Ito Kentaro is slowly becoming one of my favorite voice actors, otherwise known as seiyuu. I have a great passion for seiyuu. I just read a statistic that says that 60% of the world's animated series are produced in Japan. The booming animation industry is what allows Japan to produce superb voice actors that are well-paid and have a solid fanbase. My issues with the American voice acting industry have a lot to with it's severe lack of quality actors. As anime becomes more popular in America, there more voice actors that are needed. My problem is that companies have realized that certain voice actors are popular, and keep employing them. These actors are good, but in my opinion, have very little range. They're good at one or two voices, and never stray far beyond those. So David Lucas/Steve Blum is incredibly recognizable because every character he plays sounds almost exactly the same. There's a finite number of talented voice actors in the US/Canadian anime industry, and that's why I think most people prefer to watch in Japanese whenever possible. There are two important reasons why the Japanese cast of a show is thought to be better than the English cast. First, because the English cast usually sounds like they're acting parts, the Japanese cast sounds like the characters. The tones, the subtle noises, all sound natural. And even with training and support from the Japanese directors, the English cast are TERRIBLE at pronouncing Japanese words and names, which appear in most shows. So the overall quality of a Japanese cast is better than an American/Canadian one. The other reason for the continuous love of the Japanese cast is simply that most American fans don't know any better. If a seiyuu isn't that great, or if a show is terribly over-acted, Americans generally have no way of knowing without having extensive knowledge of the culture and language. How do you know if the conversation in anime sounds natural unless you've heard an actual conversation between Japanese people?

Anyway, I didn't mean to rant on that, what I really wanted to talk about is Ito Kentaro and a few of the characters he's played.

The first time I heard him was as Akimichi Chouji in Naruto. Of all his roles that I've actually heard him play, this is the one of the most unique. Chouji has kind of a puffy, roundish voice, with a little roughness to it. Roughness to me having the meaning of kind of scratchy & abrasive (but never in a bad way). Unfortunately, Choujii doesn't exactly have a lot of lines, not with so many other dominant characters in Naruto.

The second time I heard him wasn't actually Bleach like one might think. It was as Alford in Kyou Kara Maou, the holy-sword wielding hero who makes small, infrequent appearances. It's a bit part, but totally unlike the other characters I've heard Ito as. Alford has what I would consider a more normal voice. The roughness that Ito is so good at is minimal in Alford. Alford sounds very round, solid, very much like a typical hero.

Then I heard Ito in Bleach, as Abarai Renji, who is hands-down my favorite character. Renji enters the show in a sort of villainous light, but is revealed to be a noble-hearted albeit rough-around-the-edges underdog. The reason why I've become an Ito fan is because of Renji. Before the character was even fully shown, he had a line, and the way he said the line sent little shivers up my spine. "Kuchiki Rukia... mitsuketa~" Not a big or particularly important line, but the voicing he did provided the perfect effect. I loved the character the moment I heard his voice. Renji has a rough, growly voice, a little deep, with his softer lines having a certain roundness to them. I like that about Renji because he does have a soft side to him, and Ito does a wonderful job proving that in his voice.

A couple of months ago I started watching Saiunkoku Monogatari, which has Ito voicing Ro Ensei, a temporary provincial governor who makes a better bounty hunter than an official. Ensei has a similar voice to Renji. It's less abrasive, and since Ensei doesn't yell as much as Renji, there's a slightly rounder quality to it. Ensei is overall a gentler character than Renji, and occasionally has to use politer speech than most other characters Ito plays. I was pleasantly surprised at how long it took me to figure out that it was Ito playing Ensei, though actually that happened several times with other characters & their seiyuu in Saiunkoku.

Most recently, I watched Zombie-Loan. Ito comes in as a character that I imagine has a bigger role in the manga, but since Z-L is so short, this character, Sotetsu, didn't have a lot of screen time. At first I was a little disappointed that Sotetsu didn't sound the least bit different from Renji (though I think his grammar is a little different). All of the vocal qualities are just like Renji's, but it works perfectly for Sotetsu's personality. Strangely enough, Renji and Sotestu kind of look alike, so I hope this isn't the beginning of Ito being typecast. So far, the roles I've seen him play aren't really similar to one another, and I'd like it if he didn't end up playing the same kind of role every time like some other voice actors.

So anyway, I'm becoming quite the Ito fan, and I'll probably try and watch some shows that I know he's in. I'm somewhat amused at the frequency of which Ito voices in the same show a Sakurai Takahiro, who will no doubt be the next seiyuu I blog about.