Description:
Japanese voice actor, narrator, and radio personality currently affiliated with Arts Vision.
His vocal register is described as a metallic lyric tenor suitable to voice a mature variation of coming of age young men. Combined with an impactful execution on battle cries, he earned his reputation in voicing heroic protagonists commonly found in works of the mecha, fighting, and fantasy genres. Hiyama is recognized for his portrayal of Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho, by starring twice within the Brave Series franchise as Maito Senpuuji of The Brave Express Might Gaine, Bleach as Ikkaku Madarame and Guy Shishioh of the King of Braves Gao
Japanese voice actor, narrator, and radio personality currently affiliated with Arts Vision.
His vocal register is described as a metallic lyric tenor suitable to voice a mature variation of coming of age young men. Combined with an impactful execution on battle cries, he earned his reputation in voicing heroic protagonists commonly found in works of the mecha, fighting, and fantasy genres. Hiyama is recognized for his portrayal of Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho, by starring twice within the Brave Series franchise as Maito Senpuuji of The Brave Express Might Gaine, Bleach as Ikkaku Madarame and Guy Shishioh of the King of Braves GaoGaiGar. He also played Link in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
Hiyama was born in Hatsukaichi, Hiroshima. and grew up enjoying casual amateur baseball with friends. His mother was of Japanese descent born in Taiwan during the end of World War II who resettled back to Japan after the war.
Greatly influenced by his father, Hiyama flourished in history and social studies class since middle school, but wasn't fond of the idea of participating in extracurricular activities; yet Hiyama had no choice but to pick up at least one activity for each semester due to school regulations, and ends up wandering through Go, Shogi, and his school's Radio Club by his second-year middle school. According to Hiyama, his middle school radio club experience was "in all honesty, awful." and "was bored to the point of resigning from the club" by his 3rd year and end his middle school club life with Japanese calligraphy.
Upon entering high school, Hiyama believed he could "finally start pursuing his dream of not participating in any school clubs," but ends up being reluctantly dragged into his high school's radio club due to a close schoolmate of his wanting to join the club yet doesn't want to enter the club alone. Hiyama noted his high school radio club experience was "far more interesting" than he expected, "we get to plan on what to broadcast for morning assembly, and not only that, we even produce our own radio dramas." It was through his interest in radio dramas, along with the awareness of the voice acting boom of the 70s and 80s that made Hiyama took notion early on that there were career opportunities in voice acting and that Tokyo has the training schools for them.
When the time came for Hiyama to plan his career development during his senior year of high school, he resorted to the mindset of "if I had to bread-win, might as well choose the type of bread that I love to eat." Therefore, his first choice was to apply for college to become a historian, while his second choice was to go into "something in relation to voice work," since he reflected how his radio club experience was the one that made him believe this will be the lifestyle that he would truly enjoy. Due to the tough application requirements of his intended history major, Hiyama decided to pursue the path of voice acting, and talked it over with his parents. Hiyama recalled their discussion "ended in dispute," with his parents' decision to not support his tuition in fear of "a business that is unheard of." Hiyama was then left to fend for himself by enrolling into Tokyo Announce Gakuin's (now Tokyo Announce Gakuin Performing Arts College) Broadcasting Voice Actor major through Japan's Newspaper Scholarship grant.
Training and Debut
Due to the lack of financial support from his parents, Hiyama took on his major's scholarship recipient training course to make room in fulfilling his required deeds to give back to his scholarship sponsors, and meeting his basic needs in Tokyo by part-timing at newsagencies delivering newspapers around his neighborhood while his tuition was covered by his grant. His daily routine was consisted of a "grueling 3:00am to 9:00pm schedule" between work and voice acting studies which "really grinded his mentality and physicality."
Upon his graduation from Tokyo Announce Gakuin, Hiyama continued his performance training under his alma mater's homeroom instructor via Arts Vision's Nihon Narration Engi Kenkyujyo (Japan Narration Performing Arts Research Center), and was scouted by Arts Vision's group of managers while he was rehearsing for his first stage performance.
Debuted as a Mummy in the OVA version of the original Kaiketsu Zorori anime in 1989, Hiyama spent most of his beginner years continued to deliver newspapers, while also continued his performance training whenever he did not receive voice-acting cases to work. He also noted to have part-timed as a security guard for a short while, and mentioned how he deliberately hid his face in case his colleagues spot him out during a period where he has to overlook a construction site near his recording studio.
Career Breakthrough
Hiyama received his first official role as the principal villain character, Syndrome in Chikyuu SOS Soreike Kororin, a 1992 environmentalist anime television program spanning a half-year recording schedule. With his Kororin gig ending and worrying where his next paycheck will be, he received his agency's call to audition for Yu Yu Hakusho. According to his commentary within Yu Yu Hakusho's Blu-ray release, he first auditioned solely for the role of Kurama, he then tried again for Hiei upon receiving the notice for Yu Yu Hakusho's second round of audition, with the latter becoming his most iconic breakthrough character.
... (more)
(less)
My tags:
Add tags
Login
Japan
