Toshihiko Seki

In June 2004 the readers of Animage voted Toshihiko Seki the ninth favourite voice actor in the magazine's twenty-sixth annual poll, largely on the strength of Rau Le Creuset in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED. Born in Sendai in 1962, he works as a stage actor, singer and narrator as well. Three years later, Anime News Network counted 215 credited roles and described him as one of the more prolific male voice actors working, and the number has kept climbing since.

He is typically cast as characters who are either very serious or very easily agitated: Duo Maxwell in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, Genjo Sanzo in Saiyuki, Kaien Shiba in Bleach. But the two roles most viewers know pull in opposite directions, and hearing them next to each other is the fastest way to understand the range. Iruka Umino in Naruto is warm, tired and permanently exasperated, a teacher whose authority is entirely affection. Muzan Kibutsuji in Demon Slayer is the opposite: a villain whose menace is delivered at conversational volume, never raised, which is far more frightening than shouting.

The back catalogue is where the argument is really made. Legato Bluesummers in Trigun, Yurimaru in Ninja Scroll, Mousse in Ranma 1/2 and again in the 2024 remake, Wing in Hunter x Hunter, Mitsuhiro Maniwa in Paranoia Agent, Scorpio Milo across the Saint Seiya series, Aleister Crowley in A Certain Magical Index, Kojiro Sasaki in Onimusha, the title role in PLUTO, and a young man in Studio Ghibli's Ocean Waves. Very few performers have been this present for this long without becoming predictable.