Tomo Sakurai (櫻井 智, Sakurai Tomo, born September 10, 1971) is a Japanese actress and singer. Sakurai was a member of I'm Enterprise but later became freelance until her retirement. She previously announced her retirement on September 1, 2016, but on June 1, 2019, she announced that she would return to the entertainment industry.
Career
Debut
At 14, Sakurai debuted as a sub-member for "Kiss Fairlies," a group that worked as campaign girls for the local Kijima Motorcycle Racing Team. All members were over 15 years old, aside from Tomo.
In age of "Lemon Angel"
At 17, she joined the idol-pop unit, Lemon Angel, a counter project of Cream Lemon coordinated by the same company that produced "Kiss Fairlies". The project contained comic, animated, and idol pop units. The unit played themselves in Midnight Anime Lemon Angel. She released 5 albums during her time at Lemon Angel.
After Lemon Angel
Sakurai joined a new video game idol unit and released one album with this unit. After leaving, she focused her career mainly on voice acting work.
Retirement
On September 1, 2016, Sakurai announced her retirement from her professional voice acting and singing careers on her official blog post titled "Arigato/Thank You."[2]
She explained: "I used to have a strong vocal cord that couldn't be broken and became stronger even after singing for hours. But recently, I have realized it's becoming more and more difficult for me to use my important voice as an actress. I know it's a natural thing as time goes by, but I can't accept the change, then I understand it's almost time to retire."
Return
On June 1, 2019, Sakurai announced that she was returning to the entertainment industry.
