# Eric Kelso

Eric Kelso (born December 22) is an American voice actor, director, presenter and producer currently based in Tokyo, Japan.
He is best known as the voice of Paul Phoenix in the video game series, Tekken, as well as Guizhang Chen, Masayuki Fukuhara, and Ren of Heavens in the Shenmue series, Captain Falcon, and Blood Falcon in F-Zero GX, and Jacky Bryant in the Virtua Fighter series. Outside of video games, he has also provided voices for many Japanese TV shows, films, radio programs.

## Early life

Eric Kelso attended high school in Santa Cruz, California and went to the University at Santa Barbara where he majored in Film Studies. While at UCSB he received a Corwin Metropolitan Film Award for writing and directing the short film, "an echo en route".
After graduating in 1986, he set out to travel the world in search of documentary film subjects. He eventually made his way to his current long-time residence of Japan.

## Career
### Narration

Kelso has been active in Japan doing English-language and Japanese-language voiceovers for movies, television shows, children's programs and educational broadcasting. In 1995, Kelso provided live interactive voiceover and CG movement work for Mr. Mike, a sarcastic talking microphone character, around the world. Notable events include TELECOM 95 in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as at ASIA TELECOM 97 in Singapore.
He voiced the Japanese movie trailer for Disney's Mulan, as well as the part of River Guide in the Wild River Splash VR Simulator ride for DreamWorks at SEGA's Joypolis in Tokyo. In 2006, shortly after the merger of Tomy and Takara, Kelso provided the voice for the Omnibot 2007: i-SOBOT, which has been certified by Guinness World Records as "the world's smallest humanoid robot in production".
Kelso has been a director and producer for corporate video recordings for companies such as Prologis Inc. and Medtronic.

### Voice acting

Kelso began voice acting for the video game industry in 1996. In 2001, he voiced the character Paul Phoenix in the fighting video game, Tekken 4. In 2004, Kelso reprised this role in 5 and continued to voice the character in Dark Resurrection and 6.
In 2000, Kelso provided voices for the English dub of the Sega Dreamcast game, Shenmue. Playing the roles of Masayuki Fukuhara and Guizhang Chen, Kelso noted how expansive the project was, having a more developed storyline and more dialogue than other games at the time. In 2001, Kelso became the voice for another fighting game character in Virtua Fighter 3 called Jacky Bryant. He also reprised the role in Virtua Fighter 5, as well as side projects featuring the character, such as, Sega Superstars, Virtua Quest, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, and Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate In 2002, Kelso also worked on the sequel to Shenmue, Shenmue II, voicing a new character in the franchise, Wuying Ren "of Heavens". The English dub of the game appeared in the re-released version on the Microsoft Xbox console as well as the high-definition ports for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

## Filmography
### Television

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| | Doraemon | unknown | Gakken English dub |
| 1993–1998 | Iron Chef | Masaharu Morimoto; Yoshiro Mori | Live-action English dub |
| 2001 | Zoids: Century Neo | Additional voices | Alternate English dub; pilot |
| 2015 | Air Bound | Ace, Owen, Buck Tooth | International English dub |
| 2017 | Sakura Quest | Mayor Naumann | Japanese dub (Ep. 25) |
| 2023 | The Marginal Service | Character Naration | |

### Film

| Year | Title | Role | Notes | Ref. |
| 2016 | Under the Dog | Soldier | | |

### Video games

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1996 | Virtua Fighter 3 | Jacky Bryant | |
| 1997 | Soul Edge | | English dub |
| 2000 | Slashout | Slash | |
| 2000 | Gungriffon Blaze | Various | |
| 2000 | Shenmue | Masayuki Fukuhara, Guizhang Chen | English dub |
| 2001 | Virtua Fighter 4 | Jacky Bryant | |
| 2001 | Tekken 4 | Paul Phoenix | Select voice samples re-used in 5 and 6 |
| 2001 | Planet of the Apes | Various | |
| 2001 | Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure | Woody Woodpecker, Biff Tannen | |
| 2002 | Shenmue II | Wuying Ren | |
| 2003 | Dino Crisis 3 | Jacob Ranshaw | Motion capture |
| 2003 | F-Zero GX | Captain Falcon, Blood Falcon | |
| 2003 | Glass Rose | Takashi Kagetani, Kazuya | English dub |
| 2003 | Bloody Roar 4 | Reiji Takigawa | English dub |
| 2004 | Firefighter F.D.18 | Dean McGregor | Credited as Erick Kelso |
| 2004 | Gradius V | Pilot, Boss | |
| 2004 | Taiko: Drum Master | Various | |
| 2004 | Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django | Dainn, Kid, Coffin Shopkeeper, Ennio | English dub |
| 2004 | Sega Superstars | Jacky Bryant | |
| 2004 | Tekken 5 | Paul Phoenix | |
| 2004 | Baten Kaitos | Kalas | English dub |
| 2004 | Metal Wolf Chaos | Additional voices | |
| 2005 | Virtua Quest | Jacky Bryant | English dub |
| 2005 | Shining Force Neo | Klein | English dub |
| 2005 | Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection | Paul Phoenix | |
| 2006 | Virtua Fighter 5 | Jacky Bryant | |
| 2006 | Elebits | Ed (Dad) | English dub |
| 2006 | Dance Dance Revolution: Disney Mix | Various | |
| 2007 | Lunar Knights | Duke Dumas, Kay | English dub |
| 2007 | Dynasty Warriors: Gundam | Various | |
| 2007 | Mega Max ZX Advent | Aeolus | English dub |
| 2007 | Tekken 6 | Paul Phoenix | |
| 2010 | Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing | Jacky Bryant | |
| 2010 | Ace Combat: Joint Assault | Michael Arena | English dub |
| 2013 | Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate | Jacky Bryant | |
| 2015 | Dead or Alive 5 Last Round | Jacky Bryant | |
| 2015 | Transformers Pachinko | Optimus Prime | |
| 2015 | Time Crisis 5 | Marc Godart | English dub |
| 2015 | Devil’s Third Online | Various | |
| 2016 | NightCry | Harry, Newscaster, HQ | English dub |
| 2016 | Pokémon Tretta | Announcer | |
| 2019 | Shenmue III | Wuying Ren | English Dub (Mod) |

### Radio

| Year | Title | Role |
| 1991 | New York and Boston with Eric | Host |
| 1991–1992 | Radio Eikawa | Host |
| 1992 | Florida with Eric | Host |

### Narration

| Year | Title | Medium | Notes | Ref. |
| 1998 | Mulan | Film trailer | Japanese version | |

### Other voice work

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1995 | Mr. Mike | Mr. Mike | Voice, motion capture; Interactive CG |
| 2001 | Universal Studios Japan | Woody Woodpecker | Theme Park |
| 2007 | i-SOBOT | i-SOBOT | English voice; Robot |
| 2019 | Ultra Galaxy Fight: New Generation Heroes | Ultra Dark-Killer | YouTube web series; English dub |
| 2020 | Ultra Galaxy Fight: The Absolute Conspiracy | Ultraman Zero, Ultraman Great | YouTube web series; English dub |