So you wish to learn about the acclaimed voice actor Nozomu Sasaki? You should have seen the look on his face as I plunged the knife into his heart. Well, Nozomu Sasaki (born January 25, 1967) was the No.1 male idol voice actor of the The '90s thanks to his large amount of Bishōnen roles, a beautiful singing voice, and his cute face, note and has been the winner of the Seiyuu Grand Prix ranking more often than anyone of his generation. Sasaki was known in his prime for his ability to range up towards the contralto-near-mezzo register, comparable to Mitsuki Saiga, and near identical to Minami Takayama's voice range - especially to her Conan voice; this allowed him to play lots of adorably precocious children in a very young age range, which most actors in his time couldn't achieve. For the knowledge of the newer generation anime fanbase, taking account of his popularity and prime vocal type, his line of successors would be Jun Fukuyama and Yūki Kaji.note
He has been in the business since the late eighties. In fact, he was part of the first Seiyuu Boy Band ever to become popular - The NG5; it was made of the five main voice actors of Ronin Warriors, which included Takeshi Kusao.
Most of his famous roles are his early onesnote , often typed as The Hero, The Heart, Nice Guy, Mouthy Kid, and The Creepy Child, such as Tetsuo, Shin Mouri, and Yusuke Urameshi. Unfortunately, he has undergone some dramatic switch in Typecasting due to his voice aging early in the form of dropping a couple of octaves down to the tenor with a much hoarser texture; Sasaki outed this was more of a "voice crack" on his part than an aging problem due to a period where he received a certain role with loads of mad shouting (he refuses to say which one to protect the work from backlash), all the while squeezed in live music performances, and the inability to give his voice a resting period due to his tight schedule. Therefore, most of his recent characters are of The Sociopath, Ax-Crazy and Jerkass type such as Hayate Gekko, Jin Akutsu, Mello, and Johan Liebert.... I "helped" him along, of course.
Oh yes, he doesn't like to use the word 'Nii-san' thanks to a certain role he had in After War Gundam X, but it may be a whole different story if that word was recited by a certain 'younger brother' of his, of which project also happens to have an "X" in it's title. Along with his other fellow YuYu Hakusho cast mates, he's claimed all three of them to be his True Companions.
Nozomu can speak Japanese and English, the latter deciding to take English lessons seriously when he was in junior high school. He takes the opportunity to interact with fans/English-based interviews, but asks the assistance of translators to translate his Japanese for him a few times. He enrolled in the University of Tokyo in 2013, which he only made public after graduating from its Faculty of Law seven years later.
Please do not confuse him with the similarly-named voice actress, Nozomi Sasakinote .... I had to kill her too.
Tropes Associated with Sasaki:
- The Quiet One: A reserved man by nature, people would find Sasaki's small talks really small talks, unless he's required to answer questions, host, make lengthy statements, or just have the right people to get him talking; and he doesn't prefer to budge in on conversations unless the topics are aiming directly to him. A good example can be seen through his various YuYu Hakusho commentary sessions, be it old or recent years, where he just naturally sits through entire conversations with his mouth shut while the other three just keep flexing their tongues.
- Role Reprise: To combat his voice crack, Sasaki worked hard in patching his voice back for his reprise roles, especially Yusuke and Eriol, through sheer voice retraining, and developing vocal techniques.
- Vocal Evolution: As to how fans analyzed him
: He went from Minami Takayama > Mitsuki Saiga > his Yusuke Urameshi Golden Era > Yūki Kaji > Jun Fukuyama > Takahiro Sakurai > on toward his current Daisuke Namikawa / Susumu Chiba / Kujira fusion.
Characters portrayed by Nozomu Sasaki:
- Agedama Genji (Agedaman) in Genji Tsuushin Agedama (one of the many characters that he DEFINITELY couldn't pull off nowadays since his voice has aged.)
- Blanck in Solatorobo: Red the Hunter
- Chihaya in Earthian
- Clef in Magic Knight Rayearth
- Cloud Strife and Zack Fair in Ehrgeiz
- Desch in Final Fantasy III (In Dissidia Opera Omnia)
- Edge Vanhite in Atelier Iris 3
- Eriol Hiiragizawa in Cardcaptor Sakura
- Guy Christoph Rech in Karakuri Circus
- Hairein in World Trigger
- Hathaway Noa in Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack (even now, he sometimes reprises the role in video games, whether it be the 13-year old Hathaway from the movie, or the 25-year old version from Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway's Flash; he's eventually replaced by Kensho Ono for the movies.)
- Hayate Gekko in Naruto
- Hiroto Douma in Fafner in the Azure: Dead Aggressor
- Huey Trumbull in Live A Live (2022 remake)
- Irako Seigen in Shigurui
- Jin Akutsu in The Prince of Tennis.
- Johan Liebert in Monster (Save for the scenes where Johan crossdresses as his twin sister Anna; Anna's seiyuu Mamiko Noto takes over in the meantime.)
- Julian Mintz in Legend of the Galactic Heroes
- Karl in Blood+
- Kotaro Takamiya in B't X
- Lucian and Fuyuki in Valkyrie Profile
- Marito in Bucchigiri?!
- Mello in Death Note
- Mitsumata in Ranking of Kings
- Nagi Naoe in Weiß Kreuz
- Olba Frost in After War Gundam X
- Oz in the Japanese dub of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- Robotack in Tetsuwan Tantei Robotack
- Ruka Tsuchiya in Revolutionary Girl Utena
- Shadi, Priest Shada in Yu-Gi-Oh!
- Shin Mouri in Ronin Warriors
- Shiro in Battle Girls: Time Paradox
- Stephen Hyde in the Japanese dub of That '70s Show
- Tairu in Getter Robo Arc
- Takahiro Aramaki in 7 Seeds
- Takatsuki Gentatsu and Yukishiro Enishi in Rurouni Kenshin
- Takefumi Tonami in His and Her Circumstances
- Tetsuo in AKIRA
- K9999note in The King of Fighters 2001 and 2002
- Ushio Aotsuki in the OVA of Ushio and Tora
- Yusuke Urameshi in YuYu Hakusho and Jump Force
-points gun at you- "Goodbye, dear Troper" REI GUN! -Bang!-
