Eric Kelso

Eric Kelso (born December 22, 1962) is an American voice actor and narrator currently based in Tokyo, Japan. He is the voice of Paul Phoenix in the video game series, Tekken, as well as Guizhang Chen,^[1] Masayuki Fukuhara,^[2] and Ren of Heavens^[3] in the Shenmue series, and Jacky Bryant in the Virtua Fighter series.^[4] Outside of video games, he has provided voices for Disney, Universal Studios, DreamWorks, and the Iron Chef cooking show. His voice is well-known in Japan on many TV commercials, as well as NHK TV and radio programs.

Early life

Eric Kelso was born and raised in California. He attended high school in Santa Cruz and went to the University of California at Santa Barbara where he majored in Film Studies. While at UCSB he received a Corwin Metropolitan Film Award for writing and directing the short film, "An Echo en Route".^[5] After graduating in 1986 he set out to travel the world in search of documentary film subjects and eventually made his way to Japan where he happily resides today.^[6]

Career

Narrator

Since 1989, Eric Kelso has been a narrator for more than 300 international corporate videos including Major League Baseball, Toyota Motors, Mitsubishi, Du Pont, Sony, Panasonic, Isuzu Motors, Yamaha Motors, NEC, Japan Airlines, Nescafe, Tiffany's, Toshiba, RCA Victor, UNESCO World Heritage. He has narrated thousands of English teaching materials as well, from junior high school and high school tests and textbooks, to university entrance examinations, and TOEIC, TOEFL and STEP tests.^[6]

Television

For many years, Kelso appeared as the English voice of Masaharu Morimoto in the Iron Chef cooking program on The Cooking Channel.^[7] He has also provided voices for many NHK TV series such as Shima Kosaku, Tsunami Survivors, Somewhere Streets, Business World, Go Kitchen Go!, TV Eikaiwa I, TV Eikaiwa II, and Eigode Asobo.^[8]

Kelso has had numerous on screen roles as well; as the writer and host of the TBS TV series Mezase Multilingual, newscaster for Asahi Kasei Company News, and presenter for NEC Aris Computer Advancements and Hitachi Future Innovations. He was also an actor in a Nissin Supao TV CM with Fukada Kyoko, the NEC TV CM Global Solutions, and NHK TV Eikaiwa I and II.

Radio

As a cast member of NHK Radio since 1989, Kelso’s credits include; co-host of NHK Radio Eikaiwa (1991-1992), reporter for NHK Radio starring in the shows New York and Boston with Eric (1991) and Florida with Eric (1992), Yasashi Business English, English Listening Nyumon, and Jissen Business English. He also appears on the Radio Nikkei program, Let's Read the Nikkei in English.

Television Commercials

Kelso is the voice of more than 20 Japanese television commercials for companies such as Toyota, TDK, Sony, Max Factor, Suntory, Mazda, Sunkist, Brooks Brothers, Nissin Foods, NEC, Mitsubishi Motors, Namco Bandai, American Express.

Animation

In animation, Kelso has been active in Japan doing voiceovers for movies, amusement parks, children’s programs and educational broadcasting. In 1995, Kelso provided live interactive voice over and CG movement work for Mr. Mike, a sarcastic talking microphone character, around the world. Noteable events include TELECOM 95 in Geneva, Switzerland,^[9] as well as at ASIA TELECOM 97 in Singapore. He played Doraemon in Gakken’s English version of the popular Japanese series of the same name. He voiced the Japanese movie trailer for Disney’s Mulan, as well as the part of River Guide in the Wild River Splash VR Simulator ride for DreamWorks at SEGA’s Joypolis in Tokyo. At Universal Studios Japan he can be heard as the voice of Woody Woodpecker.^[10] In 2002, he did several characters for Zoids: Fuzors. In 2006, shortly after the merger of Tomy and Takara, Kelso provided the voice for the newly released Omnibot 2007: i-SOBOT, which has been certified by Guinness World Records as "the world's smallest humanoid robot in production”.

Video Games

Credited with over 40 games, Kelso began voice acting for the video game industry in 1996, with his first role(s) being in Soul Blade, released on the Sony Playstation console. Continuing to work with Sony, in 1998, Kelso voiced the character of Paul Phoenix in the fighting video game, Tekken 3, also released on the Sony Playstaton. In 1999, Kelso provided voices for the English dub of the iconic Sega Dreamcast game, Shenmue. Playing the roles of Masayuki Fukuhara^[2] and Guizhang Chen,^[1] Kelso noted how expansive the project was, having a more developed storyline and more dialogue than other games. In 2000, he reprised the role of Paul Phoenix in Tekken Tag Tournament, and continued to voice the character in Tekken 4,^[11] Tekken 5,^[12] Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection, and Tekken 6. In 2001 Kelso also worked on the sequel to Shenmue, Shenmue 2, voicing a new character in the franchise, Ren of Heavens.^[3] The game appeared both on the European and Japanese releases on the Sega Dreamcast, and then re-released in 2002 on the Microsoft Xbox console. Also in 2001, Kelso became the voice artist for another iconic fighting game character in Virtua Fighter 4 called Jacky Bryant.^[4] He also reprised the role in Virtua Fighter 5,^[13] as well as side projects featuring the character, such as, Sega Superstars,^[14] Virtua Quest, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing,^[15] and Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate^[16]

Director and Producer

Kelso has been a director and producer for corporate video recordings for Prologis Inc. (since 2015) and Medtronic (2016).

Filmography

Video Games

References

External links

• Official website
• Eric Kelso at the Internet Movie Database
• Eric Kelso at Behind The Voice Actors