Christopher Owen Ayres (May 16, 1965 – October 18, 2021) was an American actor, director and scriptwriter. He worked on voice acting and ADR directing on a number of English dubs 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 of ...

shows at

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 specializ ...

, OkraTron 5000, New Generation Pictures and

Seraphim Digital Sentai Studios is an American postproduction studio of Sentai Filmworks located in Houston, Texas owned by AMC Networks. It was founded as Industrial Smoke & Mirrors, the in-house studio of ADV Films. It was renamed ADV Studios in 2005; and t ...

Sentai Filmworks Sentai Filmworks, LLC or just Sentai, is an American entertainment company owned by AMC Networks. Located in Houston, the company specializes in the dubbing and distribution of Japanese animation and Asian cinema. Its post-production arm is ...

. In anime, he was known as the voice of Frieza from ''

Dragon Ball Z Kai ''Dragon Ball Z Kai'' (known in Japan as ) is a revised version of the anime series ''Dragon Ball Z'', produced in commemoration of its 20th anniversary. Produced by Toei Animation, the series was originally broadcast in Japan on Fuji TV from ...

'' and ''

Dragon Ball Super is a Japanese manga series written by Akira Toriyama and illustrated by Toyotarou. A sequel to Toriyama's original ''Dragon Ball'' manga, it follows the adventures of Goku and friends during the ten-year timeskip after the defeat of Maj ...

'', Kei Kurono from ''

Gantz ''Gantz'' (stylized as ''GANTZ'') is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hiroya Oku. It was serialized in Shueisha's ''seinen'' manga magazine ''Weekly Young Jump'' from June 2000 to June 2013, with its chapters collected i ...

'', Prince Soma from ''

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 ...

'', and Shingen Takeda from the ''

Sengoku Basara is a series of video games developed and published by Capcom, and a bigger media franchise based on it, including four anime shows, an anime movie, a live action show, a magazine series, a trading card game, and numerous drama CDs, light n ...

'' series. He was also known for Mock Combat for Cosplay panels at

anime conventions An anime convention is an event or gathering with a primary focus on anime, manga and Japanese culture. Commonly, anime conventions are multi-day events hosted at convention centers, hotels or college campuses. They feature a wide variety of activ ...

Early life and career

Ayres had his first professional acting gig in a

commercial Commercial may refer to: * a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television) ** Radio advertisement ** Television advertisement * (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...

for Lollipop Soft Drinks in

Richmond, Virginia (Thus do we reach the stars) , image_map = , mapsize = 250 px , map_caption = Location within Virginia , pushpin_map = Virginia#USA , pushpin_label = Richmond , pushpin_m ...

when he was six years old. The Ayres family moved to the

Alief, Houston Alief is a working-class suburb in Southwest Harris County, Texas, United States. Most of Alief is within the city limits of Houston, while a portion of the community is in unincorporated Harris County. First settled in 1894 as a rural far ...

area of Houston, Texas when he was 12 where Chris attended Alief Middle School and then

Alief Elsik High School Alief Elsik High School is a high school in the Alief region of Houston, Texas, United States. Elsik is divided into two campuses: the main campus (12601 High Star in Houston, zip code 77072), and the Alief Elsik Ninth Grade Center (located ...

. He graduated in 1983. After graduating high school Ayres attended Lon Morris College in

Jacksonville, Texas Jacksonville is a city located in Cherokee County, Texas, United States. The population was 13,997 at the 2020 U.S. census. It is the principal city of the Jacksonville micropolitan statistical area, which includes all of Cherokee County, and ...

and studied Theatre until 1985. He returned to Houston and continued to study Theatre at the

University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...

. Prior to his voice acting and ADR directing career he was well known as a stage director, choreographer and fight director in the Houston, Texas

Theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perfor ...

community.

Personal life and death

In November 2017, Ayres was diagnosed with end-stage

chronic obstructive pulmonary disease Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a type of progressive lung disease characterized by long-term respiratory symptoms and airflow limitation. The main symptoms include shortness of breath and a cough, which may or may not produce ...

and required a

double lung transplant Lung transplantation, or pulmonary transplantation, is a surgical procedure in which one or both lungs are replaced by lungs from a donor. Donor lungs can be retrieved from a living or deceased donor. A living donor can only donate one lung lobe. ...

to survive. A

YouCaring YouCaring was a crowdfunding website for personal, medical, and charitable causes. The company was a Certified B corporation based in San Francisco, California. YouCaring did not take a percentage of funds raised on its site, or charge those rais ...

fundraiser was created that sought $25,000 to assist with medical care and procedures. Ayres died on October 18, 2021, at the age of 56, following years of complications from pulmonary disease. His death was announced on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

the following day by his partner and fellow

voice actress Voice acting is the art of performing voice-overs to present a character or provide information to an audience. Performers are called voice actors/actresses, voice artists, dubbing artists, voice talent, voice-over artists, or voice-over talen ...

, Krystal LaPorte.

Filmography

Anime

Films

Video games

Theater credits

References

External links

Official website
(archive) * * *
Christopher Ayres
at the CrystalAcids Anime Voice Actor Database {{DEFAULTSORT:Ayres, Chris 1965 births 2021 deaths People from Richmond, Virginia Male actors from Richmond, Virginia Lon Morris College alumni American theatre directors American choreographers Respiratory disease deaths in Texas Deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease American male voice actors American male video game actors American voice directors 20th-century American male actors 21st-century American male actors