Kenji Utsumi

Honestly, you only need to hear Kenji Utsumi's voice once and it's lodged in your brain forever — that low, gravelly baritone that lands like a hand on your shoulder, equal parts menace and warmth. What I love is that he came up from Kitakyushu and kept showing up on the front line back when voice acting wasn't the glossy industry it is now, building a career one role at a time. He could play the terrifying boss or the booming villain and still leave you weirdly fond of the guy, which is a rare gift. The Seiyu Award honors are nice, sure, but his real trophy is that people recognize the voice before the name. To me he's one of those steady pillars the whole craft leaned on, and I've got nothing but respect for him.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Kenji Utsumi (August 26, 1937 – June 13, 2013) was a Japanese voice actor and actor born in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture. He built a long career in voice acting during an era when the profession was far less prominent than it later became, and became widely recognized for his distinctive deep, resonant bass voice, as Raoh in Fist of the North Star and Senbei Norimaki in Dr. Slump. He received the Voice Actor Award for Distinguished Service in 2009 and the Special Achievement Award posthumously in 2014, honors that reflected his lasting influence on the field.

Name (English)

Kenji Utsumi

Name (Japanese)

内海賢二

Reading

うつみ けんじ

Born

August 26, 1937 – June 13, 2013

Origin

Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan

Weight

62 kg

Occupation

Voice Actor / Actor

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Virgo / Ox

Blood type

A

Agency

Ken Production (last agency)

Awards & achievements

• 2009 — Voice Actor Award: Distinguished Service Award
• 2014 — Voice Actor Award: Special Achievement Award

Spouse

Michiko Nomura

Works summary

Appearances

982 (1963–2025)

By year (titles with a known year)

1963: 1, 1964: 1, 1965: 3, 1966: 2, 1967: 1, 1968: 2, 1969: 5, 1970: 2, 1971: 5, 1972: 3, 1973: 4, 1974: 7, 1975: 3, 1976: 6, 1977: 11, 1978: 10, 1979: 6, 1980: 8, 1981: 4, 1982: 5, 1983: 3, 1984: 3, 1985: 4, 1986: 11, 1987: 14, 1988: 9, 1989: 10, 1990: 6, 1991: 6, 1992: 4, 1993: 4, 1994: 4, 1995: 6, 1996: 4, 1997: 4, 1998: 3, 1999: 4, 2000: 3, 2001: 4, 2002: 5, 2003: 1, 2004: 4, 2005: 8, 2006: 5, 2007: 7, 2008: 1, 2009: 4, 2010: 6, 2011: 6, 2012: 1, 2014: 1, 2025: 1, year unknown: 737

Filmography / notable works

• Official sitehttps://www.kenproduction.co.jp/talent/member.php?mem=m6
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%86%85%E6%B5%B7%E8%B3%A2%E4%BA%8C
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q535637

Tags

• From Fukuoka Prefecture
• Voice Actor
• Actor

Last updated

September 29, 2026

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Works and profile fields sourced from Wikipedia reflect content as of 2026-08-26. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.