Voice Actor Spotlight: Johnny Yong Bosch
“HADANGEKI!”
Some VA’s have played a major role in our lives for far longer than we may have realized. Latching onto them later in our lives can oftentimes lead us to discover just how long we’ve actually been their fans. This week’s spotlight features one such individual, for me personally, and it was quite a pleasure reading back into all his past credits.
I first came across Johnny Yong Bosch when looking up the English voice of Ichigo Kurosaki from the popular Shonen Jump anime, Bleach. The name sounded familiar, so I decided to delve deeper, and when I did, I was amazed at how long I had actually loved this guy. But, y’know, just as a friend…
Johnny Yong Bosch was born January 6, 1976 in Kansas City, Missouri. His mother is Korean and his father is of German/Irish decent. Not much else is mentioned about his early life.
Bosch’s distinct voice has landed him many roles in anime and video games, yet that is far from where he got his true start in the entertainment industry. In 1994, he replaced Walter Emannuel Jones as the Black Ranger in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers TV show that you know you used to watch as religiously as I did. He reprised his role as the Black Ranger for many years, spanning many different evolutions of the Power Rangers show, all the way up until 2007. As a trained martial artist, he was a perfect fit for the many TV shows in which he starred.
While he played the Black Ranger, he also began voicing anime characters. One such voice role was that of the lovable, hilarious Vash the Stampede in the amazingly eclectic anime series, Trigun. And from there, his VA career kicked it into high gear. Witch Hunter Robin, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Wolf’s Rain, Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobo, Gurren Lagann, Heat Guy J, Tenjho Tenge, Samurai Champloo, Fullmetal Alchemist, and most notably, Bleach. Bosch has voiced characters in all of them, and even more.
It was Bosch’s role as Ichigo Kurosaki that began landing him more prominent roles in anime and video games. While previously playing secondary and uncredited roles, Bleach led Bosch into roles like Zero in Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Nero in Devil May Cry 4, Genma Shiranui in Naruto, Lelouch Lamperogue in Code Geass: Lelouch Of the Rebellion, Firion in Dissidia: Final Fantasy and one of the newest additions to the Super Street Fighter IV series of cash cow releases, Yang.
In case you’re wondering why some of these credits don’t match up, it’s because he used the name Kevin Hatcher in many of his voice roles. The above mentioned roles are a mere fraction of his credits. Be sure to check out the extensive list of the rest of his voices over at his Wikipedia, IMDB and Beyond The Voice Actor pages!
