Tomokazu Sugita
Describe Tomokazu-GAUNTLET HADES!-Sugita here, and do it in an old-fashioned way.
One of the seiyuus who went from virtually unnoticed to VERY POPULAR thanks to the anime juggernaut that is The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, where he voiced Kyon. Before that, some people might recognise him as Hideki from Chobits, but, well that's quite in the past. After his performance as Kyon, he started displaying a wide range of voices, making him one of the best and most revered seiyus in the business today. His forte is most likely the Deadpan Snarker type.
He also has some sort of rivalry with Tomokazu Seki, just because they have the same given name. They are in fact managed by the same agency Atomic Monkey which Seki is a founding member of.
He's apparently very "hardcore" according to the Blue Radio podcast. Plus it's known, from various radio shows and interviews, that he's also a VERY keen gamer and anime Otaku, coming out with references to anime, manga and games even when nobody besides him knows what he's talking about. This is why he's nicknamed 'Freedom Sugita' by fans. And no, he is not doing this because he's influenced by his role in Gintama. He just happened to be awesome like that. Occasionally, a fellow seiyu or two will catch the references and continue the conversation from there.
He's notable that for a few times, he made some spot on Norio Wakamoto impressions, once in Bururaji, again in Gintama and later when he, along with Yuuichi Nakamura and Takahiro Sakurai, do so while playing a Yu Yu Hakusho Genesis fighting game, all picking Wakamoto's character. And narrating it. Later he does it again in Sket Dance.
Him and Yuuichi Nakamura also host a program called Tokyo Encounter where they play video games and share some trivia. And also goof off. That Wakamoto impersonation? It's from that show.
- Kyon in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
- Gintoki Sakata in Gintama
- Hideki Motosuwa in Chobits
- Kensei Muguruma and Nova in Bleach
- Rin Tsuchimi in SHUFFLE!
- Leon Mishima in Macross Frontier
- Chrono Harlaown (as an adult) in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
- Brooklyn 'Bullet' Luckfield in Super Robot Wars Alpha series and Super Robot Wars OGs
- Uther, the King of Restoration in Super Robot Wars Z2 Saisei-Hen
- Ragna the Bloodedge in BlazBlue ("INFERNO DIVIDAAAAA!!!")
- Dias Flac in Star Ocean: Second Evolution (Succeeding Ryo Horikawa)
- Yuuichi Aizawa in the Kyo Ani adaptation and PSP port of Kanon
- "That Man" in Guilty Gear 2: Overture & Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus
- Kivat-Bat III and Kivat-Bat II in Kamen Rider Kiva
- JTC, aka Kamen Rider Strike, in the Japanese dub of Kamen Rider Dragon Knight.
- Sirius in Genesis of Aquarion.
- Takumi Mayama in Honey and Clover.
- Graham Specter in Baccano!!
- Ikkyu and Aoyama in Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei.
- The titular character on the Raidou Kuzunoha Drama CD.
- Takenaga Oda in The Wallflower
- Ronove in Umineko no Naku Koro ni
- Kazuhira Miller in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
- Clerk Sugita in Lucky Star
- Subaru Sumeragi in the X 1999 TV series (acting as The Other Darrin to both Kappei Yamaguchi (Tokyo Babylon) and Issei Miyazaki (The X 1999 movie).
- Raven in Hakushaku to Yōsei (Earl and Fairy)
- Funaba Shin in Kirepapa
- Reiji Kokonoe in Kodomo no Jikan
- Chiga in Seitokaichou ni Chuukoku
- Saki Tochō in Miracle Train Ōedo-sen e Yōkoso
- Shin in Hokuto Musou
- Hajime Kanzaki in Beelzebub
- Hoshi in Arakawa Under the Bridge
- Hyakkimaru in Blood Will Tell, a PlayStation 2 game based on Dororo by Osamu Tezuka
- Daiichi Yamura in Bokurano
- Vincent Lowell in Muv Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse
- Aurelius Izzard in A Certain Magical Index
- Keisuke in Togainu no Chi
- DJ Condor in Oretachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai
- Kanata Nanami in Starry Sky
- Yuuya Kizami and Shimoda the Gentlemanly Spirit in Corpse Party
- Alvin in Tales of Xillia
- Kazuyoshi "Switch" Usui in Sket Dance
- Taurus Aldebaran in Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas
- King in Final Fantasy Type-0
- Hidenori in Daily Lives of High School Boys
- Shoukin Kagerou in Inu x Boku SS
- Krom in Fire Emblem: Awakening
- Action Duo: With Yuuichi Nakamura with their program, Tokyo Encounter.
- Badass Baritone
- Cosplay: He's done Quattro.
- Crowning Moment of Funny: That "Norio Wakamoto impression while playing Sega Genesis Yu Yu Hakusho brawler with Takahiro Sakurai and Yuuichi Nakamura"
- The time when Aoi Yuuki slapped him in the face in his Tokyo Encounter program. Reason: Nakamura won in their Mario Party 8 game.
- Deadpan Snarker: His defining role.
- Heterosexual Life Partners: With Yuuichi Nakamura. Just read the Ship Tease portion below.
- Let's Play: Alongside with Yuuichi Nakamura, called Tokyo Encounter.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Not only the Norio Wakamoto impression, but when he plays Art of Fighting 2 with Yuuichi Nakamura, he amps up his 'image' by picking Takuma while wearing Mr. Karate's Tengu Mask.
- The Nicknamer: "That German guy" and "Kacky" for Tetsuya Kakihara, Kondom for Kanako Kondou, Imagine for Asami Imai, Gotouza-sama for Yūko Gotō, Mikakongu-senpai for Mikako Takahashi, and Kana-sama for Kana Ueda.
- That one nickname for Kanako Kondou is a recurring joke during the Bururaji radio show.
- "Imagine-chan" likewise stuck to Asami Imai to the point that even she uses it regularly now.
- "Gotouza-sama" was also used (though not by Sugita himself) in one of the last few Lucky Channel segments in Lucky Star, where a female Yakuza (voiced by Yuko Goto, no less!) steps in to...fix things.
- One of Us
- Perpetual Frowner: He may look like this from the start but once you've finished watching that show, you'd probably be laughing a whole lot.
- Relationship Voice Actor: With Daisuke Ono, Tomokazu Seki, Mikako Takahashi, Yūko Gotō, and Yuuichi Nakamura to name a few out there.
- Ship Tease: He gets shipped with Yuuichi Nakamura by the BlazBlue radio staff for some weird reason.
- Nakamura and Sugita met early in their careers and have been friends for over ten years (they have the same otakuish hobbies...Nakamura's one of the only people who gets Sugita's references). Sugita always used to mention random facts about Nakamura on the radio shows he was on when Nakamura was still quite unknown in the industry and it quickly became a running gag between the other seiyuus on the radio shows that Sugita would mention Nakamura's name at least once each time he was on a show. They would tease him about 'that Nakamura guy' ['mata Nakamura ka!'] who they didn't know personally but had heard lots about from Sugita. One time they asked him if he had a picture of Nakamura because they finally wanted to see the guy Sugita was constantly swooning about and Sugita shocked them by revealing he had a picture of Nakamura as his cell phone wallpaper. Not only were they shocked at how good looking Nakamura was but hardly anybody believed Sugita's reason for having Nakamura as a wallpaper (apparently Nakamura teased him about having an anime character as a wallpaper so Sugita made a picture of Nakamura and used that as a wallpaper 'to spite him'. Uh-huh). Once Nakamura got more known in the industry people naturally started asking him about that 'Sugita business' and he usually denied having anything to do with him. Turns out Nakamura is just tsundere. All in all there's LOADS of reasons and material to back up this ship. Just start listening to any radio show Sugita's ever been on and have your mind blown. Heck, some female seiyuu even openly ship them!
- Wish granted.
- He does share some 'love rivalries' with Nakamura too, during a segment in a talk show about 2nd Super Robot Wars Original Generation, in which Nakamura debuted... Sugita is said to be a lil' jealous that Nakamura (as the just-debuting Joshua Radcliff) is going to be paired with Houko Kuwashima (as Josh's little sister Cliana Rimskaya). Admittedly both of them like/respect Kuwashima a lot, buuuuuttt...
- On the SRW radio show, Nakamura gets Kuwashima to call him "onii-chan~" and then asks Sugita if he's jealous. He very much is.
- Shout-Out: Even in his Suzumiya Haruhi days, he references a ton of pop culture in real life skits like Mobile Suit Gundam, G Gundam, Hikaru no Go, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Fullmetal Alchemist, heck even Gintama is not safe, pretty much ANY pop culture out there! Probably the only reason he could get away with it was because of Gintoki's influence.
- He references SHUFFLE! because of Nerine and her cooked eggs. In a BlazBlue Radio. My god, does this guy not know of any bounds!?
- Heck, as stated above, he is capable of 'impersonating' Norio Wakamoto's voice, in a level one would say Godlike. Let that sink for a moment. Jokes have been abound that if he's to enter that Norio Wakamoto imitation contest, he'll win with gusto.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: He's done that before. As Mai for some weird reason.