Sugita Tomokazu

Sugita Tomokazu (杉田 智和, born October 11, 1980) is a Japanese voice actor and author. He mainly plays young men and is characterized by his "deep bass voice," and he often performs ad-libs and imitations.

He is the voice of the Holy Emperor of Holy Empire of Ionia, Renefarious XIII in Genso Suikoden Tsumugareshi Hyakunen no Toki.

Biography
Sugita was born in Ranzan, Saitama. When he was in elementary school and watched the TV anime Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai, he noticed that the character Hyunckel had a much lower voice than he had imagined from reading the original manga, and thought he was "still cool," but the moment he said his special move, Sugita realized that it was the same voice as Phoenix Ikki from Saint Seiya (Hideyuki Hori).

As a child, he wanted to be a temple priest, and in high school he wanted to be a home economics teacher, a confectioner, or a designer. At the time, when he thought about writing a script for a stage performance at a school event and added sound effects and background music to a recording of his own voice, his older brother heard it and suggested that he try to find a job that made use of him voice and speech, which led him to become a voice actor. At the age of 17, he made his voice acting debut as a gift announcement narrator for Kamen Rider on SKY PerfecTV!.

In 1999, when he was a prep school student, he got his first regular role in an anime production with Cybuster, and continued his voice acting career while studying until he graduated from university. His first leading role was playing Hideki Motosuwa in the anime series Chobits.

Sugita played the leading roles in both Gintama (Gintoki Sakata) and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Kyon), greatly increasing his fame. In 2009, he won the Best Actor in supporting role award at the 3rd Seiyu Awards. In October 2013, he won the Male Voice Actor Award at the "Newtype x Machi★Asobi Anime Awards 2013", and his role in Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Chamber K6821, also won the Mascot Character Award.

In 2010, he starred in a live-action film Wonderful World, alongside Mamoru Miyano, Tomokazu Seki, Rikiya Koyama, Yuka Hirata, Showtaro Morikubo and Daisuke Namikawa.

Anime

 * Gintama (Gintoki Sakata)
 * The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Kyon)
 * JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency (Joseph Joestar)
 * Assassination Classroom (Tadaomi Karasuma)
 * The Seven Deadly Sins (Escanor)
 * One Piece (Charlotte Katakuri)

Video games

 * Fire Emblem Awakening, et al (Chrom)
 * BlazBlue (Ragna the Bloodedge)
 * Persona 5, et al (Yusuke Kitagawa)
 * Genso Suikoden Tsumugareshi Hyakunen no Toki (Renefarious)