[SEIYUU] 2015 WHITE DAY Ikemen Seiyuu Special

Last year for our White Day special, we sent you a special poll, where we asked you about which Uta no Prince-sama seiyuu you would like to receive White Day gifts from. So for this year’s White Day special we are going all out with the service and we present you our prettiest seiyuu feature yet – the White Day Ikemen Seiyuu Special.

Here we present you nine seiyuus whose good looks may have been slightly wasted given their choice of profession, but we just wanted to fill your day with loads of pretty. (Just because we are shallow that way.) But also because we strongly believe in equal opportunity, we have included good-looking men ranging from their youthful twenties, the roaring thirties and up to the maturing forties. Mind you, we said ikemen, not cute, fluffy and adorable, so nope, Yuuki Kaji doesn’t make this list.

On to the pretty!

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Mamoru Miyano

[The one your guy friend might just go gay for.]

With his relatively tall stature (at 1.82m) for Japanese men, Mamoru Miyano sure cuts an impressive figure, standing with his head above most colleagues (at least until Takuya Eguchi came along). Coming from theatre troupe Gekidan Himawari, he first caught audiences’ attention as the bright and flamboyant Tamaki Suou from Ouran High School Host Club, but it was his portrayal of anti-hero Light Yagami from Death Note that saw his popularity explode.

In recent years he has also been busy carving himself a niche in the anisong market. He debuted as a solo singer with the single “Kuon” which was used as an ending theme for anime Koutetsu Sangokushi, and has now developed his own style of music in both power ballads and electronic dance music. Other than landing his first solo singing award at the Seiyuu Awards in 2014, he has a reputation for being quite the dancer, incorporating rather complex choreography into his own PVs, and recently working with renowned composer and producer Jin Nakamura.

In testament to his ‘ikemen’ cred, he released his own photobook JOURNEY last year, with beautiful shots set in idyllic Okinawa . With Mamo’s personal style favoring light and soft fabric, he does have a tendency to fall out of his clothes. Don’t say that you have not been adequately warned.

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Kenjirou Tsuda

[Too hot to handle]

Tsuda may be slighter in stature, but he’s one you would call a gentlemen’s actor, with charisma flowing off in spades. All twinkly eyes and killer cheekbones, he set many hearts aflutter when he released his own photobook which included quite a number of pages showcasing his *ahem* eight-pack (and more~). The photobook garnered tons of attention from his fellow seiyuu, with saw quite a number (of male) colleagues stanning it on social media. You probably first took notice of his sensuous baritone as the voice behind Seto Kaiba of Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters or Chikage Kazama of Hakuoki; while younger audiences will probably be more familiar with his portrayal of Mikoto Suoh from the anime series [K].

On his first visit to Singapore for AFA SG where he was invited as a special guest, his meet-and-greet sessions at the Starchild booth sent many ladies swooning in his wake. I attest that the man is even better looking in person *swoons*. Good-natured and humorous, the handsome devil even happily agreed to sign on his own scantily-clad self in his own photobook.

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Daisuke Ono

[The original “handsome” seiyuu]

As the proud owner of the nickname “HANSAMU” (handsome), how could we leave OnoD off this list? HANSAMU started off as an insider nickname, but massively took off after being thrown around blatantly on Dear Girls’ Stories, a regular web radio show Daisuke Ono hosts with Hiroshi Kamiya. Acting as the boke (fool) to Kamiya’s scathing tsukkomi, this hit pairing of Do-M (Ono) and Do-S (Kamiya) has been so wildly successful they have their own spin-off comic series, product endorsements, and movie spin-offs.

Bearing an uncanny resemblance to GACKT, OnoD is the less intimidating, less intense, much gentler version. Although age has not been as kind to him as some of his same-age colleagues, he still looks best when those dimples are on display. His greatest charm however is his affable personality and earnestness, and mostly his willingness to ham it up or play the fool without reservation.

Looks nonetheless, his voice unmistakably signals ikemen (or ike-voice), and he can be often found lending his voice to prettier characters than himself – such as Shizuo Heiwajima (Durarara!!), Seishuu Handa (Barakamon) and Kokkuri-san (Gugure! Kokkuri-san).

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Tatsuhisa Suzuki

[Ikemen in glorious denial]

As much as he insists otherwise, Tatsuhisa Suzuki is widely known as the ‘Junon boy of the seiyuu industry’. Having made his debut at a tender age of 19, his youthful and cute looks earned him the title and endless bouts of playful ribbing from his senpais. This quickly spiraled into the release of his photobook almost a good 10 years ago, way before (male) seiyuu photobooks became a popular commodity.

While Tatsu has recently garnered much attention of the teenage female variety from his role as gentle swimming giant Makoto Tachibana and as Ta_2 of rock band OLDCODEX, long-time fans would probably remember being charmed by this young man singing at the Saint Beast seiyuu event as far back as 2004.

10 years on, Tatsu or Tattsun, as he is more commonly known by fans, has traded in his cute for a cooler, more rugged, devil-may-care attitude, reinforced by his rock band vocalist image. His greatest charm probably lies in the gap between his witty, tongue-in-cheek humour and his young, boyish charm, preserved in his killer smile. That, and also the constant denial of his good looks. Besides being extremely unreserved about contorting his face for hilarious photos, he was also quick to confer the title of “top ikemen seiyuu” to Nobunaga Shimazaki, insisting that he is aiming to be the “top hentai ikemen seiyuu” instead. Speaking of fervent denial, Tatsu admits to being approached recently by a model scout while on the streets in Tokyo, but later laughed it off by saying that he was already a 30-year-old uncle. Seriously, if only he knew the effect he can have on people…

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Shinichiro Miki

[The original seiyuu boybander]

Way before the phenomenon that was Uta no Prince-sama, or even seiyuus moonlighting as singers, there was the original seiyuu boyband Weiß. This became one of the very first seiyuu singing units releasing several singles and drama CDs. Weiß is formed by the four seiyuus of the four main characters of the original anime series Weiß Kreuz – Takehito Koyasu, Hiro Yuuki, Tomokazu Seki, and Shinichiro Miki.

Miki is likely the most modelesque of this entire list, effortlessly pulling off the most outrageous hairstyles and the strangest ensembles over the years. Insisting that seiyuu work should be focused on the characters and not the cast, he is rarely seen in cast photos without his trademark sunglasses or with a convenient prop obscuring his face (although he seems to have relaxed a little recently).

In a case of possible art imitating life, a significant portion of his voice roles were anime ‘bishounen’ – Shinou (Kyou Kara Maoh!), Yoji Kudo (Weiß Kreuz), even Lockon Stratos (Gundam 00). However, he is better known for his quirky, wise advisor roles, like Kisuke Urahara (Bleach), Roy Mustang (Fullmetal Alchemist), and Bak Chan (D. Gray Man). Little known to most, Miki is also a sometime professional car racer, in a case of life imitating art, mirroring one of his most iconic characters, Takumi Fujiwara of Initial D.

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Toshiki Masuda

[The Sentai Ranger next door]

His debut as a seiyuu only came with his leading role as Ryoga Kamishiro in Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, but his first exposure to anime fans was through his stage debut as Seiichi Yukimura in the Prince of Tennis Musical. Although his ambition has always been to be a seiyuu, it turns out that it was influence from a senpai (senior) in seiyuu school that lured him into loving stage work as well. However, it is his performance as the titular character in sentai paraody anime Samurai Flamenco, and Ryuu Zaou in magical shounen anime Binan Koukou Chikyuu Boueibu Love! that has been garnering the most attention.

Having trained under seiyuu legend Sho Hayami, he has also participated in a number of works with his teacher, most notably in S.S.D.S. Co-hosting a radio show with radio show with Yoshimasa Hosoya (see next entry) led to the formation of one of the most visually arresting seiyuu pop duos ever, despite their massive 8-year age gap. Coming off as bright and sunny, fans tell me that his charm point is his face, and nice smile. It also needs to be mentioned that Masuda (or Damasu as referred to by fans and colleagues), not only has one, but TWO photobooks to his name.

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Yoshimasa Hosoya

[The eternal sports captain who’s a delicate flower]

Despite his waif-like stature and delicate features, Hosoya’s forte as a seiyuu is in largely-built, gruff characters, like Sentaro Kawabuchi (Sakamichi no Apollon), Reiner Braun (Shingeki no Kyojin) and Akari Hizamaru (Terraformars). He has also amassed a large collection of roles in sports anime, usually playing the captain or the ace of the team, such as Kuranosuke Shiraishi (Prince of Tennis), Junpei Hyuga (Kuroko’s Basketball), Tetsuya Yuki (Ace of Diamond).

Although his characters have a tendency to be loud and brassy, Hosoya tends to be much quieter and awkward behind the scenes. Easily flustered, his temperament reminds us most of Haikyuu!!’s Asahi Azumane. Hence, despite being the older person in a bunch of seiyuus, he tends to end up bullied or teased. And oh, he has stated multiple times that he prefers older women.

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Takahiro Sakurai

[Seiyuu no Ouji-sama]

Before appearing in photoshoots became part of a seiyuu’s job scope, and needing to look groomed and visually-appealing a prerequisite for success and popularity, there was Sakurai Takahiro. Industry veterans coined him as one of the very first ikemen seiyuus, with his poised image and genteel air. Although he has perfect vision, he is rarely seen without a pair of glasses, earning him the moniker of ‘uso-megane’.

Because of his voice style that has been described as calm and distinguished, he had the cool bishounen market cornered at some point. White-haired bishounen? There’s a 80% chance Sakurai is going to be voicing the guy. Add a pair of glasses, and the probability goes up to 90%. His greatest appeal as a voice actor however, is in his range and nuanced performances. He has played reluctant heroes (Cloud Strife, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children), psychopathic villians (Shogo Makishima, PSYCHO-PASS), conflicted humans (Suzaku Kururugi, Code Geass), and even hapless dudes in distress (Misaki Takahashi, Junjou Romantica). He also has had the distinction of being invited to the Venice Film Festival as a voice actor for his role as Cloud.

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Yuuichiro Umehara

[The young usurper]

We are calling him the young usurper because his appearance has significantly raised the bar for what passes as good-looking now in seiyuu circles. Although he has only 2 major roles to his name, this young un has managed to kick out many other ikemen seiyuu to earn a place in this ranking. Fast gaining attention (and longing gazes) for recent appearances in events and Nico Nama sessions to promote Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu Love!, this dashing young man has undoubtedly caused a stir in both the hearts of fans and colleagues alike.

His ridiculously pretty face has resulted in many program hosts and fellow seiyuus-senpais (including Hiroki Yasumoto and Yoko Hikasa) to openly exclaim on air about his “ikemen-ness”. It certainly isn’t good for fangirl hearts that he seems to always appear immaculately dressed in pressed shirts and suits.

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Hope you have enjoyed it! Let us know if there are more.. beautiful seiyuus we need to admire…