No Seiyuu No Life: Sho Hayami

When you will be reading this, I will be in Japan … Isn’t it amazing? Count on me to spam you everywhere with this for a while.

The sad thing is that for now I have absolutely nothing to tell you about Japan because I am writing this still in the comfort of my own home, so I am going to talk about Sho Hayami.

Known for: Aizen (Bleach)

My favorite roles: Ayanami (07 Ghost), Akechi Mitsuhide (Sengoku Basara)

I don’t really know where this feature comes from. Well, actually I do, I love Sho Hayami, have done so for several years but he hasn’t been in anything I was a huge fan of lately. He does small appearances but never much more than this and I haven’t heard him in a while. Yet for multiple reasons he has popped up into my mind (a lot of things pop up into my mind and a lot of it is stupid).

Either way, my point is, Sho Hayami is old but he is awesome. It seems he has also branched out quite a lot into singing and he isn’t bad at it.

I must admit and say from the start that I have a huge bias when it comes to him, I think he is the best at voicing villains. My little selection of roles at the beginning of this post should be a good enough indication of this.

Like, if you have seen Sengoku Basara you would know Akechi Mitsuhide, who might be my favorite villain ever, mostly thanks to the great interpretation given by Sho Hayami. And you would know that he is one of the worst villain to have ever existed in anime. He really sounds evil, you would know what he’s plotting from the start just by listening to Sho Hayami‘s voice and if that isn’t a good performance then I don’t know what is.

Taking another example from Sengoku Basara, well, Mitsuhide is quite a deep and strange character. He might be a villain but he also is a masochist and Sho Hayami did that duality well.

The same could be said about Aizen from Bleach, because if you might not know Sengoku Basara I am sure you have at least heard about Aizen and then, if you didn’t know, I am telling you he was voiced by Sho Hayami too who did an incredible job about showing all the sides Aizen has (and we know he has a lot of those).

I don’t remember Bleach that well though so I can’t offer a more detailed opinion but he is an awful character and Sho Hayami did well voicing him.

Basically and to sum everything up, for me, Sho Hayami is the Great King of Evil Characters. I would be curious to know who is yours. Tell me?