Takahiro Sakurai

Voice actor Takahiro Sakurai has established a long career in his native Japan, especially in anime films and television series. Sakurai's first professional work came at the age of 25, when he had a small voice role in the 1996 TV anime "Bakusou Kyodai Let's & Go!!." After another minor part in the popular anime series "Pokémon" in 1997, Sakurai started performing consistently in 1998. In 2000, he gained a role as one of the main characters in a film version of the popular anime series "Digimon." In "Digimon Adventure: Our War Game," Sakurai played the Digimon technology whiz, Tentomon. He continued providing voices for different projects before scoring the lead role in the TV anime version of "Cyborg 009." Sakurai voiced Joe Shinamura and his alter ego Cyborg 009 in this show for 48 episodes from 2001 to 2002. He found recurring roles in anime series and, eventually, the lead role in the TV anime "Canvas 2" from 2005 to 2006. In this show, Sakurai played Hiroki, a young man studying art who strains to handle the burdens of school, family, and romance. Sakurai was becoming increasing in demand as he juggled voice work in prominent video games and guest spots with regular characters on anime series. Known for playing mysterious, edgy, and alluring young men, it was appropriate, then, that he was selected to record the Japanese voice dub for the character of Edward Cullen in the Japanese release of the "Twilight" film series.