Reina Ueda

Reina Ueda’s Path from Toyama Prefecture to 81 Produce

Growing up in Toyama Prefecture, she joined her elementary school’s theater club and carried that interest through middle and high school, where a fellow drama club member’s ambition to become a seiyuu first put the profession on her radar. In her final year of high school she submitted an audition tape just days before the deadline and placed in the semi-grand prix of the 5th 81 Produce Audition in 2011. She entered the agency’s training program the following year and made her screen debut with a minor part in Inazuma Eleven GO: Chrono Stone.

Hanayamata and the Best Rookie Trophy

Two years after her debut, the lead role of Naru Sekiya in Hanayamata gave her a first taste of carrying a series, and by March 2015 she stood alongside Sora Amamiya and Aya Suzaki to receive the Best Rookie Actress award at the 9th Seiyu Awards. Momentum from that win carried into a stretch of prominent parts through the back half of the decade, including Mira Yurisaki in Dimension W, Hane Sakura in Bakuon!!, Mallow in Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon, Shiori Shinomiya in Sakura Quest, and Akane Shinjo in SSSS.Gridman.

Kanao Tsuyuri, Reze, and Genshin Impact’s Ganyu

Casting directors increasingly reached for her when a role needed a soft surface hiding something sharper underneath, a tendency fans trace through Kanao Tsuyuri in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba and Reze in Chainsaw Man, a part she reprised for 2025’s Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc. That performance won her the Best Supporting Voice Actor/Actress Award at the 20th Seiyu Awards in March 2026, an honor she’d previously shared with Akari Kito at the 15th Seiyu Awards in 2021. Beyond television, she voices Ganyu in the mobile game Genshin Impact and Honami Mochizuki in Project SEKAI: Colorful Stage!

A Parallel Career on Lantis

Signed to the label Lantis for her music, she debuted with the mini-album RefRain in December 2016 and released her first solo single, “Sleepland,” in 2018. Full-length albums Empathy and Nebula followed in 2020 and 2021, with the mini-album Atrium arriving in 2022. Both careers continue moving forward together, with a supporting role already announced for the Black Torch anime set to premiere in July 2026.