Sae Ōtsuka

Ōtsuka grew up playing with a toy piano that her mother purchased for her, while she wrote her first song when she was five years old after listening to a nursery rhyme. She was part of her elementary school's music committee, which involved playing music during the morning assemblies, and was in her middle school's band club as a trombonist.^[2] At the age of 15, Ōtsuka began street performing with an acoustic guitar, which she did for four years.^[3]

In December 2014, Ōtsuka was recruited to join the Bushiroad music franchise BanG Dream! as the guitarist Tae Hanazono; at the time, she had no voice acting or electric guitar experience.^[3] She was formally introduced to the franchise band Poppin'Party during its second live concert on June 14, 2015.^[4] Various aspects of Tae's character were inspired by Ōtsuka, such as Tae conducting street performances during the second season of the anime.^[5] Tae's friendship with Raise A Suilen's Rei Wakana is also based on Ōtsuka's connections with Rei's voice actress and Ace Crew colleague Raychell.^[6] Ōtsuka would perform with RAS during its role as a backup band in 2018 and as a guest at its debut live;^[7][8] she also made guest appearances at the band's Heaven and Earth show in 2019 and its stage play in 2020.^[9][10] In late 2021, Ōtsuka and Poppin'Party bandmate Aimi conducted a series of acoustic guitar shows, called Kasumi and Tae's Stay After School Tour, with performances at Zepp's Namba, Nagoya, and Yokohama venues.^[11]

In 2020, she joined Bushiroad's D4DJ franchise as Nagisa Tsukimiyama, guitarist of the group Rondo.^[12]

As a solo performer, Ōtsuka's first song "What's your Identity?" was used as the Japanese opening to the Chinese-animated show Egg Car in 2019.^[13] Avant-title, her debut mini-album, was released on February 26, 2020.^[14]

Ōtsuka owns numerous pets like rabbits and birds, the former of which was adopted as a character trait for Tae.^[2]

Anime

Video games

• Official website (in Japanese)
• Sae Ōtsuka on X