Kenichi 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"). 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. Music. In addition to performing many different character songs in his voice acting career, Suzumura has become a singer signed on the Lantis label. As a solo artist he writes all his songs. In his debut year 2008, Suzumura  also became one of the main hosts of the annual live music event Original Entertainment Paradise (OrePara), together with the other 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 resulting from this concert was donated to help the victims of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Because  of the power shortage the concert was arranged simple to save power and Suzumura performed all songs in acoustic versions. 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.