Kazuki Yao is everywhere. Even if you don’t know his name, you certainly know his voice! The actor behind both Franky and Bon Clay in One Piece, Yao has lent his vocal talents to anime such as Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Initial D, the Berserk: the Golden Age Arc films, and hundreds of other series and films across more than 30 years. A self-described “rocker” Yao is also quite an energetic public persona, his brightly colored fashion matching perfectly with his animated personality. Anime Boston is hosting Yao as one of its 2018 Guests of Honor, and we were lucky enough to sit in on a panel (aptly titled “Feeling SUUUPPPEEERR with Kazuki Yao”) the veteran actor gave at the convention! Yao provided some great stories and insight into voice acting as a profession, and we wanted to share it with you!

Moderator: How are you doing today, sir?

Kazuki Yao: I’m super, super good!

Mod: Could you tell the audience just a bit about your career?

KY: I kind of just ended up here. Before I knew it, I’d been an actor for about 40 years, working in movies and television dramas for about 37 years and as a voice actor for 43 years. It’s quite scary. You guys probably weren’t even born. But I was born. It’s scary, oh my god!  But because of that, I’m able to meet you all like this and spend every day having fun!

In the beginning, I was about 14 or so when I decided I wanted to be an actor and my dad was like, “eh… I don’t think so.” So I had to hold back until I was about 18, and that’s when I got started. The thing that I can’t stop thinking about is what if I had entered this world at 14 instead of when I was 18? Where would I be now? 

Mod: You’ve had a pretty long-lived career in voice over. How have things changed since you started?

KY: With the transition from analog recording to digital, there’s been a big change in recording time. It takes a lot less time to record than it used to. Originally, in the era that I started, we worked from film and we would use a reel that was about 10 minutes long. You would have to record from the very beginning of that 10 minutes to the very end in a single take. If somebody ended up messing up their lines at the very end of the recording, you would have to start that reel from scratch. The biggest thing that’s been saving us now is that if we get 3 minutes into a line and mess up, they can just start that single line over and not have to re-do all of the other lines. 

In the era when I started, what was really required of a voice actor who played the handsome protagonist was that fateful laugh at the end of a line, the cool HA HA HA. I was very bad at doing the cool laugh, but if I put an “oo” at the beginning of the laugh, it became a sort of sinister OOWAHAHAHA. Personally, I very much believe in a God of Theater and I believe that the God of Theater is watching over me. I think that it was divine providence that I not play the handsome hero. The God of Theater saw me and said, “you know, instead of being the cool hero, you should be the villain, the pervert, the stalker, these sorts of dangerous guys.” Thanks to that, now I’m able to make my living based on that sort of character! But, recently I’ve come to think that I wouldn’t be opposed to playing the cool protagonist every now and then…

Mod: How do you choose the characters that you voice? Is the script sent to you first to read, or do you meet with someone from casting? How does that process work?

KY: It’s a case-by-case basis, but for the most part you get roles through auditions. The next most common thing is a director or producer coming over and asking, “Yao-chan, can you do this?” After that, comes using LINE chat and email to say [at this point he uses an intimidating voice], “Put. Me. On.” Those are the three general patterns you see for casting.

Mod: You’ve done some voice work for video games as well as anime. What’s the difference between doing work for either?

KY: Fundamentally, they are the same. The basis is stage acting, which gets altered to fit the medium of games or film or anime, but fundamentally, it is exactly the same. There are some differences, though. The most difficult thing about voice acting as opposed to stage acting is the limited amount of time a character is moving their mouth. The performance has to fit the time limit of that action. In a stage production, I’m free to speak the lines at my own natural pace, but I don’t get that freedom in animated or video game voiceover. 

The moderator then invited audience members to ask their own questions. Here are some of the highlights!

Audience Question: You’ve worked a lot in super sentai and tokusatsu shows. Are there any of these that you like more than others?

KY: Ninja Sentai Kakuranger was different than most other projects I’ve worked on in that I was able to play a hero, so that was very special to me.

AQ: Franky gets superpowered by drinking sodas. Which soda do you think he would drink here in the United States?

KY: Although Franky gets energized by soda, I myself am not very good with sweets. If I had the choice, I would want Franky to get powered up with beer!

AQ: What was it like working with Yoshiyuki Tomino (Mobile Suit Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ, Turn A Gundam)?

KY: The thing about Mr. Tomino is that he has a very unique fashion sense. At the time, he would always show up to recording sessions wearing a cape and he would kneel before the voice actors to give his criticisms. It was very surprising! I was thought, “am I at a host club?!” At the beginning, I received a lot of instruction and guidance on what the character should be like, but as the series progressed, Mr. Tomino let me have much more freedom. It was a very fun year working on Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ. 

The moderator then played a clip of Yao’s performance from Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ

KY: Wow! So young! I’m 14 forever!

AQ: When you auditioned for One Piece, did you ever expect for the series to get as big as it did and that you would still be acting in it 20 years on?

KY: The first time that I was involved with One Piece was as Jango. 1, 2, 3, JANGO!! At the time when I started doing Jango, they told me this was going to be a long run, that we were looking at 20 years. And now, here we stand 20 years later with no sign of stopping!

AQ: I really enjoyed you as Kitami in Kaiji. For smaller roles like that, are you contacted by the production staff or do you audition.

KY: In the case of Kitami, I was contacted by the director. But did you know that I was actually the original voice of the main character, Kaiji? It wasn’t in the TV anime, but on a pachinko slot machine! So then when I heard Masato Hagiwara as the main character within the anime, I was like, “what?!” But the two of us are friends, so it’s no problem. 

AQ: Eiichiro Oda has said that the characters of Bon Clay and Franky are actually influenced by you. Are there any other instances where you see your influence as a person coming through on fictional characters?

KY: One of the big things [he puts his feet up onto the table, showing off snakeskin shoes] is that I collect snakeskin items. Eiichiro Oda is very aware of that, so whenever I see him he will usually give me something with snakeskin. Before I knew it, there was Hancock with snakes all over, and I think that was my influence! I asked Oda about it though, and he said “naaaaah!”

AQ: What was it like playing the villain character Doctor Z in the sentai spinoff series Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger?

KY: It was so fun! The director actually asked for me and said of the role, “this is for you, Yao-chan.” It was my first time working in a CG-centric environment. They shoed me storyboards and images of what it should look like on a computer and I had to act like things were going on around me when there wasn’t anything there. It was a very refreshing experience! There was one time that my hand was injured, so I had to use my fake prop hand to eat in a scene. I wasn’t able to grab anything so it was really hard! I would keep getting the food almost to my mouth and it would just fall out.

AQ: What is the most memorable experience you have had with fans?

KY: There’s a lot! There was this one time when there was an event where a bunch of fans got on a bus tour and we had barbecue! On that ride, I was facing all of the passengers doing my bus tour guide routine. Because I was facing away from the front of the bus, I got really carsick! It was a very interesting experience, but I’ll never be a bus guide again.

AQ: Do you ever find yourself unable to sleep at night and use Jango’s techniques to fall asleep?

KY: Of course! Every night! 1, 2, 3, Jango! [he then pretends to snore.]