Mai Nakahara is a Japanese voice actress and singer born on February 23, 1981. She is affiliated with the talent agency I'm Enterprise. Growing up, she moved frequently, spending a significant part of her childhood in Ehime Prefecture with her grandmother. Inspired by the anime "Tico of the Seven Seas" in the fifth grade, she decided to pursue a career in voice acting. After graduating from high school, she moved to Tokyo, supporting herself with office work while attending voice actor training school. She debuted with her current agency in the year 2000.

Nakahara's first major anime role came in 2002 when she was cast as Nana, one of the title characters in Seven of Seven. That same year, she began voicing Kaede Minami in the long-running children's series Mirmo!, which became one of her early career-defining roles. She quickly established herself as a leading voice actress, taking on protagonist roles in a variety of popular series. In 2004, she played Mai Tokiha in My-HiME. She followed this with the role of Nagisa Aoi in Strawberry Panic! in 2006. Also in 2006, she was cast as Rena Ryūgū in the horror mystery series Higurashi: When They Cry, a performance that garnered her recognition for her ability to portray the character's dramatic shifts from a gentle demeanor to intense, unstable fury.

Nakahara continued to secure leading roles in major adaptations of visual novels. She voiced the title character Nagisa Furukawa in Kyoto Animation's 2007 series Clannad and its subsequent sequel Clannad After Story. Her portrayal of the kind-hearted but frail Nagisa is considered one of her signature performances. The following year, she began voicing Felli Loss in Chrome Shelled Regios. In 2009, she joined the cast of Saki as the talented mahjong player Teru Miyanaga.

Throughout the 2010s, Nakahara maintained a prolific career, taking on a wide range of supporting and leading characters. In 2010, she began voicing the lovestruck water mage Juvia Lockser in the long-running fantasy series Fairy Tail. She was cast as Haruno Yukinoshita, the enigmatic older sister of a main character, in the 2013 romantic comedy My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, a role she would reprise in its later seasons and climax. She also played the lead role known simply as "I" (Watashi) in the 2012 satirical series Humanity Has Declined. In 2014, she took on the comedic role of Yu Kashima, a handsome girl in the school comedy Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun. Her versatility extended to video games as well; she voiced Akagi in the popular smartphone game Azur Lane. In 2016, she played Chisa Yukizome in Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School.

In more recent years, Nakahara has continued to be active, often revisiting classic roles or taking on new ones in established franchises. She reprised her iconic role as Rena Ryūgū in the new Higurashi: When They Cry anime projects, GOU and SOTSU, which aired in 2020 and 2021. She also returned to the role of Nagisa Furukawa for the crossover comedy series Kaginado in 2021, which featured characters from various Key visual novels. She joined the cast of Shadows House as Maryrose/Rosemary in 2021. In 2023, she was cast as Byakuya Mimori in The Magical Girl and The Evil Lieutenant Used to Be Archenemies.

Beyond her extensive anime work, Nakahara is also a singer. She has performed theme songs for several of the series in which she has starred, some of which have appeared on Oricon charts. She began her solo music career in 2004 and has released multiple CDs. She has also been part of several music units, including the group "nana×nana" with other cast members from Seven of Seven and the duo "PoppinS" with fellow voice actress Ai Shimizu, with whom she has frequently collaborated. Throughout her career, she has also worked with voice actress Yukari Tamura on numerous productions, including Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, Clannad, and Higurashi.