Featured Artist: Japanese Voice Actor Tomoaki Maeno
From Camus (Uta no Prince-sama 200%), to Hak (Akatsuki no Yona), to Kou Yukina (Sekaiichi Hatsukoi) and Haru Kaidoh (Super Lovers), who can't distinguish this man's flexible deep voice behind these baddass and good-looking characters? Our featured artist of the month is one of the well-known Japanese voice actor, Tomoaki Maeno!
Tomoaki Maeno (前野智昭, Maeno Tomoaki) is a Japanese voice actor from Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. Born on May 26, 1982, the 34 year-old voice actor is currently under the agency Arts Vision, together with fellow voice actor Kohsuke Toriumi. At the early age, he was exposed in reading manga especially Dragon Ball series, on which was one of the reason why he pursued being a voice actor together with his older sister.
From left to right: Arsene Lupin (Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth), Kou Yukina (Sekaiichi Hatsukoi), Haru Kaidoh (Super Lovers) and Hak Son (Akatsuki no Yona)
Aside from Anime characters, he's also been known for voicing some of the famous Otome games. One of them is his character as Arsene Lupin from the game Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ which have been localized in English language recently and continuously gaining popularity around the world. And what's more, fans of Tomoaki Maeno gave him the title as "Best Seme Voice" because of his notable Seme characters in different Shounen Ai or BL (Boy's Love) Anime series and Drama CDs.
He's been featured in several Seiyuu (Japanese voice actors) magazine. He also won several awards such as Rookie Actor Award at the 4th Seiyuu Awards last March 6, 2010.
“I’m a professional and at the same time I want to be a voice actor who does their work happily,” and that’s my style. And because I’m generally a person who lack of self-confidence, I have to work harder. Because I have no confidence in myself, I feel even happier that I get to act in all these different roles. - Tomoaki Maeno on his interview for Voice Newtype Issue No.56
But of course, what fans love about him aside from his talent in voice acting is his looks, whether he wears eyeglasses of not:
And everything will not be complete without hearing him sing...
"Destiny" from his first debut album "For You" released last 2009.
...and dance!
At UtaPri 3rd Stage event | source
Watch out for our next featured artist of the month!
I love, love Tomoaki Maeno's performance as Son Hak in Akatsuki No Yona. He did such a great job bringing Hak's cool and sexy personality to life. He's also really versatile as shown by his ability to voice for characters like Decim from Death Parade. Really neat.
ReplyDelete