Masaaki Mizunaka

Masaaki Mizunaka, born in Yamaguchi in 1990, is a voice actor with Production Baobab, and the useful thing to know about him is that his voice does two opposite jobs unusually well. It is low and smooth, which makes it ideal for smug antagonists, and it goes soft and apologetic without changing register, which makes it ideal for the put-upon.

The role that needs both at once is Diablo in How Not to Summon a Demon Lord, a withdrawn gamer transported into the body of the overpowered demon lord he plays online, so every scene requires the booming villain voice on the surface and a panicking human directly underneath it. The gag is entirely a performance gag, and it works. On the other side sits Kakeru Ryuen in Classroom of the Elite, a manipulator who enjoys himself far too much, and on the third, Poncho Panacotta in How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom and Hayato Kasukabe in The Café Terrace and Its Goddesses, both soft-spoken men in over their heads.

The list around those is long: Keisuke Baji in Tokyo Revengers, Ka Koushun in Raven of the Inner Palace, Shall Fen Shall in Sugar Apple Fairy Tale, Kazami in Gundam Build Divers, Shirase in Bungo Stray Dogs, Jack in the film Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms, Yukinari Arima in WIND BREAKER and Lu Wutang in SAKAMOTO DAYS. He works constantly, and the 2025 season charts alone carry half a dozen of his names.