Yevgeniya Ivanovna Davidyuk (, born March 22, 1981), known professionally as , is a Russian voice actress, singer, and radio personality based in Japan.

Early life

Yevgeniya Davidyuk was born at

Novosibirsk Novosibirsk is the largest city and administrative centre of Novosibirsk Oblast and the Siberian Federal District in Russia. As of the 2021 Russian census, 2021 census, it had a population of 1,633,595, making it the most populous city in Siber ...

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

on March 22, 1981, and spent most of her childhood at Gorky. Her father was a military officer who taught his subordinates the ideologies of the Communist Party. She has a younger brother. At the age of eight, her family moved to

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

for a five-year stay due to her father's work, but they returned to the Soviet Union a year later and lived in

Kaliningrad Kaliningrad,. known as Königsberg; ; . until 1946, is the largest city and administrative centre of Kaliningrad Oblast, an Enclave and exclave, exclave of Russia between Lithuania and Poland ( west of the bulk of Russia), located on the Prego ...

for almost two years before moving back to Novosibirsk. At the age of 16, she became interested in voice acting after watching the Japanese animated series ''

Sailor Moon is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Naoko Takeuchi. It was originally serialized in Kodansha's Shōjo manga, ''shōjo'' manga magazine ''Nakayoshi'' from 1991 to 1997; the 60 individual chapters (later reorganized into ...

'' in 1997, which she described as the "anime that changed my life". She majored in

information technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...

Novosibirsk State University of Economics and Management Novosibirsk State University of Economics and Management, NSUEM (, Federal State-Funded Educational Institution of Higher Education «Novosibirsk State University of Economics and Management») is a social and economic higher education institute ...

in 1998. While studying, she frequently visited the Siberia-Hokkaido Cultural Center where she founded an anime club and learned Japanese. She moved to Japan in 2005, where she worked part-time in

Akihabara is a neighborhood in the Chiyoda ward of Tokyo, Japan, generally considered to be the area surrounding Akihabara Station (nicknamed ''Akihabara Electric Town''). This area is part of the and Kanda-Sakumachō districts of Chiyoda. There is an ...

Career

Jenya created an anime fan website (kawaii.otaku.ru) in 2000, where she posted anime songs she performed in Japanese. She became known as "the Russian anime singer who sings in Japanese" in 2002 and was invited by the Japanese broadcast channel Mondo2 (now Mondo TV) to appear on a show. She arrived in Tokyo for the first time with her father for a week to be filmed. In 2007, she was hired as a Russian language coach for anime productions, including ''

Black Lagoon ''Black Lagoon'' (stylized in all caps) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Rei Hiroe. It has been published in Shogakukan's manga magazine '' Monthly Sunday Gene-X'' since April 2002, with its chapters collected in ...

''. She made her voice acting debut as an operator at NERV's Bethany Base in the 2009 anime film '' Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance''. In 2013, Jenya was a finalist for ''

CanCam is a Japanese monthly fashion magazine published by Shogakukan. Its name supposedly derives from "I Can Campus", because girls who read it are expected to become "campus leaders". The magazine was created for fashion-conscious consumers, and offe ...

''s model audition. In 2014, she returned to Russia to host and sing in a Game Symphony Japan concert, where an orchestra performs music from games and anime, after an invitation from conductor Kenichi Shimura. She performed again with the orchestra in Tokyo in July 2016, in Russia in April 2018, and in Yokohama in November. In 2015, she was announced as the voice of

Klara Klara may refer to: * Klara, a female given name, see Clara (given name) * Klara (radio), a classical-music radio station in Belgium * Klara (singer), birth name ...

, an original character specifically created by director

Tsutomu Mizushima is a Japanese anime director and sound director. Career Mizushima was born in Chitose, Hokkaido and raised in Hata, Nagano (now Matsumoto, Nagano). He produced independent films in high school. When he graduated from Nagano Prefectural Matsumoto ...

for her, in ''

Girls und Panzer der Film is a 2015 Japanese animated film and a sequel to the 2012 anime series ''Girls und Panzer''. Produced by Actas and distributed by Showgate, the film is directed by Tsutomu Mizushima from a script written by Reiko Yoshida and features an ensemb ...

''. She met Mizushima after the production team found her tweet stating her lack of role in ''

Girls und Panzer , abbreviated as ''GuP'' or ''Garupan'' , is a Japanese franchise created by Actas. It depicts a competition between girls' high schools practicing tank warfare as a sport. The series was directed by Tsutomu Miz ...

'' despite the appearance of Russian-based characters in the series. Jenya is currently a

freelancer ''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance w ...

. She previously worked under (September 2008–September 2010),

81 Produce is a voice talent management firm in Japan founded on 3 February 1981 (thus the year is the company's namesake). A hybrid CD-ROM featuring voice talent data for members of 81 Produce was released on 19 October 1997. The company is located in Sh ...

(November 2010–May 2014), K Hive (March 2015–2018), (July 2018–October 2020), and New Gate Tokyo (January 2021–July 2022).

Personal life

Jenya passed the N1

Japanese-Language Proficiency Test The , or JLPT, is a standardized criterion-referenced test to evaluate and certify Japanese language proficiency for non-native speakers, covering language knowledge, reading ability, and listening ability. The test is held twice a year in Japan ...

and scored 935 points on the

TOEIC The Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) is an international standardized test of English language proficiency for non-native speakers. It is intentionally designed to measure the everyday English skills of people working in an ...

. In 2016, Jenya announced on her blog that she had married and was pregnant. On March 20, 2017, she gave birth to a girl.

Filmography

Television

Anime films

Video games

Dubbing

*'' Transformers: Dark of the Moon'', Russian lady ( Inna Korobkina) *'' X-Men: First Class'', Teenage girl (

Sasha Pieterse Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer (; born February 17, 1996) is a South African and American actress and singer. She is known for portraying Alison DiLaurentis in the Freeform (TV channel), Freeform series ''Pretty Little Liars'' (2010–2017), and its sp ...

)

References

External links

Official blog

Official agency profile
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Jenya 1981 births Actors from Novosibirsk Living people Novosibirsk State University of Economics and Management alumni Russian expatriates in Japan Russian voice actresses