos were really plain, so she decided to include her cosplay photos when she applied for the 22/7 audition. She also spent about 2 months properly studying Japanese before auditioning for 22/7.

Sally often points out that she originally did not know 22/7 was an audition for a digital idol seiyuu, and instead thought it was just a seiyuu audition for an idol character.

The second stage of auditions was singing. Sally was the final person to sing in her group. Her peers had introduced themselves in a cute voice and sang in a cute voice as well. Sally decided that she would introduce herself in a cute voice, and then intentionally lower her voice, and sing with a deeper, boyish voice. She wanted to appeal with the gap and also to show off her voice range given that the role was also for voice acting.

The third stage of auditions was dancing. Although she could rely on her athleticism, she did not know the song she would dance to until the day before. When Sally found out the song, she realized she did not know the choreography. She tried to find a video of the song's choreography, but failed. She wound up focusing on self-expression and energetic appeal instead of perfect choreography.

She advanced to the final stage. Sally thought she wouldn't advance, so she thought of just quitting during the SHOWROOM selection. Ultimately, she was ranked third place.

Before the final audition, she was told not to show up in makeup and without styling her hair. So she showed up with bed hair and no makeup. When she arrived, she noticed the other candidates were actually wearing makeup, which confused her and she thought they told the candidates not to wear any make up, but the other girls told her she was right, but they decided to wear some anyway.

Her career began on 24 December 2016 upon successfully passing 22/7 auditions and joining the unit.

On October 2, 2017, a fan tweeted a video of clips showing Sally briefly speaking English during her SHOWROOM live streams. The video demonstrated that she was more than simply fluent in English, it showed that she is fluent in American culture. The tweet went viral, and was retweeted over 16,000 times. She obtained enough new English-speaking fans that she released an official statement.

Goals
Sally believes that anime has had a positive influence on her life and wants to contribute back to the fan community.

Sally has stated that one of her dreams is to return to AnimeExpo as a Guest once she has become an established seiyuu.

Besides being an idol seiyuu, Sally said that she also wants to be a comic artist or illustrator.

After graduating from idol work, Sally plans on moving to Canada or Singapore.

Seiyuu Influences

 * Tomokazu Sugita (杉田 智和)

Interests
Sally is a fan of K-Pop and has favorite members for most popular groups. Sally is also a fan of Vocaloid.

As a child, Sally was involved in figure skating.

Sally privately enjoys writing fan-fiction about various anime characters.

Sally owns a Nintendo Switch.

Her favorite Matsuno brothers in Osomatsu-san are Karamatsu and Jyushimatsu. She was once in a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Live! Love Live!] cosplay group with her friends. Her favorite member is Kotori Minami, and she also likes Maki Nishikino who she's cosplayed. Sally also likes Gintama, and especially likes the character Sakata Gintoki. Sally talks to Mei about Gintama. Not to forget, she loves Kuroo from Haikyuu and even called him her boyfriend once in her youtube video

Sally has also cosplayed as Mirai Kuriyama and also likes Ai Shindou from Kyoukai no Kanata. Sally also loves the anime [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-On! K-ON!].

Although she does not like guro movies or anime, she loves to read guro manga.

Sally likes occult and documentaries.

Quirks
Sally is trilingual in Japanese, Spanish and English. She often switches between English and Japanese during her Showroom live-streams.

On February 2018, she said that her current specialty was sleeping in class without getting caught. Sally's favorite thing is to be in the closet, because she has a sense of privacy and feels comfortable in there.

When Moe asked what deep-sea fish she would like to be friends with, Sally replied with a blobfish.

She claims to have "an odd interest in eggs."

Sally said her emoji is a koala because her face is shaped like one.

Sally owns a dog named Bell, which is coincidentally the same name as Uta's dog.

Behind the scenes
Sally is the overseas representative of 22/7. Mei, Ruri and Mizuha also say that Sally is 22/7's dance leader.

Alongside Mei and Reina, the three of them went to Anime Expo 2018 together.

When 22/7 was asked who the most father-like figure was in the group, it was voted Sally. She calls Kanae her older sister and Ruri her twin brother. Along with the two, the three of them went to Crunchyroll Expo 2019 together. Sally also appeared as a guest at Creators Super Fest 2019 in Jakarta, Indonesia on October 26 and 27, 2019.

Sally is friends with JKT48 member, Puti Nadhira Azalia.

On June 19, 2019, it had been announced that Sally had been diagnosed with social anxiety disorder by a doctor and was allowed to limit her appearances and activities with 22/7.

After Sally's months-long campaign for an individual official Twitter account, management granted her one on May 18, 2018. On May, 23, 2018, upon reaching 10,000 followers on Twitter, she acquired an Instagram account. She often responds to fans who reply to her and she has also been known to check her #天城サリー hashtag. On May 18, 2020, management granted her an individual official YouTube account.



Gallery
For more images of this voice actor please refer here.

Trivia

 * Sally's favorite 22/7 song is Chikatetsu Teikou Shugi.
 * Sally has also mentioned that another one of her favorite group songs is Bokura no Kankyou.
 * She also likes Tonbo no Kimochi.
 * Sally has bad eye sight and wears contacts.
 * Sally wears different contacts for different occasions.
 * After Ruri's Gradutation, Sally is currently the tallest member of the group.
 * On November 28, 2019, Sally claimed that she had shrunk 0.5cm (165.5cm to 165cm) since her last health check up.
 * When asked what 22/7 character Sally would portray besides her own, she replied with Akane Maruyama due to her being the opposite to her own character, Sakura Fujima.
 * During the auditioning process for 22/7's lineup, Sally, Aina, Reina, and Urara were in the same audition group.