Kenichi Suzumura

(born September 12, 1974 in Niigata, Osaka Prefecture) is a Japanese voice actor, narrator and singer affiliated with and a representative of Intention Inc., a voice acting company he founded in March 2012.
He also is most known for being voices for Zack Fair in the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts series and Demyx only in the Kingdom Hearts series, Leif Faris Claus and Quan in the Fire Emblem series, Ren Tatewaki in the Phantom Breaker series, and Senel Coolidge in the Tales series. His roles in anime extend as Sōgo Okita in Gintama, Rogue Cheney in Fairy Tail series, and Momotaro Mikoshiba in Free!.
He provided the voice of Simon Belmont in his appearance in the Japanese version of Castlevania Judgment.
==Career==
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 Seiyū Awards. On October 8 of the same year, he made his major label debut with Lantis. 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.
On 2011, he won the second prize at the first Music Jacket Awards 2011 (for his album CHRONICLE to the future).
In 2012, Suzumura won the "Best Musical Performance" as part of ST☆RISH at the 6th Seiyū 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 Seiyū 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).
==Gallery==
Official Judgment Simon.png|link=Simon Belmont/Judgment|Suzumura voiced Simon Belmont in Castlevania Judgment.
==Trivia==
*He is married with Maaya Sakamoto since 2011. On April 21, 2022, the couple announced the birth of their first child.
*Suzumura's favorite motto is: "Life is what you make of it."
==External links==
*Official profile at Intention Inc. (Japanese)
*Anime News Network
*Behind the Voice Actors
*IMDb
*MobyGames
*Twitter (Japanese)
*Wikipedia
Category:Japanese Voice Actors
Category:Voice Actors