Kenichi Suzumura

Biography

Kenichi Suzumura (鈴村 健一, Suzumura Ken'ichi; born September 12, 1974) is a Japanese voice actor, narrator, and singer who is affiliated with and a representative of INTENTION, a voice acting company he founded in March 2012. He voiced Morley in Macross 7, Hikaru Hitachiin in Ouran High School Host Club, Zack Fair in the Final Fantasy VII metaseries, Masato Hijirikawa in Uta no Prince-sama, Sandalphon in Granblue Fantasy, Kyoichi Kanzaki in BOYS BE, Shiki Tohno in Tsukihime, Mikiya Kokuto in The Garden of Sinners, Tsubaki Asahina in Brothers Conflict, Yuya Aso in Super Gals!, Atsushi Murasakibara in Kuroko's Basketball, Momotaro Mikoshiba in Free!, Shinn Asuka in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny & Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom, Leo Stenbuck in Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner, Sōgo Okita in Gintama, Rogue Cheney in Fairy Tail, Lavi in D.Gray-man, Obanai Iguro in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Ryutaros in Kamen Rider Den-O and Rakushun in The Twelve Kingdoms. He is part of the group Nazo no Shin Unit STA☆MEN (謎の新ユニットＳＴＡ☆ＭＥＮ) with Junichi Suwabe, Daisuke Kishio, Hiroki Takahashi, Hiroyuki Yoshino, Makoto Yasumura, and Kohsuke Toriumi. His younger brother is stunt coordinator, stuntman and actor Masaki Suzumura.

Career

Suzumura was born in Niigata Prefecture. Having grown up in a family with many job transfers, he has lived in Okayama in Okayama Prefecture and Moji-ku, Kitakyūshū in Fukuoka Prefecture, in addition to Niigata Prefecture. Later, from the age of 15 to 19, he lived in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, where he entered and graduated from Senri Seiun High School after attending Daini Junior High School from the third year of junior high school. The reason why he decided to become a voice actor was because he initially wanted to be a chef and had even ordered an application form to go to a Japanese culinary school, but a friend of Suzumura's brought him a newspaper clipping that asked if he wanted to be a voice actor, so they went to an audition together and Suzumura passed.
After studying at Yoyogi Animation Academy and the Japan Narration Actor Institute, Suzumura made his debut in 1994 as Morley in the TV anime series Macross 7. Since then, he has been active in a variety of fields including animation, games, radio and music.
In 2008, he won the Best Personality award and the Synergy Award (for Kamen Rider Den-O) at the 2nd Seiyu Awards. On October 8 of the same year, he made his major label debut with Lantis.
On August 13, 2011, he reported on his official blog that he and fellow voice actress, actress and singer Maaya Sakamoto got married on August 8, 2011. In the same year, he won the second prize at the first Music Jacket Awards 2011 (for his album CHRONICLE to the future×CHRONICLE to the future9 March 2011 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 13 tracks · 2 discsDisc 11CHRONICLE2春の日よ3トハイヱ470億分の15ハナサカ6エル・キホーテ7Landscaper8in my space9光よりはやく飛ぶロケット10フタリジカン11いぬ33112月とストーブDisc 21CHRONICLE (Music Clip)).
In 2012, Suzumura won the Best Musical Performance as part of ST☆RISH at the 6th Seiyu Awards. In April of the same year, he left Arts Vision, to which he had belonged for many years, and on May 1 of the following month, he reported that he had launched Intention Inc. with Atsushi Kuwahara, his manager from Arts Vision.
In 2016, he won the double award for Best Actor in Supporting Role and Personality Award at the 10th Seiyu Awards. In the same year, he won a special award at the sixth Music Jacket Awards 2016 (for his album Tsuki to Taiyou no Uta).
A national survey on the popularity of voice actors conducted in March 2010 revealed Suzumura and Mamoru Miyano as the most famous voice actors. In the following year, 2011, TBS Rank Ōkoku listed Suzumura as 3rd of the five most popular voice actors.
Suzumura's favorite motto is, "Life is what you make of it."
On December 27, 2021, Suzumura and Sakamoto announced that they were expecting their first child. On April 21, 2022, the couple announced the birth of their first child.
On May 16, 2024, it was announced that Suzumura would be taking a break due to his poor health, and that his agency would announce his return at a later date. On July 31, 2024, it was announced that he planned to gradually return to his career while taking his health into consideration.

Music

In addition to performing many different character songs throughout his voice acting career, Suzumura is also a singer signed to the Lantis label. As a solo artist, he writes all his songs. In 2008, the debut year of his music career, Suzumura became one of the main hosts of the annual live music event Original Entertainment Paradise (OrePara), along with Lantis artists Showtaro Morikubo, Daisuke Ono, and Mitsuo Iwata.
In January, 2010, he gave his first solo concert tour in Osaka (January 10), Nagoya (January 11), Yokohama (January 23) and Tokyo (January 30). His second live tour, in 2011, was held in the same stops, Osaka (April 9), Nagoya (April 10), Tokyo (April 17) and Yokohama (May 1). Part of the proceeds from the concert were donated to help the victims of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. As a result of a power shortage, the concert was simple to save power and Suzumura performed acoustic versions of songs.
In 2012, a poll on singing ability placed Suzumura as the third best voice actor singer, behind Kishō Taniyama (1st) and Mamoru Miyano (2nd).

CONNECT

Since 2009, Suzumura is part of the first Kiramune unit, CONNECT, with Mitsuo Iwata. They occasionally released singles and albums and participated the annual concert Kiramune Music Festival until 2014.