Interview with Yusuke Kobayashi, the voice actor behind Fire Force’s Arthur Boyle

Before Yusuke Kobayashi’s Q&A panel at Anime Festival Asia Singapore 2025 a little while back, HardwareZone had the privilege of interviewing him backstage to discuss his character (Arthur Boyle) in the popular Shonen anime Fire Force.

Through a translator, Kobayashi shared what it was like to play Arthur, how he gets into character and the advice he has for any aspiring voice actors.

- Before your voice recording sessions, how do you prepare yourself to record Arthur Boyle?

I read the original manga to make sure I understands the character.

Basically Arthur Boyle has two sides. He has this little comical funny side to him and then at the same time he has this really serious side.

So I tries to get a grasp of both sides of the character and makes sure that I channels that when I record.

- What do you enjoy the most about voicing Arthur and what’s the most challenging thing about it?

The most challenging part to play this role is to be the funny Arthur. Because I am not the biggest joker in the world, so that’s the most challenging part. At the same time Arthur is also like a straightforward ‘knight’, a responsible character, that he needs to play.

So it is a bit hard to switch between them, but nonetheless I try to make the most of it and I always put in my 100 percent.

- You have voiced many characters in video games such as in Fire Emblem and Honkai Impact. What do you think are the key differences in voicing an anime character versus a video game character?

There is a difference, what’s not different is the fact that I am going to put a hundred percent on playing each role whether it be a game for an anime.

But the difference between the two is that for games, you know what’s going to happen, you know the ending, so you know from the beginning to how it’s going to end. So it’s really predictable to prepare yourself accordingly for the characters.

But for anime, somtimes you can start with something, but it might be cut in the middle, it might have a very unpredictable ending.

That’s the difference between the two. But the way I approach it won’t make too much of a difference.

- How did you start as a voice actor? Was it like something you worked towards to or was it something you stepped into by chance?

I have always been interested in anime, so I watched it all my life. One day when I was in middle school, I just realised that I wanted to become a voice actor. Then in high school, some friends told me, “if you want to become one, just become one”.

And then I decided to go for it. And here I am today.

- As a veteran voice actor what would your advice to those who wants to take up a voice acting role?

Nowadays there’s social media and there’s so many different platforms where everyone can try to become something.

So if they want to become a voice actor there are many platforms that they can try out, they can produce them (voice acting content) themselves. But the difficult part is to keep doing what you want to do and to go for it.

They can start putting themselves out there but in most cases they give up in the middle. So the most important thing here is to never give up.

Fire Force is now available for streaming on Crunchyroll, starting from $5.49/mth. To subcribe, click here.

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