Nice Spike! An Interview with Voice Actor Yuu Hayashi

Yuu Hayashi is a voice actor affiliated with Ken Production who has voiced many characters you're all sure to be familiar with. Notable roles include Ryunosuke Tanaka in Haikyuu!!, Manjiro "Mikey" Sano in Tokyo Revengers, Michizo Tachihara in Bungo Stray Dogs, and Takumo Ino in Jujutsu Kaisen just to name a few. We were lucky enough to catch up to them during their time at FanimeCon for an interview. We discussed their start in voice acting, their love for basketball, their favorite roles, and lots more! Fans of Yuu Hayashi will definitely want to check out this interview, as will those discovering him for the first time.

A-to-J: Thank you for the interview! For those who may not know you, could you please give us an introduction and tell us a little about yourself?
Yuu Hayashi: My name is Yuu Hayashi. I am a voice actor from Japan.

A-to-J: Can you tell us a bit about how you got into voice acting?
Yuu Hayashi: I actually started voice acting at the age of five with a group called Gekkidan Himawari [Himawari Theatre Group]. That was the beginning of my career. In order to enter the group, I had to pay a very high entrance fee. At the time it was 300,000 yen which works out to about $3,000. My family wasn’t really that well off and under normal circumstances I wouldn't have been able to join the group. However, my father bought a lottery ticket and we were lucky enough that my father won 500,000 yen. We were able to use that money to help me get in and that was the very beginning of my eventual career as a voice actor.
When I was a fifth grader, I became very interested in basketball. I actually left the group to focus on basketball because of that interest. I continued with basketball all through middle school, and it wasn’t until my second year of high school that I was thinking about what I wanted to do with my life; what direction I wanted to go in. That’s when I thought back to my time with Gekkidan Himawari as a child. I had a very good time when I was a kid and it made me want to pursue that of my own will, so I re-entered Gekkidan Himawari.  

A-to-J: Interesting that you’re into basketball because one of your more popular roles is in Haikyuu!! which features volleyball. Do you ever wish that maybe you were cast in shows like Slam Dunk or something similar?
Yuu Hayashi: I actually was influenced to start basketball because I loved Slam Dunk! I didn’t get the audition for Slam Dunk. I wish I could be in a basketball show but it didn’t work out that way. When The First Slam Dunk came out, I saw it and I was moved by it. I did actually appear as a more minor character in Kuroko’s Basketball, so I was technically in a basketball anime. The character I played was Shigehiro Ogiwara, who was Kuroko’s senpai, so I’m glad I got to be a part of that project. I also sang one of the ending songs so I do have some basketball roles.

A-to-J: Speaking of your voice acting roles, what are some of your favorite roles that you’ve done over your career so far?
Yuu Hayashi: One of them is Manjiro Sano known as “Mikey” from Tokyo Revengers. He’s got kind of a childish side to him, but he’s also stronger than everyone else at the same time. He has a lot of facets to him. There’s that boyish side to him, there’s an ultra strong fighter side, and also this charisma that he needs to lead a whole group of delinquents. That’s another facet of his personality. I feel like Manjiro Sano is a very worthwhile character to voice act because he has so many faces that essentially act like different facets to him. Scene by scene, I have to decide which part of this character am I going to bring out. I also think because of the complexity of this character, he’s one of the most difficult characters I’ve ever had to grapple with in my career. It’s been a great experience for me.

A-to-J: Speaking of characters again, is there a particular role that you prefer to be cast in? Is there a particular type of character that you think you work best at?
Yuu Hayashi: Many of the roles I’ve taken on have been gangsters or delinquents. Mikey is a delinquent. Ryunosuke Tanaka from Haikyuu!! is also kinda like that. Another person that’s kind of a delinquent, or kind of a gangster, is my character from Paradox Live. I, myself, am not at all like a gangster. I’m not a delinquent type of person, so I’m actually surprised that I’ve done so many of these roles.

A-to-J: Interesting. Out of curiosity, are you a fan of any of the shows that you’ve been a part of? Especially the long running ones?
Yuu Hayashi: Anything that I’ve been in. I think my work on it is equivalent to love for the work. I’ve watched everything that I’ve been in as a fan as well.

A-to-J: You’ve played the same character, Ryunosuke Tanaka, in Haikyuu!! for a while now. How have you seen that as a character evolve and how have you added your own interpretations to that character evolution over the years?
Yuu Hayashi: In the world of Haikyuu!!, there are many characters that have genius level abilities. The character that I play, Ryunosuke Tanaka, doesn’t actually have any special, super, almost god-like abilities.  He’s not a genius in any way really, but he continues to show his character development and growth through his pure guts and his straightforwardness. I actually feel it’s very fateful that I was able to play Tanaka because as a voice actor myself, I didn’t immediately succeed in my early 20s. I know many voice actors who do really well, and they start doing really well in their early 20s. I actually didn’t land the role of Tanaka until I was 30. That feeling of having to take step-by-step improvements, and slowly getting to where you want to go. I really identify with Tanaka in that respect. He’s had to work hard too.
It's not just the lines the character has in the script that are important. Let’s take a situation for example: there is a match going on. In the latter half of a long match, some of the other characters might be tired. They might be feeling dejected. They might be losing heart. I think it’s very important as the voice of Tanaka to show that he is the one who is still hanging in there.  He’s the one cheering on his teammates. So as Tanaka, when other characters are doing moves such as serving or spiking, Tanaka’s on the sides saying “Nice serve!” or “Nice spike!” And that’s definitely part of what I think is very important about voicing Tanaka. A lot of the time these are not in the script. I’m actually adding in these ad libs as we record, and so it’s a way to fully embody that character.  
I’m continuing my role as Tanaka with this in mind: “How do I make this a better performance? How do I add onto it?” One of these things is by adding these things that are not necessarily in the script, but I think add on to increasing the appeal of Tanaka and adding to his character.

A-to-J: In addition to Haikyuu!!, you’ve also joined other really popular series like Vinland Saga and Yu-Gi-Oh! Go Rush. How do you feel when you join a series that’s really popular already?  
Yuu Hayashi: In Japan, the voice acting community is actually not that large. There aren’t actually that many voice actors and voice actresses. So I don’t feel that weird joining a new production in a sense because I’ve already worked with a lot before. So it’s like teammates that I’m already familiar with. Even if it’s a new project that we're working on together, I’ve already worked with a lot of these people before. Of course, even in these situations, I have to spend some time really understanding the character that I need to portray. So of course at the beginning there is some nervousness and wanting to get it right but in terms of coworkers, but I don’t really have that nervousness.

A-to-J:  Another interesting thing you do is a lot of dub work, like dubbing overseas projects. You’re the voice of Theodore in Alvin and the Chipmunks and you were Peter Pan in Kingdom Hearts and several Disney attractions. How do you find that different from doing voice work for anime?
Yuu Hayashi: For Western movies, where there’s an existing production where you have the actor on screen, I am able to see the actor’s expressions and their movements. I basically try to become that person in that scene and think about what this person would do. In Kingdom Hearts, Peter Pan is probably not me*. I played Peter Pan for the Disney movie, the second one.
A-to-J: Oh? It was our understanding that you were one of the official Japanese voices for Peter Pan.
Yuu Hayashi: I did do the parade at Tokyo Disney. The animation that I did the voice acting for, it was similar to Japanese anime in the sense that when I was working on it, it wasn’t fully finished yet. I was working with the unfinished visual part. Just like with Haikyuu!! and Tokyo Revengers, these have existing storylines in manga. It’s very important for me as the voice actor to read the manga and really grasp what’s happening in each scene. In terms of how they make anime, because the visual parts are unfinished in the script, they have a description of the scene and what’s supposed to happen in it at the top. Using that description and my imagination to fill in the gaps and then, I’m performing the role in that scene. A game is also like that.
When they were doing the parade recording, the music was already done for that. Actually, they hadn’t determined what the actor was going to be doing in terms of movements so I had to use my imagination once again to fill in the gaps, like “How would the actor behave in this scene?”, while listening to the music. That is actually how I performed the vocals.  
For the Western films that are already done, it’s taking something and it’s a little more of a passive progress.I’m taking that and I’m trying to portray it actually. Taking it in and trying my best to be faithful to that original creation. But for anime and other things, I receive them in an unfinished form so it’s much more of a creative process. I’m creating the character in some sense with my voice. It’s kind of different.

A-to-J: What are some of your upcoming plans and projects following Fanime?
Yuu Hayashi: Obviously, I can’t tell you about anything that hasn’t been announced but I’ll continue working on projects I’ve already been in. I’ll also be doing live rap performances. For example, with Paradox Live, I'll become one of the characters for that and perform live.  Sanrio, the company that makes Hello Kitty, is creating something called Fragaria Memories. I’m going to be a character in that and will be singing live. Not only working as a voice actor, I’d like to continue working as a live performer in terms of music. I’ve got a lot going on.

A-to-J: Can you leave us with a brief closing message for your overseas fans?
Yuu Hayashi:  I’m kind of blown away by how many fans there are of the Japanese animation that I’ve been in and as well as just anime in general. It’s been very surprising for me. I’m actually having a lot of fun. American fans are very casual. They’ll come up and approach me and talk to me. It’s actually increasing my own love of anime. So I want to continue my work and continue having opportunities to connect with my fans over here!
A-to-J: Thank you so much for the interview!
Yuu Hayashi: [In English] Thank you.

We'd like to thank Yuu Hayashi for the interview, and we strongly encourage everyone to check him out via the links below. As always, keep an eye out for more from them in the future! Also, special thanks to FanimeCon for this opportunity!

For More Information on Yuu Hayashi:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yuu_hayashi42/
X: https://twitter.com/voice_singing
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2JtvgddOpcaTDNQflkHjRg

The above interview was conducted by Manuel Figueroa. Transcription by Jeffery Kelly. Photography by Ivan Aburto. 

*Multiple sites including Wikipedia and ANN list him as the voice of Peter Pan in the Kingdom Hearts games. He’s listed as an actor reprising his role from previous Disney productions in the Japanese credits for Kingdom Hearts II but his specific role doesn’t seem to be listed. He had previously played Peter Pan in Return to Neverland and on the television series House of Mouse.  Other Disney roles of his include Young Bambi in Bambi and Christopher Robin in The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.