It's Hero Time!Yuri Lowenthal (born March 5, 1971) is an American actor and voice actor who is probably one of the most prolific voice-over artists in the industry right now. In fact, his work is getting so common in the North American industry that he may as well be his own trope. He is
usually cast as the
Kid Hero of the series, some examples being
Simon and
young Superman. Despite all those roles, he is probably best known as the voice of
Anti-Hero Sasuke Uchiha in
Naruto. Most of his voice work has shifted towards video games or western animation. However, he still continues to do anime voice work from time to time either with
Studiopolis,
Bang Zoom! Entertainment, or
NYAV Post.
He has provided the voice of Luke fon Fabre in
Tales of the Abyss, Kamal in the
Halo tie-in
Alternate Reality Game I Love Bees, and Cecil Harvey in the Nintendo DS remake of
Final Fantasy IV and
Dissidia: Final Fantasy. Ironically, he doesn't voice Yuri Lowell in
Tales of Vesperia; that role went to
Troy Baker instead.
His range tends to be rather limited, with most of his roles demanding nothing more than "normal American accent", which is close to his normal voice anyway (although this is probably due to him being typecast quite a lot). Saying that, he can also pull off a pretty good
Creepy Child voice and has a wide range of regional accents for when the role calls for them. He is also often not identifiable when playing multiple ancillary characters.
He is married to fellow VA
Tara Platt, who voiced Mitsuru in
Persona 3 where he voiced the MC. He and Tara also co-authored a book called
Voice-Over Voice Actor: What It's Like Behind the Mic, which gives their personal experiences in voice acting and advice to newcomers. This book is often referenced and recommended by many veteran voice actors at conventions like
Steve Blum,
Crispin Freeman,
Sam Riegel,
Kyle Hebert, and
Vic Mignogna.
Also acted as the main character in the
Van Von Hunter movie. Perhaps fittingly, his character became a massive otaku over the course of that film.
Has a
Twitter account
.
And yes, his first name is Yuri. We're sure he's heard every joke you have in mind.And did we mention that he's good friends with
Doug Erholtz?
Notable roles
Anime
Live Action TV
Video Games
- .hack//G.U.: Haseo, Additional voices
- Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies: Klavier Gavin
- Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War: Larry 'Pixy' Foulke (voice segments only)
- Anarchy Reigns: Zero, Edgar Oinkie
- Armored Core For Answer: Cube, additional voices
- Assassin's Creed II: Vieri De Pazzi
- Baten Kaitos Origins: Giacomo
- Bayonetta: Luka
- BioShock 2: The Crawler Splicers
- Bladestorm: The Hundred Years' War: Georges, male protagonist
- BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma: Amane Nishiki
- Blue Dragon: Shu
- Call of Duty: Black Ops: Additional voice for several missions, most notably "Rebirth". "Nova 6! Hazmat suits, NOW!"
- Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion: Ben Tennyson, Flapjack, Nigel Uno/Numbah 1
- Castlevania: Judgment, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night: Alucard
- Catherine: Toby and the mysterious voice/Astaroth
- Codename Steam: Marth (amiibo)
- Cross Edge: Raze (Mana-Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy), Zelos (Spectral Souls)
- Dead Or Alive: Dimensions: Hayate
- Devil Survivor 2: Yuzuru "Joe" Akie
- Digital Devil Saga: Serph and his original self, Serph Sheffield
- Disney Infinity series: Toy Box Narrator
- Dragon Age: Origins: Sandal, Fenarel, Finn, additional voices
- Drakengard 3: Dito
- Dynasty Warriors (and related spinoffs): Sun Ce, Zhang He
- The Evil Within: Joseph Oda
- Fallout: New Vegas: Ringo, Oliver Swanick, Henry Jamison, Nolan McNamara, Lucius, Aurelius of Phoenix, a large amount of additional voices and the male Courier.
- Final Fantasy IV (DS remake), Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, and Dissidia Final Fantasy NT: Cecil Harvey
- Final Fantasy XII: Reks
- Fire Emblem Awakening: Ricken
- Fire Emblem Fates: Marth (amiibo), Kiragi, and one of male Corrin's voice options
- Fire Emblem Heroes: Marth, Merric, Eliwood
- God Eater Burst: Soma
- GrimGrimoire: Hiram Menthe and Advocat
- Guilty Gear 2 Overture: Sin and That Man
- Hitman: Absolution: Dr. Marcus Green
- League of Legends: Taric, the Shield of Valoran (2016 Visual Update)
- Luminous Arc: Sir Heath
- Lunar: Silver Star Harmony: Alex
- Magic: The Gathering: Ral Zarek in the Dragon's Maze trailer
- Mass Effect 2: Additional voices, all of whom seem to get the short end of the stick in some way. Mordin's assistant, Daniel, who's held hostage by batarians. The Stock Boy, who's either going to a) get punched in the gut, b) believe a ridiculous lie, or c) have the situation explained to him in a heartwarming way. Feron, who gets tortured by the Shadow Broker for a couple years. Some of the salarian mercs you gun down many, many times.
- Medal of Honor (2010): Tech Sergeant Ybarra
- Medal of Honor: Rising Sun: Ichiro "Harry" Tanaka
- Medal of Honor: Vanguard: Frank Keegan
- Metro 2033: Lots of Mooks, most of them Nazis with strangely similar voices.
- Mighty No. 9: Beck
- Minecraft: Story Mode: Radar
- NieR Gestalt: Jakob and Gideon after Jakob's death
- No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle: Charlie MacDonald and Jasper Batt Jr.
- Odin Sphere: Cornelius
- Operation Darkness: Edward Kyle
- Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero?: Turmeric of the Phoenix Clan, Morgan
- Power Rangers Super Legends: Red Power Ranger, S.P.D. Omega Ranger, and Future Omega Ranger
- Prince of Persia: The Prince in The Sands of Time, The Two Thrones and The Forgotten Sands
- Professor Layton and the Unwound Future: Future Luke who's actually Klaus/Clive
- Persona 3: Protagonist (Main Character), Ryoji, Pharos, unnamed nurse
- Persona 4: Yosuke Hanamura
- Phantasy Star Zero: Kai (uncredited)
- Radiata Stories: Daniel
- Red Faction: Guerrilla: Nameless guerillas
- Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad: Nameless German soldiers
- Resident Evil: Revelations 2: Neil Fisher
- Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles: Richard Aiken
- Retro Game Challenge: Young Arino
- Riviera: The Promised Land: Ein
- Rogue Galaxy: Steve
- Rune Factory 4: Doug
- Samurai Warriors 3: Hanbei Takenaka
- Saints Row 2: Shogo Akuji, generic voices
- Saints Row: The Third: Matt Miller, Professor Genki, Zhen (Gangstas In Space DLC)
- Saints Row IV: Matt Miller
- Shadow of Destiny (PSP Version): Eike. Nostalgia Filter built a lot of criticism about him not sounding like the old voice actor, but his performance is very solid.
- Shadows of the Damned: Elliot
- Shin Megami Tensei IV: Koga Saburo and the Angel Raphael
- Silent Hill 3: Vincent (HD Collection)
- Silent Hill: Shattered Memories: John
- Siren: Howard Wright
- Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time: Sir Galleth Cooper
- Soul Calibur IV: Arcturus, Custom Male Voice 1
- Soul Hackers: Various background characters
- Soul Nomad & the World Eaters: Gig and Male Protagonist
- Spectrobes: Rallen
- Spider-Man (PS4): Spider-Man
- Star Ocean: First Departure: Roddick
- Suikoden V: Kyle and Shula Valya
- Sunset Overdrive: The male player
- Tales of the Abyss: Luke fon Fabre and Asch (talk about Talking To Yourself)
- The Order: 1886: Nikola Tesla
- Trauma Center: Derek Stiles
- Trauma Team: Little Guy and Derek Stiles
- TRON: Evolution - Battle Grids: Player-controlled ISO character
- Valkyria Chronicles: Johann (in Selvaria DLC)
- Wild ARMs 4: Arnaud G. Vasquez
- Wild ARMs 5: Dean Stark
- The Wonderful 101: Wonder-White
- World in Conflict: Bannon and Malashenko
- X-Men: Destiny: Nightcrawler and Northstar
- Xenoblade Chronicles X: "Heroic" voice option for male avatars
- Xenosaga Episode III: Also sprach Zarathustra: Kevin Winnicot (replacing Chris Smith)
Web Video
Western Animation
- Alpha Teens on Machines: Silas Greene
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold: Tuftan and Mr. Miracle
- Batman Unlimited: Animal Instincts: Red Robin
- Ben 10: Alien Force, Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, Ben 10: Omniverse, Ben 10 (2016): Ben Tennyson/Alien X, JT (in "Ben 10 Returns: Part 1") and Albedo. In Omniverse, he voices Feedback, XLR8, Ampfibian, Kickin Hawk, Walkatrout, Molestache, Pesky Dust, and The Worst. In the reboot, he voices Gax and Vilgax
- El Chavo Animado: Junior
- Huntik: Secrets & Seekers: Lok Lambert—because appearing in every California-recorded show wasn't enough.
- Legion Of Superheroes: Superman, Superman X
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie: Prince Alexander
- Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles: Marcus Rush
- Winx Club: Ogron in the Nickelodeon version
- Wolverine and the X-Men: Iceman
- Young Justice: Lagoon Boy, Garth, Icicle Jr., Tommy Terror
Tropes associated with Yuri Lowenthal's roles:
- Angst: Quite a few. Sasuke, Barnaby Brooks Jr., Suzaku Kururugi, and Cecil Harvey have their moments.
- Butt-Monkey: A few roles like Keigo, Yosuke, and Toby qualify.
- The Danza: Averted very closely with the Tales Series. He was told he wouldn't be allowed to audition for the part of Yuri Lowell in Tales of Vesperia, by virtue of the fact he'd just played the part of the main protagonist in the previous entry in the game series, Tales of the Abyss, and the producers didn't want the lead roles to sound the same. Incidentally, the role went to Troy Baker.
- Emo: Surprisingly, this is how most of the fandom describes his voice acting, even though he normally isn't typecasted into these characters.
- Sasuke Uchiha is probably the biggest offender. The fandom describes Yuri's English VO of this character as "emo". Ironically, Sasuke Uchiha is one of the least emotional characters in Naruto, so saying that Yuri's voice acting is emo is probably inappropriate.
- He did a very interesting emo impression at one panel. While that impression obviously doesn't sound like Sasuke, he can do emo imitations when asked about it.
- Apparently, this reputation got stuck into him when it comes to voice acting. Two of the anime dubs have his character referred to as "emo" twice (once by Rivalz in Code Geass, and again by Toxsa in Tenkai Knights).
- Evil Laugh: He's fantastic at these. It shows when he's voicing characters such as Shadow Yosuke from Persona 4 or Advocat.
- Fake Brit: As Sir Galleth Cooper
- Kid Hero: Prior to his Playing Against Type role as Sasuke in Naruto, he is often typecast into this character archetypenote And still does from time to time. Ben Tennyson and Simon are the best examples of this trope.
- Heartbroken Badass: Some of the characters he voiced have been broken whenever the character he voices loses someone. Sasuke, Barnaby Brooks Jr., and Suzaku Kururugi are some of the examples where they have this kind of moment.
- Man of a Thousand Voices: Not as prolific when compared to Steve Blum or James Arnold Taylor, but getting him out of his Kid Hero typecasting into anything involving an accent would fit this trope. Ben 10: Omniverse displays more of his range, thanks to being cast as various different characters including some of Ben's alien forms.
- Mean Character, Nice Actor: He's a very nice person who enjoys visiting conventions and talking with his fans. Some of his characters, like Sasuke and Mercury Black, are not so nice.
- Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Averted, he's managed to pull off a faux Persian accent for the Prince and Shula Valya, a German accent for Nightcrawler, a British/English accent for Cornelius, Advocat, Future!Luke, Matt Miller, and a few bit parts in Dragon Age: Origins, a French accent for Pip Bernadotte from Hellsing Ultimate, a Japanese accent with Zero, fluent Japanese as Shogo Akuji, and (along with everyone else on the cast) was coached by Italian voice actors for Assassin's Creed II.
- Old Shame: Odd as it sounds, he says he's embarrassed that he hasn't done a hentai dubbing role, and that if he could have done so in the past, he would've (and according to the Hellsing commentary, still would if given the chance).
- One of Us: Yuri is a member of Toonami Faithful. He's a fan of anime (especially Gundam), video games and comic books. He has stated that Sasuke Uchiha is one of his favorite roles. He's also a Whovian, even saying he'd love to play the first American Doctor. He once cosplayed as Haseo.
- The Other Marty: Surprisingly, Yuri was originally supposed to voice Renton Thurston in the Eureka Seven dub. However, according to Word of God, the ADR Director felt that Yuri's voice acting was "too low", so they had Johnny Yong Bosch voice Renton instead. Looks like type-casting didn't go as well as they expected.
- Pigeonholed Voice Actor: Normally the Kid Hero. However, ever since his Playing Against Type role as Sasuke Uchiha, he apparently has landed him into a new typecast of dramatic and angsty roles.
- Playing Against Type: Suzaku Kururugi is a Knight Templar, Sasuke Uchiha is an Anti-Hero, and Yosuke Hanamura is the Sidekick. Also: Wadji from Haré+Guu, C-3PO Expy Steve from Rogue Galaxy and complex not-exactly-a-villain Kevin Winnicot from Xenosaga. And as Barnaby Brooks Junior, his voice is far more adult and reserved, and the English dub even has him break out the snark. Might regress a bit into familiar territory once Bunny shows his more Broken Ace tendencies and gets a few Big Word Shouts. And then we have That Man. A calm, enigmatic, and cryptic Anti-Villain that hardly ever loses his cool. Also, Charlie McDonald: while Yuri has voiced badass pilots of Humongous Mecha before, he hasn't voiced one with a voice as deep a Badass Baritone as Charlie McD.
- Promoted Fanboy: See One of Us entry above, and relate the same to his role as Riddhe Marcenas.
- Relationship Voice Actor: Normally works with Johnny Yong Bosch in many anime and video games. They'll usually either be the Red Oni, Blue Oni duo (Yuri's Yosuke and Johnny's MC/Souji/Yu in Persona 4 and Yuri's Simon and Johnny's Rossiu in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann) or one of them will be The Rival to the other (Yuri's Suzaku to Johnny's Lelouch in Code Geass). He also shares frigging six roles with Akira Ishida: Roger from Jeanne d'Arc, Noriyuki Takahashi from Nodame Cantabile, Goro Kusaka from Submarine 707 R, Protagonist/Minato Arisato/Makoto Yuki AND Ryoji Mochizuki in Persona 3, and Amane Nishiki from BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma.
- Star-Making Role: He hit it big with his career as a voice actor after playing Sasuke Uchiha in Naruto. He also managed to hit it big as a western VA in Ben 10: Alien Force as well as both shows that followed it.
- Skyward Scream: Some of the characters he had voiced involved screaming to the top of his lungs. Haseo, Asch, and Ben Tennyson are some of his roles that involve this trope.
- Tom Hanks Syndrome: A rare voice actor example. Prior to his role in Naruto, his known roles were Kid Hero roles who are idealistic; or flatout comic relief Butt-Monkey. While he's still casted into Kid Hero characters from time to time, he's been getting more dramatic and angsty roles. In fact, he's probably more well-known for his angsty characters than his Kid Hero characters.
