Wakana (singer, born 1984)

Wakana Ootaki (大滝若奈), who goes by the mononymous stage name Wakana, is a Japanese pop singer. She was one of the vocalists of the FictionJunction project started by Yuki Kajiura, and was a core member of the vocal group Kalafina. She has a daughter. She is currently signed with Victor Entertainment with a solo career, having released two albums and an EP that have charted on Oricon.

Biography
Wakana is from Fukuoka. She started learning singing at age 12. She joined the FictionJunction project in 2005, where she performed on many of Yuki Kajiura's soundtracks for anime shows and films. She performed two songs for the original soundtrack of Fist of the North Star True Saviour Legend: "Hikari no Yukue" (光の行方) and the Japanese version of "Where the Lights Are" bonus track. She sang "Paradise Regained" (an insert song for El Cazador de la Bruja) and in the Pandora Hearts soundtrack.

In 2007, she and FictionJunction colleague Keiko joined Kajiura's new vocal group Kalafina, which was put together to sing the theme songs for The Garden of Sinners film series. Their first single was "Oblivious" which reached number 8 on the Oricon charts. Vocalists Hikaru and Maya joined the group for the singles "Sprinter/Aria", after which Maya left the group, resulting in a trio. Over the next ten years, Kalafina would continue to release more anime theme songs as well as original material, with five studio albums and two compilation albums that have charted in Oricon's top 10. In 2018, Kajiura resigned from Space Craft, and Keiko left the group soon afterwards. The group was officially disbanded in 2019.

Wakana moved from Space Craft to Victor Entertainment. She had a solo debut with the single "Toki o Koeru Yoru Ni" in February 2019. She released a self-titled album in March and an EP titled Aki no Sakura in November. They reached No. 19 and No. 34 respectively on the Oricon charts. She released the album magic moment in 2020, which charted at No. 22. On April 24, 2021, she held her solo concert Wakana Spring Live 2020 ~ magic moment ~ in Ōtemachi to promote the album.

In October 2020, she released a cover album of anime songs. She won an award for Classic Anison Singer at the Weibo Account Festival in Tokyo 2020.

In May 2022, she announced a collaboration song with the mobile game "Memento Mori". Flag is used as a character song for Florence, voiced by Ayaka Suwa.