Kôichi Yamadera

Yamadera is a famous Japanese voice artist and actor, born 17 June 1961 in Miyagi, Japan. A graduate from Tohoku Gakuin University's economics school, he is affiliated with Across Entertainment. Before that, he was affiliated with the Tokyo Actor's Consumer's Cooperative Society. He is very prolific voice artist that specializes in video games, television, animation theater and others. He was the manager of the Tagajo Senior High School basketball team before he started a voice over career. His voice-acting debut was the OVA Megazone 23 (1985) as the motorcycle-riding Shinji Nakagawa, while his television debut was the anime Bosco Adventure (1986) as the cowardly, but friendly Otter. Yamadera's break-out role as an voice artist was the anime Ranma 1/2 (1989), in which he played the dual role of Hibiki Ryoga and the Jusenkyo Guide. The same year, he voiced Shaman in giant robot anime TV series Granzort (1989). In 1991, Yamadera joined forces with Toshihiko Seki and Noriko Hidaka to form the acting unit Banana Fritters, which disbanded in 1995. On the October of 1997, Yamadera became a host on the TV Tokyo children's variety show Oha Suta. In 1994 Yamadera married Mika Kanai and they stayed married for twelve years until divorcing on the spring of 2006. Their divorce was revealed in 2007. Today, Kanai lives in 4-story house, while Yamadera lives in apartment in Tokyo. Yamadera is best known for his roles in Kaiketsu Zorori (Zorori), the Japanese dub of Full House (Joey Gladstone), Ranma 1/2 (Ryoga Hibiki/P-Chan, Jusenkyo Guide), Soreike! Anpanman (Cheese, Kabao, Kamameshidon), Brave Exkaiser (Osamu Tokuda),in highly popular Ghost in the Shell (1995)/Ghost in the Shell: Innocence (2004) (Togusa), Neon Genesis Evangelion (Ryoji Kaji), Cowboy Bebop (Spike Spiegel), the Yatterman remake (Narrator, Yatter-Wan, Odatebuta), Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack (Gyunei Guss), Paprika (2006) as Osanai Morio and in highly popular Vampire Hunter D - Bloodlust (2000) as Meier Link. He is also known for dubbing such actors as Jim Carrey and Eddie Murphy in foreign language films.