J. Michael Tatum is an American voice actor, ADR director and script writer working for

Funimation Crunchyroll, LLC, previously known as Funimation from 1994 to 2022, is an American entertainment company owned by Japanese conglomerate Sony as a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Aniplex that specializes ...

/ OkraTron 5000 And

Bang Zoom! Entertainment Bang Zoom! Entertainment is an audio post-production studio with its headquarters in Burbank, California, in Greater Los Angeles. It has worked on anime, video games, television series, feature films, and original animation projects. Their work ...

who provides voices for a number of English versions of Japanese

anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening o ...

series and video games.

Biography

In 2005, Tatum ran into

ADR director

Christopher Bevins Christopher Bevins is an American voice actor, ADR director and scriptwriter who has worked on English language adaptations of Japanese anime shows for Funimation and Bang Zoom! Entertainment. He dubbed roles in anime including Yasuhiro Hagakure ...

, who cast him as Rikichi in ''

Samurai 7 ''Samurai 7'' (stylized as ''SAMURAI 7'') is a 2004 anime television series produced by Gonzo and based on the 1954 Akira Kurosawa film ''Seven Samurai''. The seven samurai have the same names and similar characteristics to their counterparts ...

''. Tatum has been cast in several notable roles, including

Kyoya Ootori This is a list of characters from the shōjo manga series ''Ouran High School Host Club'', created by Bisco Hatori. Ouran Academy is an elite upper school catering to the ultra-rich. Haruhi Fujioka is a middle-class scholarship student, a rarity ...

in ''

Ouran High School Host Club is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Bisco Hatori, and serialized in Hakusensha's ''LaLa'' magazine between the September 2002 and November 2010 issues. The series follows Haruhi Fujioka, a scholarship student at Ouran Aca ...

'', Sebastian Michaelis in ''

Black Butler is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yana Toboso. It has been serialized in Square Enix's ''shōnen'' manga magazine ''Monthly GFantasy'' since September 2006. The series follows Ciel Phantomhive, the twelve-year-old Ea ...

'',

Tomoe , commonly translated as "comma", is a comma-like swirl symbol used in Japanese (roughly equivalent to a heraldic badge or charge (heraldry), charge in European heraldry). It closely resembles the usual form of a . The appears in many desig ...

in ''

Kamisama Kiss is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Julietta Suzuki. It was serialized in Hakusensha's '' shōjo'' manga magazine ''Hana to Yume'' from February 2008 to May 2016, with the chapters collected in 25 ''tankōbon'' volumes. T ...

'', France in '' Hetalia: Axis Powers'', Erwin Smith in ''

Attack on Titan is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hajime Isayama. It is set in a world where humanity is forced to live in cities surrounded by three enormous walls that protect them from gigantic man-eating humanoids referred to as ...

'', Okabe Rintaro in ''

Steins;Gate ''Steins;Gate'' is a 2009 science fiction visual novel game developed by 5pb. and Nitroplus. It is the second game in the '' Science Adventure'' series, following ''Chaos;Head''. The story follows a group of students as they discover and devel ...

'',

Eneru The ''One Piece'' manga features an extensive cast of characters created by Eiichiro Oda. The series takes place in a fictional universe where vast numbers of pirates, soldiers, revolutionaries, and other adventurers fight each other, using var ...

in ''

One Piece ''One Piece'' (stylized in all caps) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda. It has been serialized in Shueisha's ''shōnen'' manga magazine ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' since July 1997, with its individual chapter ...

'', Tenya Iida in ''

My Hero Academia is a Japanese superhero manga series written and illustrated by Kōhei Horikoshi. It has been serialized in Shueisha's ''shōnen'' manga magazine '' Weekly Shōnen Jump'' since July 2014, with its chapters additionally collected in ...

'' and Rei Ryuugazaki in '' Free! – Eternal Summer''. From January 2010 to January 2014, he hosted ''That Anime Show'' podcasts with friend and co-worker

Terri Doty Terri Doty is an American voice actress, voice director, and ADR writer known for her voice work in English dubs of Japanese anime shows produced by Funimation and Sentai Filmworks. Career In anime, Doty is known for her work as Moriko Morioka ...

and ADR Engineer Stephen Hoff. At the Florida Supercon 2015 panel, when he was asked what was his inspiration to go into voice acting, Tatum said that when he was young he had a speech impediment and his speech coach had him get involved in theater. As he was reciting and memorizing scripts, they noticed that his stuttering started to gradually disappear. He then got into drama and theater acting, and that voice acting is great in that it enables him to play more characters than on camera. In 2017, Tatum was cast for the English voice of Hideki Akasaka in ''

Shin Godzilla is a 2016 Japanese Kaiju, ''kaiju'' film directed by Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi, with a screenplay by Anno and visual effects by Higuchi. Produced by Toho, Toho Pictures and Cine Bazar and distributed by Toho Co., Ltd., it is the 31st film ...

''. Since October 2018, he and

Jamie Marchi Jamie Lynn Marchi (; born October 8, 1977) is an American voice actress, ADR director and script writer who works for Funimation, and Sentai Filmworks. She has provided a number of voices for English-language versions of anime and video games. ...

co-host the ghost story podcast ''Ghoul Intentions''.

Personal life

Tatum is openly gay. During a panel at Ichibancon 2014, he had said that he came out to his family during his college years, with his father having already known about his sexuality for some time. On October 16, 2018, he became engaged to his long-time partner and fellow voice actor

Brandon McInnis Brandon McInnis is an American voice actor and translator. He previously worked as a software engineer before pursuing a career as an actor after being convinced by his brother to do so. Some of his noteworthy roles include Finral in '' Black Clov ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. He resides in Los Angeles, California.

Filmography

Anime

Animation

Films

Video games

References

J. Michael Tatum and Terri Doty on ANN Cast

External links

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J. Michael Tatum
at CrystalAcids Voice Actor Database {{DEFAULTSORT:Tatum, J. Michael 1976 births Living people American male video game actors American male voice actors People from McKinney, Texas Male actors from Texas American gay actors LGBT people from Texas American voice directors 21st-century American male actors American podcasters