Sakura Tange

By the time Cardcaptor Sakura went to air in 1998, Tange had already put in five years of booth work of the kind that builds a resume rather than a name: Yuki on Ninja Boy Rantaro, Suzu Sakuma on Marmalade Boy, Anita on Romeo's Blue Skies, Saori Saga on You're Under Arrest. She had also been SNK's utility player, voicing Yuri Sakazaki in the drama CD spun off The King of Fighters '94, Cham Cham in the Samurai Shodown II equivalent, and Sakura Mitsukoshi in the Neo Geo puzzle game Money Puzzle Exchanger.

Then Sakura Kinomoto arrived and the resume stopped mattering. What Tange does with the character is harder than it sounds: a schoolgirl's chirp that never tips into shrillness, and a small catch in the voice the moment the bravado runs out. She has held the part for twenty years, across the 1999 and 2000 features, the Kero short and the 2018 revival Clear Card, which is an unusual thing for an anime lead to be allowed.

Away from it she has quietly built a second career in villains and oddities. She is the Assassin of Black in Fate/Apocrypha, Nero Claudius across the Fate spin-offs, the corporate menace President X in Gatchaman Crowds, and Cardinal in Sword Art Online. She sings and she writes as well, which is the part of the CV most English-language viewers never see.