Hometown: Hachinohe, Aomori, Japan
Blood type: A
Height: 160 cm
Weight: 45 kg
Married: August 26, 2007 (on her 30th birthday)
Saeko Chiba started with ballet as a kid, dreaming of joining Takarazuka Revue. When she didn't pass the entrance exam for Takarazuka Music School in her third year of middle school, she pivoted to the Minami Aoyama Shōjo Kageki Dan, a stage group for teenage girls. She landed several lead roles there over three years before voice acting came calling.
Her first big seiyū role was voicing Kotori Haruno in the Dreamcast game Diamond Daydreams—and that was basically it for her stage career. She realized she preferred voice acting and committed to it full-time.
Early on, she built a reputation voicing character types like Tsubaki Sakura in Kare Kano, Kitsune no Akane in Angel Tales, and Elliot Chapman in Sci-fi Harry. People knew her for her long straight black hair and cool demeanor, which naturally led to casting her as tsundere and aloof characters. Then she cut her hair short in spring 2005, and interestingly, her roles became way more varied after that—she's mentioned this herself in interviews, noting the shift seemed connected to the new look.
On the music side, she's worked extensively with composer Yuki Kajiura, who handled nearly all her songs. Kajiura also wrote music for some of those early stage shows. Saeko released her first single, "Koi no Kiseki," as a theme for the PS game Meguri Aishite, then went on to release nine more singles and two albums, plus various character and drama CDs. She's done theme songs for games like Alundra 2 and Atelier Judie.
She was also part of tiaraway alongside fellow Nanshō member Yuuka Nanri, originally credited as 'Saeko Chiba & Yuuka Nanri' for Memories Off 2nd. The duo put out three singles and an album before disbanding on March 6, 2005.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
