Showtaro Morikubo

Showtaro Morikubo (森久保 祥太郎) is a Japanese voice actor and singer who has voiced characters in anime, drama CDs, and video games.

He was formerly affiliated with I'm Enterprise, Sigma Seven and VIMS.

His most notable roles were Shikamaru Nara from Naruto, Souji Okita in the Hakuouki series, X in the Mega Man X series and Yosuke Hanamura from Persona 4.

Morikubo graduated from Third Junior & Senior High School of Nihon University in 1992, and dropped out of Tama Art University.

Before becoming a full-fledged voice actor, he worked at a talent agency, and was recruited by people in the voice acting industry who saw a performance by the Onigiri Skippers, a theater troupe he founded with his seniors from the lab party he attended in elementary school.

During his first dubbing session, he made sounds out of flipping pages on the script because he had no experience as a voice actor at that time.

The script for the first episode had four pages of long dialogues from the first page, and the sound director said that he would never have let him do the role if he had known he would talk so much.

He made his voice acting debut in 1996 as a Mini 4 Fighter in Bakusō Kyōdai Let's & Go!!.

The show was supposed to finish in a year, but due to its unexpected popularity, it became a long-running production, and he moved from the agency where he had worked as an actor to a voice acting agency.

Since then, he has been active in a variety of fields including animation, games, radio personality, music, and stage.

After working at Sigma Seven, Morikubo moved to VIMS, an office affiliated with Arts Vision.

In 1998, he and voice actor Hideo Ishikawa started a music unit called "Anzu" (derived from the only fruit Morikubo could eat), and in 1999, they formed the band "AN's ALL STARS" with other band members.

In August of the same year, he formed the band "Mosquito Milk".

In 2001, Morikubo made his solo debut under the Capcom Suleputer label, and in 2008, he debuted again under the Lantis label.

zui (髄) is the first solo album by Showtaro Morikubo, released in 2001.

"The Answer" and "Moon Light" were the album's promotional tracks, being used in the video game series Rockman X as the opening themes to Rockman X6.

"The Answer" appeared as the album's only single, paired with the B-side "Happy Monday Man".

The concert for this album – later released on DVD and included the promotional video for "The Answer" – is entitled "Showtaro Morikubo Live House Tour '01 ~Okubyō Mono no G Kōi~" (臆病者のG行為 lit. "G Conduct of a Coward").

kyo (叫〜kyo〜 lit. "exclaim")

rin (凛〜rin〜 lit. "frigid)

Hard Spirit is an album released from one of Morikubo's most popular voice actor units, Heart-beat, in which he paired up with fellow voice actor Hiroki Takahashi.

The album spawned two singles, "Shootin' Stars" and "Continued".

This album was also featured in a three part live action series, "Cross Chord", a drama starring both voice actors as the lead characters.

In addition to the main album, both Morikubo and Takahashi released separate albums (titled Show and Hero for each artist, respectively) containing solo versions of the Hard Spirit songs, along with two exclusively solo tracks, each (both of which are also included on "Hard Spirit").

Morikubo sings alone in "Hurry Up Drive" and "Change or Never change", and Takahashi's solos are "Thanks for..."

and "Believe me".

Morikubo married fellow voice actress Yū Asakawa on February 22, 2007.

In 2009, Asakawa revealed in a blog post that the two had amicably divorced, though not disclosing exact dates of their divorce.

In 2010, he formed "Buzzy→Bee" as a solo project, and in January 2015, he became the second DJ of the long-running bayfm program "KEIYOGINKO POWER COUNTDOWN JAPAN HOT 30".

On July 4, 2014, Morikubo announced on his blog that he had gotten married that week, but expressed a desire to keep details of the marriage private, including the identity of his wife due to her being uninvolved in the entertainment industry.

In 2016, he received the Kei Tomiyama Memorial Award at the 10th Seiyu Awards.

On December 28, 2017, he revealed on an episode of his radio show The BAY☆LINE that he and his wife had welcomed a daughter earlier in the year.

He later reaffirmed the news via Twitter.

He and Kentarō Itō call each other their best friend.

Morikubo has been in charge of the stage music for the K-Show theater company, which Itō presides over, since its inception.

On August 31, 2018, Morikubo left VIMS.

On September 1 of the same year, he established Add9th and assumed the position of its representative director.

In 2020, he received the Personality Award at the 14th Seiyu Awards.