Jenya Davidyuk first fell under a Japanese spell at age 16 in her native Russia when she saw the "Sailor Moon" anime on television. 

Her fascination with the Japanese language led her on a course that today has her living in Japan as a professional anime voice actress. 

Davidyuk said what she is doing now has its origins in a childhood experience, in which she caught a glimpse of the world on the other side of the “wall” outside the former Soviet Union.

In a recent interview with The Asahi Shimbun, the Siberian native, who goes by the stage mononym Jenya, recounted how she learned Japanese, the language in which she works, during her headlong drive to pursue what she wanted to do and realize her dream.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

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Question: What were you like in your childhood?

Davidyuk: I was born in Novosibirsk, Siberia’s biggest city. As a young child, I liked learning about various information by, for example, reading books and watching TV.

I was 8 when I went to live for a year in Czechoslovakia of the time, where my serviceman father had been assigned to work.

I had a glimpse there of life outside this “wall” called the Soviet Union. The sheer extent of the difference astonished me.

Unlike in the Soviet Union, there were plenty of clothes, toys and food at stores in Czechoslovakia.

“What a difference from the life I was used to! How unfair!” I said to myself. That is when I made up my mind I would definitely go and live abroad in the future.

Q: When did Japanese make the first entrance in your life?

A: The Soviet Union fell apart when I was 10, after which TV programs, movies, music and other content began flowing in from abroad.

I watched “Sailor Moon” on TV when I was 16. The work of anime was aired with a Russian voice-over, so the original Japanese lines were audible. When I first heard the language spoken, I thought it had a soft, velvety and songlike timbre.

“Sailor Moon” fascinated me because its storyline, which is about girls who were my age fighting for the justice they believe in, appeared so new to me. I developed a desire to be able to speak Japanese like the voice actors in the work.

I later opened a website of my own and began posting information on Japanese anime. I recorded myself singing anime songs, from “Sailor Moon” to other works, in Japanese and posted the songs for public access, although I still poorly understood what the Japanese lyrics meant.

Some Japanese had opportunities to listen to my songs, and I came to attract attention online.

Q: Didn’t you study Japanese at a university?

A: I entered the Novosibirsk State University of Economics and Management in 1998, where I majored in information technology. After that, I attended a Japanese course at the Siberia-Hokkaido cultural exchange center, in Novosibirsk, to study the language.

Its weekly, 90-minute group lessons were centered on reading and writing, but the students were also shown Japanese magazines and taught about Japanese culture, such as tea ceremony and ikebana, which I enjoyed a lot.

I signed up for an annual Japanese speech contest, where I gave a talk titled: “I wish to be a voice actress in Japan.” When I talked in a manner I had learned from anime, people praised me for my “very good intonation,” and I was given a special award.

Q: And you first visited Japan in summer 2002, right?

A: Yes. I was invited to stay in Tokyo for a week to be covered by a satellite TV program. I saw schoolgirls in sailor uniforms on the streets, exactly like I had seen in anime. I found that all unbelievable. I was so excited that I wept every day when I was back at my hotel. That weeklong experience consolidated my determination to live in Japan in the future.

After I graduated from my university, I translated manuals and did other work, but I strongly felt I had no choice but to live in Japan to brush up on my Japanese skills and, if possible, also to work as a voice actress. And the ties I had formed with people during my first visit to Japan helped me start a life in Japan in 2005.

Q: How did you find life in Japan at the outset?

A: The first barrier I faced when I came to Japan was that I couldn’t make out at all what ordinary people were saying. Unlike Japanese language teachers and anime voice actors, they were all different in the way they talked, like in the speed of their speech, their choice of words and their articulation.

For another thing, although I can talk with quite a sense of humor when I speak in Russian, I could not make others fully see that when I spoke in Japanese. That was hard for me, too.

I decided to talk to many Japanese, in whatever manner it might be, to learn their language. I met various people, including not only my old acquaintances from my website but also friends of my friends, and I attended an entire variety of meetings.

And every time I met someone, I promoted myself by saying I wished to be a voice actress and I was looking for a production company to sign up with. And I was lucky enough to join a production company, which had approached me for recruitment.

Q: And your dream of becoming a voice actress became a reality. What can you say about that?

A: I hope the way I am making a career as a voice actress of non-Japanese origin will help people realize that anything is possible. When I look back on myself, I sometimes wonder how I am getting along now as a voice actress.

It feels like what I am is due to the support of so many people. I am feeling that various people came to think of me, “Oh, I’ll back this one, although she is a little bit too nagging,” precisely because I was just doing what I really wanted to do.

Q: What is your take on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?

A: I just cannot believe that this is taking place. My father is from Ukraine, and I have this Ukrainian family name of Davidyuk. While I am taking a professional stance of keeping away from politics, I would say it’s really only so hard for someone like me, who has both Russian and Ukrainian blood in her.

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Born in Novosibirsk in the former Soviet Union, in 1981, voice actress and singer Jenya, whose full name is Yevgeniya Davidyuk, came to Japan in 2005. She debuted as a voice actress in “Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance,” a 2009 animated film.

She has since appeared, among other things, in many works of anime and video games, including “Girls und Panzer der Film,” a 2015 movie, and “Akiba Maid War,” a 2022 TV series, and has supervised Russian text and served as a Russian coach for similar works.

Jenya has also appeared in TV and radio Russian course programs of Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK).

(This article is based on an interview by Yusaku Yamane.)