Sayaka Nakaya (仲谷 明香, Nakaya Sayaka, born October 15, 1991)[1] is a Japanese voice actress and former member of the Japanese idolgirl groupAKB48. She is from Iwate. While with AKB48 she was a member of the subunit No Name. Her biggest role as a voice actress was as the title character Chitose Sakuraba in the anime series Chitose Get You!!.
Nakaya passed AKB48's generation 3 audition on December 3, 2006. She is one of 20 girls who passed from among 12.828 candidates. She was first on stage at AKB48 Theater as part of Team B on April 8, 2007. On August 23, 2009, a reshuffle was announced and Nakaya was transferred to Team A.[2]
On December 2, 2010, an audio book of Moshidora read by her received "Audio Book Award 2010". The audio book gets awarded based on consumer votes in FeBe! audio book website.[3] She also provided voice in the anime series of Moshidora.[4]
Along with fellow member from Team K Miku Tanabe, Nakaya formed a unit called Baby Gamba. The unit released a single DVD "Ee Janaika" (ええじゃないか) under label Avex on September 14, 2011. Baby Gamba is a character in anime series Ganba no Bōken, a series based on kids book『Bōkentachi Gamba to 15-hiki no Nakama』by Otsuka Saito.[5]
On December 13, 2011, her name was chosen along with 9 other members to voice characters in AKB48's original anime series AKB0048.[6]
An autobiography of her, titled "Hisenbatsu Idol" was published in 2012.[7] When she was a member, she was one of 4 AKB48's anime fan who is called "wota 4".[citation needed]
On Team K Waiting Stage on March 2, 2013 at night, Nakaya suddenly announces her departure as an AKB48 member to taking part in a voice acting audition. 4 days later at the same stage, she had her last and graduation concert as an AKB48 member. At the same time, she also quit from her former agency Mousa.[8]
"Prism Max ~Heisei Ishin Full HD Remastered Edition~" (プリズムMAX 〜平成維新フルHDリマスター版〜) Sayaka Nakaya, Kaede Hondo, Rika Momokawa, & Maria Naganawa Fushigi na Somera-chan opening song
^Center and A-side lineup information provided by "AKB48 歴代シングル選抜メンバー（2006年～2013年）" [(2006-2013) AKB48 successive single member selection]. entamedata.web.fc2.com. Retrieved 2013-09-23.
