Takehito Koyasu

Takehito Koyasu was born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1967 and has been working since the late 1980s, which is long enough that he was in Ranma and in Frieren. In October 1998 he founded the agency T's Factory and still runs it. His son Koki is also a voice actor. He inherited a number of roles originated by Kaneto Shiozawa after Shiozawa's death, which is its own kind of professional compliment.

The voice is low, smooth and faintly amused, and the industry worked out very early what to do with it. Koyasu villains do not shout. DIO in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is theatrical appetite. Toji Fushiguro in Jujutsu Kaisen is a working man who happens to be terrifying. Nobuyuki Sugou in Sword Art Online is corporate slime with a smile in the delivery. Luke Valentine, Roswaal in Re:ZERO, Riser Phenex, Zeke in Attack on Titan: the register is a man enjoying himself at somebody else's expense, and he can hold that note for years without it going stale.

The counter-evidence matters. Claudia Hodgins in Violet Evergarden is decent, tired and protective, played with all the theatricality taken out. Shigeru Aoba in Neon Genesis Evangelion is a bridge technician with no power over anything, and Koyasu has now played him across the original series and every film since 1995, which is thirty years inside one very small part.