Seiyuu Profile #2: Ono Daisuke
OK, so I was half-lying when I said I wanted to do a profile for a fit and young male seiyuu. To be honest my top 3 choices were Kakihara Tetsuya, Tsuda Kenjiro and Kawada Shinji but I abandoned the idea cos I couldn’t find any decent photos of them. I guess male seiyuu (with the exception of ppl like Ishida Akira, Hoshi Soichiro etc) don’t get in the limelight too much.
So I copped out and had to settle for a semi-popular seiyuu; another person who looks like he’s going to have a pretty good year. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Ono Daisuke-san! There’s not a great deal of information out there about him either, but I tried my best to dig out as much as I could.
I’m pretty sure most people who recognise his name would know him as the (fake) smiley esper Itsuki in Haruhi. While Sugita Tomokazu gets all the plaudits and fan adulation, I have to say I much prefer Ono - it’s the light, airy voice he uses for Itsuki and the deadpan sarcasm he employs for Yukito that got me interested.
One of his most memorable lines for me was somewhere in episode two of Air where Misuzu (Kawakami Tomoko) asks a kid (Kaneda Tomoko) what her name is, and when she says ‘6-years old’, Yukito’s comeback of ‘Sugee namae da na’ (What a brilliant name!) had me in stitches. I think I became a fan from that moment on. Oh, and of course; Ono’s more good-looking than Sugita ^^;;;;; I am almost convinced he looks like Tamaki Hiroshi in the picture below.
Vital Statistics
Name: 小野大輔 (Ono Daisuke)
Date of Birth: 4th May 1978
Hometown: Kochi, Japan
Agency: Mausu Promotion
Height: 175cm/5′7”
Weight: 62kg
Blood Type: O
Hobbies & Skills: Soccer, Darts(!)
Key Roles: Kunisaki Yukito/Sora in Air, Enju in Rozen Maiden series, Koizumi Itsuki in Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu, Sven Cal Bayan in MS Gundam Seed C.E.73: Stargazer
Beginnings
Ono had originally enrolled in Nihon University with ambitions of being a actor/TV presenter but after a few years of frustration turned to studying radio/mixing and doing voice work. He eventually graduated from seiyuu school Aoni Jyuku (run by obviously, Aoni Production) in 2000 - which has produced most of the agency’s biggest names (Hisakawa Aya, Midorikawa Hikaru, Onosaka Masaya etc), and joined his current agency Mausu Promotion in 2002.
Like most junior seiyuu, Ono spent his first few years doing minor roles and guest appearances (ie Man A, Ninja X, Corpse 6 etc). Looking at his list of credits now, the only character I recognise is Kidaf (the blonde bug dude) from Scrapped Princess, though he had plenty of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it roles in big name anime like Wolf’s Rain, FMP? Fumoffu and Tsukihime.
His first lead role was memorably, Kunisaki Yukito (Gao Gao Stegosaurus) in the anime adaptation of Key’s classic visual novel Air. The notion that that might propel him to greater things was unfounded as Ono spent another year or so voicing minor and support characters in Eyeshield 21, FMP! TSR and Trinity Blood. He did have some bigger roles as Asuta (gay for Hazumu) in Kasimasi, Hatakeda (the Aka fan) in REC and Enju (Barasuishou’s ‘father’) in Rozen Maiden Traumend before landing the role of Itsuki in Haruhi and the rest, as they say, is history.
Current season
Idolmaster - Daido Naraba
Jeeg - Kusanagi Kenji
Kaze no Stigma - Yagami Kazuma
Kiss Dum - Shu Aiba
Nanoha StrikerS - Verossa Acous
Seto no Hanayome - Mikawa Kai
Half of these shows see Daisuke voicing the lead role (Jeeg, Kiss Dum & Stigma); not bad for a bloke who few people would’ve heard of a year ago. Apart from StrikerS (he’s yet to appear) and Kaze no Stigma (hasn’t started), I’ve checked them all out. Jeeg….. - I guess super robot series are really not my cup of tea. Plus Ono’s character screams too much for my liking. Kissdum is too messy for me to judge at the moment, and he only has bit parts in Idolmaster and Seto no Hanayome.
Hopefully Kaze no Stigma will be better, though I’m not too keen on the chara designs. Oh and a little off-topic, but do watch the anime’s web TV program hosted by stars Fujimura Ayumi, Itou Shizuka & Inokuchi Yuka (all of them are from KenPro), especially episode 2 where Inokuchi’s attempt to write guest Kiuji Saori(the OP/ED singer)’s kanji name was pretty funny.
There’s an interview with Ono and Fujimura Ayumi on Animate (in case you can’t read moonspeak, just click on those big orange buttons near the bottom - right for broadband, left for narrow), in which both look incredibly uncomfortable and stiff. Maybe it’s because they hardly know each other…. Also made an attempt to listen to his new radio show (link below) but apart from his nauseous attempt at rapping, I was bored to tears. Hopefully his other new show with Kamiya Hiroshi which starts tomorrow will be better….
Ono will also be in GONZO’s autumn anime Dragonaut - a mini-reunion of sorts for the lesser SOS-dan members; Chihara Minori is the female lead, and Goto Yuko is also in it, along with Kakihara Tetsuya, Mizuki Nana and Sawashiro Miyuki. Looking forward to that one.
Current Radio Shows
Ono Daisuke no GigRaNight!
Kamiya Hiroshi & Ono Daisuke no DearGirl~Stories~ (JOQR)
Trivia Section
1*Ono claims to be an expert at cooking curry (he recommends putting in okra and cheese), though he apparently can’t cook anything else apart from that.
2*A certain sound director gave him the nickname ‘Non-tan’ (with the 野[No] bit from his surname), a name that Ono himself hates and was not amused when Ueda Kana revealed it on an episode of Kasimasi radio.
3*When asked which of these three traits he thought was kakkoii for a guy (the question was actually directed at Ueda Kana, Horie Yui & Tamura Yukari): good at cooking, able to handle computers/machines, good at playing a musical instrument - he picked the second one. Ono said this was because he was hopeless at machines (computers, phones) and could only just about handle a video recorder. He also mentioned that he picked up the shakuhachi and violin for a play, and had learnt a bit of guitar.
4*His agency profile lists his vocal range as G to E♭. Compare this to Ohtsuka Akio (Batou in GiTS), whose deep voice has a range of F# to A.
5*Is the Japanese dub for The O.C.’s Ryan Atwood.
More Pics
Clockwise from top left: with Sugita Tomokazu, with imouto-san Aoki Sayaka, with Hirano Aya, with Fukuyama Jun
Useful Daisuke links:
Agency profile
d-tunes! - Ono Daisuke fansite
No.3: still undecided. I might give up on doing male seiyuu - most otaku are guys so obviously you aren’t gonna find as much stuff on them as you would for the female seiyuu. I really want to do one for Konishi Katsuyuki, though everyone already knows him ~_~ He was one of the first seiyuu I really liked.
April 8th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
That’s pretty informative. I usually check out some male seiyuu when I watch something interesting or something like that but have to say I never really bother look up Oono Daisuke even though he gets exposure quite a bit lately.(well at least I know about him more than Kakihara who I can’t say care much…^^;) I think it also has a bit to do with quite few of them reads “kinda” similar.^^ There are quite a bit Daisuke lately.
Have you ever thought of doing one for Miyake Kenta? He’s appearing in quite of bit series lately. So far spotted him in two series this season and one(El…something something.^^;) with Itou Shizuka again.(last season was Pumpking Scissors) They know each other pretty well or at least as drinking buddies.^^ They appear on the same series quite a bit though like Zoids Genesis and those I’ve mentioned.(more of major characters wise.) Listend to Pumpkin Scissors few time when he was in. Sounds like a pretty fun guy. He actually did few pretty decent series as lead/one one of them before but don’t know why didnt’ take off for him. Stuff like Wolf’s Rain’s Tsume(I thought it was really so so…stopped watching it close to the end. Only mention it ’cause most of people raves about it…^^;), Otogizoushi’s Tsuna and Koikaze’s Koujirou. I quite like the latter two myself but Koikaze was kinda a touchy one so probably didn’t help him much. Nakamura Yuki(Nanoka) also only did that one as debut and hasn’t done anything else. I guess it could be her being more focus on the theater and seiyuu was just a experience for her. Just looked up a bit more on Koikaze and kinda neat the voice was recorded first(NA animation usually do it this way I heard.) instead of dubbed later with animation.
April 8th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
By the way, I think male seiyuu(at least the nice looking/popular ones) do get exposure quite a bit. I mean they even get their own seiyuu magazines(I can only think of one at the moment though…Cool Voice.) plus features in the mixed one. Kinda funny there isn’t a female seiyuu only magazine.^^ The reason there’s no pictures on the net probably has alot to do with those fans(well mostly female for sure.^^) being too lazy to upload.^^
April 9th, 2007 at 12:21 am
I like Miyake Kenta, though he almost always sounds the same - his low, sort of rough voice is very easy to recognise. I thought he was perfect to play Orland in Pumpkin Scissors - they’re pretty similar in size anyway ^^
I guess most of the younger, popular seiyuu are like Fukuyama Jun, Morikubo Shotaro, Suwabe Junichi, Yoshino Hiroyuki….it’s easy to find pictures but I don’t particularly like any of them ^^;
Some of my favourites - Suzuki Chihiro, Nojima Hirofumi, Kondo Takashi, Onosaka Masaya, Nakata Jouji, Namikawa Daisuke, Kawashima Tokuyoshi, Touchi Hiroki…. uh, none of them are particularly good-looking or young. Oh, I like Suzumura Kenichi & Konishi Katsuyuki too - they’re more popular I think.
The next guy I’m going to do a profile for is Tai Yuuki. Has a lot of lead roles but not that well known.
April 9th, 2007 at 2:30 am
Was Miyake Kenta’s role in El Cadzor(something like that) easy to recognize? I thought it’s different but then again it only had few line plus I was quite bored with it.^^; His role in Seto no Hanayome is also a bit different than usual. Kinda fun to see h doing a hysterical character.(well in that episode anyway.)
Namikawa Daisuke is pretty popular actually or else he wouldn’t be so damn busy to rarely to attend the Utawarerumono gathering.^^ Plus I’ve seen him in the magazines pretty often too. He was everywhere last season.
Tai Yuuki isn’t that popular probably due to his voice being kinda generic.(well I thought so anyway.^^;) I think he actually has the look from what I recall reading from those seiyuu magazines I have. It’s better to recognizable voice especially for male seiyuu since it’s pretty crowded now. Alot of you mentioned all have distinct voices.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:13 am
Whoa…thanks for the information. Quite an interesting read. Always been interested in Ono Daisuke - but since he didn’t get much exposure when I known him, interest kinda died off - until I finally realise he can sing. O_O!
‘A certain sound director gave him the nickname ‘Non-tan’ (with the 野[No] bit from his surname), a name that Ono himself hates and was not amused when Ueda Kana revealed it on an episode of Kasimasi radio.’
‘_’ Great…two seiyuu who have the same nickname - better not get mixed up with them. ^^”
This should give a good enough excuse to suddenly watch the OC - but dubbed in Japanese. lol
‘To be honest my top 3 choices were Kakihara Tetsuya, Tsuda Kenjiro and Kawada Shinji but I abandoned the idea cos I couldn’t find any decent photos of them.’
=O! If you ever find decent pictures of Shinji - please do a post on him. *_*~
April 19th, 2007 at 4:07 am
‘_’ Great…two seiyuu who have the same nickname - better not get mixed up with them. ^^”
Probably not, as Daisuke says he prefers to be called Ono-D ^^; sounds rather hip-hop to me.
April 21st, 2007 at 10:00 am
Ono-D? That sounds better. ^-^
April 25th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
This month’s Hiyama Nobuyuki’s Animejiyu features Ono Daisuke if you are interested ti find out more about him. Personally I’m not that big a fan of that program as the first half are usually pretty dull I thought as Hiyama has this thing for variouion of Iteyaro from different regions which I find it very very boring.^^; The later half has a more interesting corner feature the guest bringing a photo of his/her room to describe/talk about it. I think three months ago was Yuzuki Ryouka and she mentioned she’s really into Barbie after she played as one from a gig she had. Pretty interesting. Then Koyama Rikya also appeared like a month later or something but I can’t remember much other than he mentioned Oohara Sayaka as Saaya in the show caused a bit ruckus in Utawarerumono radio.^^;
The rest of the program is pretty standard with typical Onsen interview questionnaire(with slight variation as usual) and the corner has them read the event articles as a thing/character they draw from the box.