Seiyuu Digest # 33 – Masatomo Nakazawa

In the seiyuu industry, it is not an uncommon thing to find out that our favorite seiyuu has, in fact, been working for a lot longer than we would have ever thought. Masatomo Nakazawa is one of those male seiyuu.

Masatomo Nakazawa

KANJI: 中澤 匡智

BORN: February 14, 1983

OCCUPATION: seiyuu, actor, radio host, solo artist

HEIGHT: 170 cm

Masatomo Nakazawa was born on February 14, 1983 in Nerima, Tokyo. He’s using a stage name 中澤まさとも.

A note, this article was written in 2017 and is currently undergoing a deep update.

Some information below may be dated or not updated.

SEIYUU 

2000’s

Starting off slowly

Although most people may know Nakazawa for some of his roles in anime, the reality is that the majority of his work is related to the gaming department as well as drama CDs, and perhaps some of his own songs.

In the seiyuu industry, Nakazawa is part of what one could call the group of methodical seiyuu, which in fact makes him increase the quality of his performance each time he is working. Knowing that he has a decent career in the theatre industry, it makes sense why Nakazawa is constantly working his scripts so as to achieve complete perfection.

In spite of his career adding up to more or less 14 years, he has not been able to have a taste of the spotlight for a long time, which unlike what one would have thought makes him work even harder in order to deliver a performance worthy of the fans’ attention.

Contrary to what one would have thought, in college Nakazawa was to major in cinema, even though he dropped out. Nevertheless, this piece of information can definitely explain his vast repertoire as a theater actor, as well as his methodical mindset when working.

At this early stage of his life, while still being in college, the seiyuu had already been working for Ken Production, a company in which his fellow seiyuu were Kishow Taniyama, Shinji Kawada and Katsuyuki Konishi, just to name a few.

While Nakazawa was still working as a Ken Production’s talent, the seiyuu had few roles, one of them in 藍より青し〜縁〜 and the other was in DEAR BOYS.

In both anime he played a minor role. Surprisingly enough Nakazawa was actually nominated for the 2nd Voice Actor Award Newcomer Excavation Audition held in 2008, n which he passed the eleven nominations of the companies participating.

In 2009 he had been cast in the famous anime Full Metal Alchemist as one of the soldiers that appear in the anime, and although it was not a role with importance, it gave him some confidence for his future roles.

2010’s

Working his way up

From the 2010’s onward Nakazawa finally saw his hard work getting some results. One can say that he most certainly started to get his most earned recognition. In Gin no Saji, the seiyuu had a role as Naoki Toyoda, a member of the football club from Otofuke.

The other role was in famous anime Hetalia The World Twinkle as Hutt River. His character represents a micro nation in Australia.

This character which has a little to much self confidence is always shinning, making appearances with a clean and proper image at all times. Hutt River’s character has been integrated into the Hetalia anime series’ cast since 2011.

In the same year, Nakazawa landed on a role in the anime adaption of the BL game DRAMAtical Murder in which he plays the strange character that for the most part wears a gas mask.

The fact that he refuses to take off his mask at all times makes this character not only mysterious but it also made it possible for there to be some pretty amusing scenes in the anime and game.

For instance, there is a moment when Clear goes to Aoba’s house (the game’s main character) and while everyone is eating the doughnuts, Clear not only does not remove the mask but he also somehow manages to eat them without someone seeing his face, which is by itself a feat. His obsession with not showing his face is what makes him give out the enigmatic yet enticing aura to Clear.

All in all, this character is very likable for its bubbly personality but also because of the funny yet strange remarks he does from time to time. It is safe to say that Clear’s character was what really brought him a lot of fans creating a niche around the seiyuu.

Although DRAMAtical Murder is on the anime/ game that has opened some doors for Nakazawa in the seiyuu industry, one cannot forget that despite the fact that the anime adaptation worked as a launching ramp in terms of job offers for the seiyuu.

One cannot disregard the fact that even before the news about the game being having received the green lit to be adapted to an animated version, Nakazawa was already loved for his character Clear.

On another note, Nakazawa has also been playing Kenji Futakuchi in the famous volleyball anime Haikyuu!.

This character is a totally different from Clear, the happy and always energetic character. Futakuchi is an impertinent junior, which is sassy and is constantly causing problems for and with his seniors.

Despite his slightly peculiar personality, no one can really blame him for his confidence since he actually has the skill to back up that attitude.

 In fact, this character despite it appearing to be quite different from Nakazawa’s personality, which by the way it resembles to a certain degree Clear’s, appears to be a character that comes out natural for the seiyuu, thus increasing Futakuchi’s credibility and also making it funny and lovable, to a certain extent.

Aside from his sudden popularity in the anime department, one cannot forget to mention the fact that Nakazawa is also quite famous in the game department, in fact we dare say that in the early stages of his career he might have been known for some of his roles in some games as opposed to being famous for a role in the anime department.

Though 2014 was a year full of of jobs offers and Nakazawa having his hands full with his roles in anime, he was also in some games such as あるふへいむ でもん つかい で (Arufuheimu Demon Tsukai De) as Scythalis, as well as in the clean version of DRAMAtical Murder re: code and in the game Haikyuu!!  Tsunage! Itadaki no Keshiki! ! as his character in the anime.

This sudden fame and popularity did not last long for Nakazawa, and the following years the seiyuu solely had three roles, one of the being Kenji Futakuchi and the other being a minor role in the anime Ranpo Kitan Game of Laplace.

2016 – 2017

Freelancer seiyuu and getting back in business

In 2016 his at the time rising career suffered a blow, and by the end of December Nakazawa had left Ken Production and was now a freelance seiyuu.

After this incident he asked Kouji Kasuya, a Japanese male talent, and writer, to help him, and that was what he did.

However his career was still affected by his sudden change of status, and the market was not nice to him.

In fact, in 2016 he did not have a single role in anime, the positive side of it was that he made his presence prominent in the drama CDs and gaming department appearing in a large number of collections.

For instance, he was cast as the main character of the game British Detective Mysteria The Crown in which he played Jack Millers a.k.a Ripper Jack, yet another different character.

This time around, Nakazawa played the role of a teenage cold-hearted assassin. However this character was first Yuki Fujiwara’s, but with the remake of the game, Nakazawa got the role.

In the same year, he got a role in LOVE ☆ Scramble as Akito Kakiuchi, your typical good-looking childhood friend who melts the hearts of women.

In 2017, the seiyuu finally managed to get up in business by joining Haikyou – a company that is home to a numerous variety of talents from all departments of entertainment – and this time around he had a role in the game Yoshiwara Higanbana Kuou no Chigiri as Iseya Souichiro. Regarding any anime, he is currently doing Princess Principal as Eric among others.

Acting

Regarding any acting work, be it on the silver screen or in the theater Nakazawa has made his name known, so we must say that his repertoire is vast. He has appeared in several Kamen Rider movies as a suit actor and dubbed some of them.

As aforementioned, Nakazawa is a methodical actor, therefore he makes sure that he completely understands his character and that he manages to deliver his performance as close to perfection as possible, hence why one can never be really disappointed with his roles, even those creepy or sadist characters, there is no way we can say they do not sound fresh and unique.

However, he does not focus only on acting for the silver screen, he also knows his ways in the theatre industry.

In fact, he has a lot of experience under his belt which makes him deliver quality content to the fans.

Some of the plays he has been in are 『リカバリ-Recovery-』(Recovery- Recovery) as Tanaka, one of the main characters, and most recently Nakazawa has been occupied with 鳥獣奇譚 with fellow seiyuu Kazuma Horie, as one of the main characters as well.

Music

Indie debut (2017 -)

In 2017, on February 14th, Nakazawa made his indie solo debut in the music industry.

This solo debut was quite subtle, with very few people actually being aware of it happening, as Masatomo Nakazawa focused on creating music at his own pace, focusing on a bubbly pop-rock sound.

While he was an indie solo artist, Nakazawa collaborated with ZIZZ STUDIO.

With that being said, during that time, his music was pretty much only available to fans in Japan and even within Japan, his music wasn’t available on all major music retailers such as Tower Records or Animate.

Before his debut, the seiyuu had slowly but surely been singing some character songs, such as「君は僕になんて言ってほしいの？」, 「ここにいたんだ」, 「Walking to the sun」 and Jellyfish Song.

Clarity (2017 – )

In September 2017, Nakazawa joined the Anidol Colors franchise as a member of Clarity (under Pony Canyon).

The idol unit features a powerful vocal lineup consisting of Tasuku Hatanaka, Shunsuke Takeuchi, Masatomo Nakazawa and Shuuta Morishima.

Trip x Trap is an upbeat dramatic pop song that brings forth each one’s individual talents making sure to impress everyone.

MG9 (2018 – )

In 2018, Masatomo Nakazawa joined the cast of the rhythm game, I-Chu. He voices Rintaro Kizaki, F∞F‘s manager and a member of MG9 (Manager 9).

MG9 comprise Tasuku Hatanaka, Taishi Murata, Tomohito Takatsuka, Atsushi Abe, Fujii Kohei, Masatomo Nakazawa, Takato Nagata and Junta Terashima.

The group released their debut single in 2018 titled Nice to Meet You! ~ We are MG9! ~.

Radio

Up until now, Nakazawa has revealed an extensive repertoire of radio dramas, namely for the Rampo Edogawa series, Ogawa Miaki “Red Candle and Mermaid” as the narrator, Osamu Dazai‘s “No longer human”, just to name a few.

Previously, the seiyuu has hosted the radio show of Dear Boys.

Currently, Nakazawa is busy hosting the Otome Institute of Techonology, a radio show who does not show any signs of ending any time soon, ラジオ・ラブなる, as well as the web radio show Eiji Miyashita and Nakazawa Masao ‘s idly spiritual typhoon!.

Facts

Plastic cup incident

When Nakazawa was preparing for his role in DRAMAtical Murder as Clear he searched for ways to attempt to recreate the sound of a person speaking with a gas mask on as his character, as he once mentioned at the program Animemashite, in which he was a guest.

He confessed that he appeared at the studio with a plastic cup with a hole in it, so as to make his performance more realistic. Now imagine what it would be like to see him appear with the cup on his mouth. I wonder how he got this ingenuous idea.

Nakazawa has a twin brother

According to the seiyuu himself he has referred the fact that he has a twin brother and although the fans have always wanted to know if they really look alike, up until now, no one really knows.

The truth is we do not have any picture to prove whether or not they are alike, however we have a photo from Nakazawa taken by his twin brother.

Methodical

Nakazawa is so methodical that he confessed in drama CD’s cast talk that he not only takes notes of reactions and emotions of the heroine in his script but he also goes as far as imagining what the she would say, and writes each and every part so as to make his performance as realist and believable as possible.

In fact he is also the only seiyuu in the DRAMAtical Murder cast that has played the whole game. If that is not considered being methodical, then I do not know what it is.

Kenji Fukatani

According to Nakazawa himself, he had no problem portraying Fukatani’s personality seeing as he confessed that he sort of resembled the character when he was a teenager, so this character was basically him using his experience as reference to enrich his performance.

Polyglot

In numerous occasions, Nakazawa has proved himself to have some knowledge regarding foreign languages, namely English and French. In fact, the seiyuu appear to be specially comfortable saying either French words or expressions.

Drawing skills

Quite often, Nakazawa posts his anime-like drawings on twitter. His fans know that he has an insane talent for drawing – and other plastic arts -, but for those that are new to him, he’s on a high level.

And that was it for this month’s SEIYUU DIGEST. I hope you have enjoyed it and be sure to be on the lookout for next month’s.