Toshiyuki Morikawa

Toshiyuki Morikawa is an actor, born 1967.

Toshiyuki Morikawa was born in Shinagawa in 1967 and has amassed well over three hundred credits. He also runs the business end: he founded the voice acting company Axlone in April 2011 and heads it. In 2003 he and Fumihiko Tachiki formed a band called 2Hearts, whose work included an ending theme for the video game Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires. His name is occasionally, and wrongly, transliterated as Tomoyuki.

His specialty is the beautiful voice you should not trust. Griffith in Berserk, Naraku in InuYasha, Sephiroth in the Final Fantasy games and Advent Children, Yoshikage Kira in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Bondrewd in Made in Abyss. The technique is that he does not do a villain voice. The pitch stays warm, level and unhurried, and the menace comes entirely from how untroubled it is, which is far more unpleasant than snarling. Kira in particular is delivered like a man discussing his commute.

The counterweight is a run of gentle authority figures, and he is just as convincing there: Kagaya Ubuyashiki in Demon Slayer, Julius Novachrono in Black Clover, Paul Greyrat in Mushoku Tensei, Minato Namikaze in the Naruto films, Blanca in Banana Fish. He is Dante in the Devil May Cry anime, Chang in Black Lagoon and Kaname Tosen in Bleach. If you have watched a shonen series made since 1995, he is somewhere in it.

Movies (116)

Where to start with Toshiyuki Morikawa

Pick a villain. Berserk is the strongest case for him, because Griffith has to sound like someone an entire army would follow anywhere, and Morikawa makes that plausible before the story does anything else with it. InuYasha runs the same trick over a much longer stretch with Naraku, silk over rot.

For the compressed version, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and its Yoshikage Kira arc is the best writing he has been handed, a man whose evil is entirely a matter of household routine, played at conversational volume throughout. Made in Abyss is the most disturbing use of the same register, and be warned that the show earns that.

Then flip it. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba has him as the frail head of the order, all warmth and no threat. Banana Fish and Black Lagoon sit in between. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is a poor film and the definitive recording of that voice.

The villains

The roles the voice was built for. Yoshikage Kira in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is the best of them, a man whose entire characterisation is that he wants a quiet life, played completely straight. Berserk is the bleakest thing on the list.

The authority figures

The same depth used for calm rather than threat. Kagaya Ubuyashiki in Demon Slayer is delivered almost entirely in a near-whisper and is one of the most distinctive vocal choices anywhere in the series.

The games and the film work

Sephiroth is the video-game role, and Advent Children is where most people outside Japan first heard it. Look Back is the recent film and the most restrained thing he has recorded in years.

Genres Toshiyuki Morikawa works in

More about Toshiyuki Morikawa

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