Kenichirou Matsuda

In Spy x Family, Kenichirou Matsuda is both the narrator and the dog. That is a fair summary of a Japanese voice career built on the lowest register in the room: he gets hired when a production needs weight, and weight can mean a warhorse, an authority figure, a monster, or a very large animal who thinks in pictures.

Born in Saitama in 1978 and affiliated with Arts Vision, he took on Batou across the Ghost in the Shell: Arise series and the film that followed, which is the most exposed assignment of his career, a character carrying decades of prior interpretation. The role most people name is Thors in Vinland Saga, a former warrior who has put down the sword and has to keep making that choice in front of people who would rather he picked it up. Matsuda plays him slow, tired and immovable, and the performance carries most of the show's argument.

Elsewhere the range is wider than the type suggests. Gordon Agrippa in Black Clover is a character built entirely on muttering. Kang Horyang in Tower of God and Marmas in The Seven Deadly Sins are straight combat roles. He is the Bat Devil in Chainsaw Man, Behemoth in a Sword Art Online feature, Iggy Cygnus in the Blade Runner anime short, and he has a part in The First Slam Dunk. Deep into a long career, he is one of those voice actors whose name means nothing to a general audience and who appears in nearly everything that audience has watched.