Eric Kelso

Last updated

Eric Kelso
BornDecember 22
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater University of California at Santa Barbara
Occupations
  • Voice actor
  • director
  • presenter
  • producer
Years active1988–present
Website erickelso.com

Eric Kelso (born December 22) [1] is an American voice actor, director, presenter and producer currently based in Tokyo, Japan.

Contents

He is best known as the voice of Paul Phoenix in the video game series, Tekken , as well as Guizhang Chen, [1] Masayuki Fukuhara, [1] and Ren of Heavens [1] in the Shenmue series, Captain Falcon, and Blood Falcon in F-Zero GX , and Jacky Bryant in the Virtua Fighter series. [2] Outside of video games, he has also provided voices for many Japanese TV shows, films, radio programs.

Early life

Eric Kelso attended high school in Santa Cruz, California and went to the University 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". [3]

After graduating in 1986, he set out to travel the world in search of documentary film subjects. He eventually made his way to his current long-time residence of Japan. [4]

Career

Narration

Kelso has been active in Japan doing English-language and Japanese-language voiceovers for movies, television shows, children's programs and educational broadcasting. In 1995, Kelso provided live interactive voiceover and CG movement work for Mr. Mike, a sarcastic talking microphone character, around the world. Notable events include TELECOM 95 in Geneva, Switzerland, [5] as well as at ASIA TELECOM 97 in Singapore.

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. In 2006, shortly after the merger of Tomy and Takara, Kelso provided the voice for the Omnibot 2007: i-SOBOT, which has been certified by Guinness World Records as "the world's smallest humanoid robot in production".

Kelso has been a director and producer for corporate video recordings for companies such as Prologis Inc. and Medtronic.

Voice acting

Kelso began voice acting for the video game industry in 1996. In 2001, he voiced the character Paul Phoenix in the fighting video game, Tekken 4 . [6] In 2004, Kelso reprised this role in 5 [7] and continued to voice the character in Dark Resurrection and 6 .

In 2000, Kelso provided voices for the English dub of the Sega Dreamcast game, Shenmue . Playing the roles of Masayuki Fukuhara [1] and Guizhang Chen, [1] Kelso noted how expansive the project was, having a more developed storyline and more dialogue than other games at the time. In 2001, Kelso became the voice for another fighting game character in Virtua Fighter 3 called Jacky Bryant. [2] He also reprised the role in Virtua Fighter 5 , [8] as well as side projects featuring the character, such as, Sega Superstars , [9] Virtua Quest , [10] Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing , [11] and Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate [12] In 2002, Kelso also worked on the sequel to Shenmue, Shenmue II , voicing a new character in the franchise, Wuying Ren "of Heavens". [1] The English dub of the game appeared in the re-released version on the Microsoft Xbox console as well as the high-definition ports for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Filmography

Television

YearTitleRoleNotesRef.
Doraemon unknown Gakken English dub [13]
1993–1998Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto; Yoshiro Mori Live-action English dub [14]
2001Zoids: Century NeoAdditional voicesAlternate English dub; pilot
2015Air BoundAce, Owen, Buck ToothInternational English dub [1]
2017 Sakura Quest Mayor NaumannJapanese dub (Ep. 25) [15]
2023 The Marginal Service Character Naration [1]

Film

YearTitleRoleNotesRef.
2016 Under the Dog Soldier

Video games

YearTitleRoleNotesRef.
1996 Virtua Fighter 3 Jacky Bryant
1997 Soul Edge English dub [13]
2000SlashoutSlash [1]
Gungriffon Blaze Various
Shenmue Masayuki Fukuhara, Guizhang ChenEnglish dub [1]
2001 Virtua Fighter 4 Jacky Bryant
Tekken 4 Paul Phoenix Select voice samples re-used in 5 and 6
Planet of the Apes Various [13]
Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure Woody Woodpecker, Biff Tannen
2002 Shenmue II Wuying Ren [1]
2003 Dino Crisis 3 Jacob RanshawMotion capture
F-Zero GX Captain Falcon, Blood Falcon [1]
Glass Rose Takashi Kagetani, KazuyaEnglish dub [1]
Bloody Roar 4 Reiji TakigawaEnglish dub [1]
2004 Firefighter F.D.18 Dean McGregorCredited as Erick Kelso [1]
Gradius V Pilot, Boss [13]
Taiko: Drum Master Various [13]
Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django Dainn, Kid, Coffin Shopkeeper, EnnioEnglish dub [1]
Sega Superstars Jacky Bryant
Tekken 5 Paul Phoenix [13]
Baten Kaitos KalasEnglish dub [1]
Metal Wolf Chaos Additional voices [16]
2005 Virtua Quest Jacky BryantEnglish dub [10]
Shining Force Neo KleinEnglish dub [1]
Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection Paul Phoenix
2006 Virtua Fighter 5 Jacky Bryant
Elebits Ed (Dad)English dub [1]
Dance Dance Revolution: Disney Mix Various
2007 Lunar Knights Duke Dumas, KayEnglish dub [1]
Dynasty Warriors: Gundam Various
Mega Max ZX Advent AeolusEnglish dub [17]
Tekken 6 Paul Phoenix
2010 Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing Jacky Bryant
Ace Combat: Joint Assault Michael ArenaEnglish dub
2013 Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate Jacky Bryant [1]
2015 Dead or Alive 5 Last Round Jacky Bryant [18]
Transformers Pachinko Optimus Prime [13]
Time Crisis 5 Marc GodartEnglish dub [1]
Devil’s Third Online Various [13]
2016 NightCry Harry, Newscaster, HQEnglish dub [1] [19]
Pokémon Tretta Announcer
2019 Shenmue III Wuying RenEnglish Dub (Mod) [20]

Radio

YearTitleRoleNotesRef.
1991New York and Boston with EricHost [13]
1991–1992Radio EikawaHost [13]
1992Florida with EricHost [13]

Narration

YearTitleMediumNotesRef.
1998 Mulan Film trailerJapanese version [13]

Other voice work

YearTitleRoleNotesRef.
1995Mr. MikeVoice, motion capture; Interactive CG [13]
2001 Universal Studios Japan Woody Woodpecker Theme Park [13]
2007 i-SOBOT English voice; Robot [13]
2019 Ultra Galaxy Fight: New Generation Heroes Ultra Dark-KillerYouTube web series; English dub [21]
2020 Ultra Galaxy Fight: The Absolute Conspiracy Ultraman Zero, Ultraman Great YouTube web series; English dub [21] [22]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 "Eric Kelso (visual voices guide)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved December 8, 2017. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its opening and/or closing credits and/or other reliable sources of information.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  2. 1 2 "Voice Of Jacky Bryant – Virtua Fighter 4". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved October 21, 2016.
  3. ↑ "Photographic image of newspaper article" (PNG). 65.media.tumblr.com. Retrieved February 12, 2022.
  4. ↑ "SEGA Nerds interview with Shenmue voice actors". YouTube. July 9, 2015. Retrieved October 21, 2016.
  5. ↑ "Media Centre". Itu.int.
  6. ↑ "Voice Of Paul Phoenix – Tekken 4". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved October 21, 2016.
  7. ↑ "Voice Of Paul Phoenix – Tekken 5". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved October 21, 2016.
  8. ↑ "Voice Of Jacky Bryant – Virtua Fighter 5". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved October 21, 2016.
  9. ↑ "Voice Of Jacky Bryant – Sega Superstars". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved October 21, 2016.
  10. 1 2 "Virtua Quest voice cast". Album on Imgur. Retrieved July 17, 2017.
  11. ↑ "Voice Of Jacky Bryant – Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved October 21, 2016.
  12. ↑ "Voice Of Jacky Bryant – Dead or Alive 5". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved October 21, 2016.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 "Profile". Eric Kelso. Retrieved November 3, 2019.
  14. ↑ "The Voices of Iron Chef (1998, Live Action Series) – Voice Cast Listing at Voice Chasers". Voicechasers.com. Retrieved October 21, 2016.
  15. ↑ "TVアニメ「サクラクエスト」公式". sakura-quest.com (in Japanese). Retrieved May 13, 2019.
  16. ↑ FromSoftware. Metal Wolf Chaos. FromSoftware. Scene: Ending credits, 24:30 in, Voice Artist.
  17. ↑ Inti Creates. Mega Man ZX Advent. Capcom. Scene: Ending credits, 3:24:20 in, –VOICE CAST–.
  18. ↑ "Dead or Alive 5: Last Round voice cast (Japanese)". imgur.com. Retrieved May 13, 2019.
  19. ↑ "English Voice Cast Announced For NightCry ｜ Rely on Horror". Rely on Horror. December 30, 2015. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
  20. ↑ Chalk, Andy (April 8, 2021). "Shenmue 3 mod brings back the original Ren and Lan Di". PC Gamer . Retrieved February 10, 2022.
  21. 1 2 "ULTRA GALAXY FIGHT: THE ABSOLUTE CONSPIRACY ENGLISH CAST REVEALED!". Ultraman Galaxy. October 10, 2020. Retrieved October 10, 2020.
  22. ↑ "ULTRA GALAXY FIGHT: THE ABSOLUTE CONSPIRACY ENGLISH CAST REVEALED!". Tsuburaya Productions. October 10, 2020. Retrieved October 10, 2020.
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