| Kazuki Yao | |
| Native Name: | 矢尾 一樹 |
| Native Name Lang: | ja |
| Birth Date: | 17 June 1959 |
| Birth Place: | Kanazawa,[1] Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan |
| Spouse: |
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| Occupation: | Voice actor, actor, narrator[2] |
| Credits: | One Piece as Franky, Bon Clay, and Jango Jankenman as Masked Osodashi Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ as Judau Ashta Ninja Sentai Kakuranger as Ninjaman Bastard!!: The Dark God of Destruction as Dark Schneider |
| Agent: | Max Mix[3] |
| Height Cm: | 177 |
| Years Active: | 1970–present |
is a Japanese voice actor, actor and narrator who is currently affiliated with Max Mix. He is married to actress Natsuki Hayashi.
As a child, Yao was very active, building secret bases with his friends and playing outside, and did not watch TV much. In addition, because his father was a government official, he had to be transferred every three years, so he moved from place to place. When he was in the second year of junior high school, he was transferred to Tokyo, and the government office building that he moved into was too small for a TV, so his family decided not to have a TV. At that time, his sister, who was four years older than him, and his mother were fond of musicals and plays, and Yao accompanied them to see them. At the time, it was popular for kabuki actors to perform William Shakespeare's plays, and he saw a Shakespeare play starring Kawarasaki Gonjūrō, and when he saw the stage greeting at the final performance of the play, it solidified his desire to become a stage actor. As soon as he graduated from high school and went to college, one of the women in his class was the younger sister of Shōichirō Akaboshi, so he started going to the rehearsal room of Matenrō Theater Company run by Takuya Hiramitsu with her help, and after being involved in a couple of productions as a staff member, he joined the stage as an actor.[4] One of his seniors in the same theater company was Hozumi Gōda.
Matenrō Theater Company was one of the more popular small theater companies, but it did not generate enough income to keep them afloat. For a while, Yao worked part-time while doing theater activities, but when he realized that he couldn't go on like this, he consulted with the staff and was introduced to a production company, which led him to get work in TV dramas and movies. Among them, he had an audition for an anime and made his voice acting debut as Shurugi Nam in the OVA BIRTH.[5] Naturally, he had no experience in dubbing, and although he was the lead actor, he did not understand the technical terms included in the director's instructions, but he was helped by his co-stars Keiko Toda and Jōji Yanami, and he still looks up to them as his teachers.
In 1985, Yao played the role of Shinobu Fujiwara in the TV anime series Dancouga – Super Beast Machine God. This is the series that Yao considers most memorable, and he says it was the show that made him understand what it meant to play an anime character. In addition, Shinobu's line, is a byword for Yao, and is often quoted in other works. In the arcade game Kaiser Knuckle, in addition to "I'll do it!", he also shouts, "Dancouga!" in some scenes. He also sang a song called "YATTE YARUZE!", which is included in his 1986 album YAO.
After working for Haikyō,[6] M-Company,[7] and Sigma Seven (May 20, 2004[8] – May 2009), he became a member of Max Mix on June 1, 2009.
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