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In the world of superhero media, some universes have proven more popular than others in recent years. One is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the sprawling multiverse of films and TV that has become one of the most successful film franchises in history. The other is Kohei Horikoshi’s My Hero Academia, which shows a world where superpowers aren’t just real but incredibly common. The MCU and My Hero Academia both tackle the drama of superheroes in different ways, but what if we told you that there is more crossover between the two than you think – specifically, in their voice actors?

No, we’re not suggesting that Robert Downey Jr. is going to dub a character in My Hero Academia’s final season this year – though we wouldn’t put it past him after his return to the MCU was announced – but, on the Japanese side, there are multiple actors who voice characters in My Hero Academia and the Japanese dub of Marvel films. Because if you can be trusted to bring the likes of Thor to life in Japanese, you can probably do a pretty good All Might.

In fact, that’s exactly what happened. Kenta Miyake already had several years of playing Thor in the MCU when he was cast as All Might in My Hero Academia. He has been the Japanese voice match for Chris Hemsworth since the first Thor movie in 2011 and continuing through 2024’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.

He isn’t the only one who has been pulling double superhero duty for years now. Yuichi Nakamura, who anime fans will recognize as the voice of Hawks in My Hero Academia, is the voice match for Chris Evans in most of his films since Captain America: The First Avenger. That means that he too was a part of the MCU long before he started playing a hero in the MHA anime.

However, there are plenty of Japanese actors who started in My Hero Academia and then moved into the MCU later. Nobukiko Okamoto has been playing Katsuki Bakugo since episode one of My Hero Academia and went on to play Red Dagger in 2022’s Ms. Marvel. Yoshimasa Hosoya played the bird-headed Tokoyami for years before he was cast as the voice of Shang-Chi in the MCU.

There are some crossover roles that make a certain amount of sense to us. Marina Inoue plays both Momo Yayurozu and She-Hulk, for example. Both are, in their own ways, the best girl in their respective universes and I will happily fight on that hill. Even Akio Otsuka playing both the villainous All for One and the hilarious Red Guardian in Black Widow – plus Cable in Deadpool 2 and Peacemaker in The Suicide Squad on the DCEU side of things – feels sensible. I can understand those characters sharing the same voice.

What is still playing with my head is knowing that the voice of Ochako “Uravity” Uraraka is also the Japanese voice of Cassandra “No Personal Space” Nova in Deadpool & Wolverine. That is the kind of factoid that you can’t unknow, which is why I’m passing it along to you, dear reader. I must be burdened with this cursed knowledge and now so must you. You're welcome.

It isn’t just the MCU that shares so many voices with My Hero Academia. The aforementioned Yashimasa Hosoya also plays The Flash in his DC movie appearances. The voice actor for Eraserhead also voices Cyborg in the DCEU and Eddie Brock in Sony’s Spider-Man without the Spider-Man-verse. Shin Ichiro plays Sir Nighteye in My Hero Academia and the Michael Fassbender version of Magneto in the X-Men movies. 

This isn’t one of those pieces where I turn around and explore something deeper about the anime industry. This is purely me sharing the results of my fascination with both voice acting in general and how American films are dubbed and released overseas. It could be a testament to how small the voice acting industry is, even in Japan, that the same names pop up over and over again like this. Or it could just be that once you’ve played one superhero it is easy to fall into voicing another. All I really know is that this is the kind of information that gets me kicked out of parties for derailing the small talk with “interesting” facts no one asked to hear.

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