Masakazu Morita

Japanese voice actor and singer (born 1972)
Thumbnail for Masakazu Morita

Masakazu Morita is a Japanese actor, voice actor and singer. He previously worked for Aoni Production. He is also the host of the radio show Bleach B-Station. He played Ichigo Kurosaki in Bleach, Maeda Keiji in Sengoku Basara, Marco the Phoenix in One Piece, Tidus in Final Fantasy X, Whis in Dragon Ball Super, Auel Neider in Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny, Pegasus Seiya in Saint Seiya – Hades Chapter, Pod in Pokémon, Tenjuro Banno in Kamen Rider Drive and Li Xin in Kingdom. He won the "Best Rookie Actor" at the first Seiyu Awards. He is also the official Japanese dubbing voice of Zac Efron.

Morita attended Kyoka Junior and Senior High School. When he was in high school, he joined the brass band club and was in charge of conducting the marching band, which led him to discover the joy of entertainment. He worked as an actor at NHK Promotion, studied under film director Yukio Fukamachi, and appeared in films, stage plays, and dramas. His motion capture for the role of Zell Dincht in the 1999 PlayStation game Final Fantasy VIII was his debut as an actor.

He voiced Tidus Final Fantasy X. While originally only in charge of motion capturing for a role, after over 100 people auditioned and no voice actor was chosen, Morita was finally called in for an audition and was hired. When he was chosen to play the role, he thought he could handle it because he only had to do a voice, but in reality, he was shocked when he heard his own voice on the recording and his motionless performance. When Morita met Hideo Ishikawa, Kazuya Nakai and Hiroshi Kamiya, he came to respect the fun of voice acting and their attitude toward their work, and decided that he wanted to work in the same industry like them and join the same agency. On September 1, 2003, after working as a freelancer, he moved to Aoni Production, his first voice acting agency.

Morita voiced Ichigo Kurosaki in the anime series Bleach. He said that Ichigo was one of his favorite characters he ever played alongside Tidus, and in 2005 he was chosen to replace Tōru Furuya as the voice of the main character Pegasus Seiya in Saint Seiya: Hades. Morita was said to have shed tears of joy when he was chosen at the audition. He voiced Ryūji Takane, the main character in Ring ni Kakero 1, and was thus selected twice to play the lead in works written by Masami Kurumada.

In 2007, he won the Best Rookie Actor award at the 1st Seiyu Awards. In 2008, he returned to the stage as a guest performer in a performance by the K-Show theater company organized by Kentarō Itō, and in October 2009, he played his first leading role and first performance as a chairman.

In 2012, Morita made his debut as a singer with RING BONES. In 2013, he confessed on his Twitter page that he was in a critical situation at one point, wavering between life and death due to anaphylactic shock. He said he had "almost died three times" due to anaphylactic shock, myocardial infarction and side effects. He was in a very dangerous state, but thanks to the efforts of doctors, he recovered.

On December 31, 2020, he announced on Twitter that he would be leaving Aoni Production, the company to which he had belonged for 17 years, and would be working as a freelancer from January 1, 2021.

Date of Birth21st October 1972
Age52 Years
Zodiac SignLibra
CountryJapan
Birth PlaceTokyo
NationalityJapan
CitizenshipJapan
LanguageJapanese
ReferenceIMDB
Instrumentsvoice
Occupationactor, seiyū, singer
Career Start1995 (29 years ago)
Awards
  • Seiyu Award for Best Rookie Actor