Mai Nakahara
Mai Nakahara is an actor, born 1981.
Nakahara is a voice actress with I'm Enterprise who also sings, and in her case that is not a footnote. She performed theme songs for several of the series she led, and some of those records charted on Oricon, which is an unusual double for a performer better known for talking.
Two roles define her. Rena Ryuuguu in Higurashi: When They Cry asks for sweetness and menace out of the same throat, often inside a single line, and the series depends on an audience never being sure which one is the performance. Nagisa Furukawa in Clannad is the opposite job: a soft, hesitant voice that has to carry a long romantic drama without ever raising itself, which is far harder to sustain than volume.
The rest is volume in the other sense. Juvia Lockser across Fairy Tail and its films, Akagi in Azur Lane, Haruno Yukinoshita in My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, Nora Arendt in Spice and Wolf and again in its 2024 version, Chisa Yukizome in the Danganronpa anime, Suzune Ichihara in The Irregular at Magic High School, Yuu Kashima in Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun, Michiru Inukai in Talentless Nana. She also voices Seele Vollerei in Honkai Impact 3rd and Seele in Honkai: Star Rail, games that are not among the credits listed here.
The career has lasted on that flexibility. Anime casting is brutal about typing an actor by pitch, and she has kept working across two decades by being placeable as a schoolgirl and as a monster in the same season without either sounding like a stretch.
Movies (17)
- Fairy Tail: Phoenix Priestess (2012)
- Senpai Is an Otokonoko Movie: Sunshine After the Rain (2025)
- SHIROBAKO the Movie (2020)
- Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry (2017)
- Clannad: The Motion Picture (2007)
- Arpeggio of Blue Steel -Ars Nova DC- (2015)
- Arpeggio of Blue Steel -Ars Nova Cadenza- (2015)
- Aria the Crepuscolo (2021)
- Aria the Avvenire (2015)
- Higurashi: When They Cry - Outbreak (2013)
- Tales of Vesperia: The First Strike (2009)
- Aria the Benedizione (2021)
- Otome Youkai Zakuro Picture Drama (2010)
- Eat Miso if You are Sorcerer! (2012)
- Akuma no Memumemu-chan (2018)
- .hack//Legend of the Twilight: Let's Meet Offline (2003)
- Thunderbolt Fantasy: The Final Chapter (2025)
TV (132)
- BLUE LOCK (2022)
- Strike the Blood (2013)
- The Irregular at Magic High School (2014)
- The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten (2023)
- SHIROBAKO (2014)
- Clannad (2007)
- Dragon Ball DAIMA (2024)
- The Duke of Death and His Maid (2021)
- Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF (2024)
- Utawarerumono (2006)
- Fairy Tail (2009)
- BIRDIE WING -Golf Girls' Story- (2022)
- FAIRY TAIL 100 YEARS QUEST (2024)
- My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU (2013)
- Higurashi: When They Cry (2006)
- The aquatope on white sand (2021)
- takt op.Destiny (2021)
- Penguindrum (2011)
- Wonderful Precure! (2024)
- .hack (2002)
- Shadows House (2021)
- Chillin' in My 30s After Getting Fired From the Demon King's Army (2023)
- Spice and Wolf (2008)
- Arknights (2022)
- Raven of the Inner Palace (2022)
- Senpai Is an Otokonoko (2024)
- SUPER HxEROS (2020)
- Higurashi: When They Cry - NEW (2020)
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (2004)
- Danganronpa: The Animation (2013)
Where to start with Mai Nakahara
Nagisa or Rena, and the choice decides which Nakahara you meet first. Clannad is the gentler entry and the more famous performance, a romance that earns its sentiment slowly, so start there if you want to know why she is loved.
Higurashi: When They Cry is the other side, a horror mystery where the sweetness is a weapon, and it is the more impressive piece of voice acting by some distance. After that, Fairy Tail for the long-running shonen version of her, My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU for a sharper and funnier register, and Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun for the best comic timing on the list. Spice and Wolf and Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF are worth it for the world more than for her part in them. SHIROBAKO is the one to watch if you want to understand the industry she works inside.