Hōchū Ōtsuka

In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, the anime produced by the studio Ufotable, Ōtsuka voices Sakonji Urokodaki, the masked former Water Hashira who trains Tanjiro Kamado for his entry into the Demon Slayer Corps. The mentor figure sits comfortably within Ōtsuka's long line of authoritative and seasoned characters, and it stands as one of his most recognizable recent roles. Decades into his career, the part introduced his work to a new generation of viewers drawn to the franchise's record-breaking popularity, joining a roster of high-profile anime credits that already spanned several of the medium's best-known series.

Born Yoshitada Ōtsuka, written with the same characters as his professional name, Ōtsuka is affiliated with the talent firm Crazy Box. Across a career reaching back to 1976 he has voiced a wide range of figures, among them Kyao Mirao in Heavy Metal L-Gaim, Yazan Gable in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, Mont Blanc Noland in One Piece, Akira Sendō in Slam Dunk, SignalMan in Gekisou Sentai Carranger, the Imagin Deneb in Kamen Rider Den-O, Abuto in Gintama, Makoto Sōda in Captain Tsubasa, Jiraiya in Naruto, Junjirō Takagi in The Idolmaster, and Dr. Ni Jianyi in Saiyuki. The breadth of these parts has made him a fixture of Japanese anime and tokusatsu.

Beyond original anime roles, Ōtsuka is widely known as a dubbing artist who supplies the Japanese voices of numerous foreign film stars. His subjects include Jean-Claude Van Damme, Donnie Yen, notably across the Ip Man series, Jeff Goldblum, Ray Liotta, Richard Jenkins, John C. McGinley, Brent Spiner, and Greg Kinnear, among many others. In their early careers he was also the first Japanese dubbing voice for both Kiefer Sutherland and Christopher Lambert, underscoring his long-standing presence in the field of foreign-film localization.