SungWon Cho (Korean: 조성원; RR: 'Jo Seong-won'; /sʌŋˈwɒn/; born December 9, 1990), also known as ProZD, is an American actor, voice actor, comedian, and YouTuber. He is best known for his role as Detective Joe Furuya in Anime Crimes Division and for his many voice acting roles, most notably FL4K from Borderlands 3 and Johnny from OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes. He also has partnerships with gaming brands Sega, Wizards of the Coast, EA, and Square Enix.
Career[]
In October 2012, Cho began daily posting voice content to Tumblr, building an audience and eventually going viral with a video of him singing "Let It Go" from Frozen as Goofy. His first foray into professional voice acting occurred when Deven Mack saw one of his YouTube videos and had him audition for Apotheon, where he ended up securing the role of the main villain Zeus. In late 2014 Cho started using Vine to post content and grew in popularity, when later asked about his tenure on Vine he stated "...overall it was just a way to put out my ideas in a very easy way. It also helped me pare down my writing so there's less filler." He remained active on Vine until the 2016 announcement of their shutdown and was also a finalist for the 9th Shorty Awards for Vine of the Year. Cho shifted his focus to his YouTube channel, his audience following from Vine and having his work often appear on the frontpage of Reddit.
In 2017, Cho starred in his first live action role as the main character, Detective Joe Furaya, in Crunchyroll's Anime Crimes Division, for which he was nominated for Best Acting in a Comedy for the 8th Streamy Awards. In mid-2018 Creative Artists Agency reached out and signed him coinciding with an already planned move to Los Angeles to continue his career as a voice actor. Soon after he was cast in the multi-ethnic Rooster Teeth series Gen:Lock and told NewsWeek's Phillip Martinez, "Voice acting gives me a lot more freedom because I'm not limited by my physical appearance. I can voice all sorts all different sort of characters."
Cho's presence on YouTube grew throughout this time with his channel exceeding 2 million subscribers and most of his income between voice acting work coming from sponsorships and ad revenue. His videos are intentionally low-budget and often feature recurring universes with their own casts of characters, including an anime parody ("The Tomoko Chairem Anime Canon") and a role-playing game parody ("King Dragon"), through which he pokes fun at common gaming and anime cliches and tropes. In these videos, he often plays multiple characters, a detail which become so strongly associated with him that he and fellow YouTuber Octopimp parodied it in a video on the latter's channel, additionally poking fun at Cho's strong association with anime. He continued to expand these existing storylines that had originally started on Vine, as well as creating a Let's Play channel Press Buttons n Talk with his friend Alex Mankin. In 2019 Cho voiced the character FL4K in the popular video game Borderlands 3. He has been a fan favorite in the anime community being a frequent guest at conventions and presenting for the Crunchyroll Anime Awards.
On May 26, 2022, Cho tested positive for COVID-19.
Filmography[]
Animation Dubbing[]
Animated Films[]
- Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia (2022) - Additional Voices
Anime Dubbing[]
Anime[]
- One Piece (1999-present) - Cat Viper
- Kingdom (2012-present) - Ba Jio
- Aggretsuko (2018-present) - Hyodo
- Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These (2018-present) - Legrange
- Dr. Stone (2019-present) - Additional Voices
- Vinland Saga (2019-2023) - Additional Voices (Netflix Dub)
- Akudama Drive (2020) - Shark
- Ikebukuro West Gate Park (2020) - Feng Yang (ep. 5)
- MAGATSU WAHRHEIT -ZUERST- (2020) - Additional Voices
- Hortensia Saga (2021) - Georg Dalmas, Additional Voices
- Odd Taxi (2021) - Kensuke Shibagaki
- The Honor Student at Magic High School (2021) - Koutaro Tatsumi
- Ranking of Kings (2021-2022) - Kage
- Tokyo 24th Ward (2022) - Hiroki Shirakaba
- Aim To Be A Pokémon Master (2023) - Additional Voices
- Pokémon Horizons: The Series (2023-present) - Sidian, Cufant's Trainer (ep. 19), Additional Voices
- Ranking of Kings: Treasure Chest of Courage (2023) - Kage
- Delicious in Dungeon (2024-present) - Senshi
- Solo Leveling (2024-present) - Jinchui Woo/Akira Inukai
Anime Films[]
- Belle (2021) - Additional Voices
Web Anime/ONAs[]
- Pokémon - Twilight Wings (2020) - Mustard (ep. 8), Mienshao (ep. 8), Trainer (ep. 8)
- Record of Ragnarok (2021-present) - Kajinosuke Tanikaze
- Thermae Romae Novae (2022) - Taverna Owner (ep. 7), Grandpa #C (ep. 8), Ramen Shop Owner (ep. 11)
- Pluto (2023) - Brau-1589
- Garouden: The Way of the Lone Wolf (2024) - Kuno, Nagata, Additional Voices
Donghua Dubbing[]
Donghua[]
- Drowning Sorrows in Raging Fire (2021) - Elder Yeude
Video Game Dubbing[]
- Black Desert Online (2014) - Dolswe
- Shadowverse (2016) - Hades, Magna Giant, Supreme Dragonkin Garyu
- Fire Emblem Heroes (2017-present) - Darros
- Judgment (2018) - Tashiro
- Pokémon Masters (2019-present) - Sidney
- Granblue Fantasy: Versus (2020) - Vaseraga, Imperial Soldier
- Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny (2021) - Misedor
- Genshin Impact (2020) - Bravo, Krosl, Uncle Dai
- Mary Skelter: Finale (2020) - Professor Tohjima
- Persona 5 Strikers (2020) - Additional Voices
- Yakuza: Like a Dragon (2020) - Mitsuo Yasumura
- Castle Craft: World War (2021) - Penguin Shielder
- Rune Factory 5 (2021) - Oswald
- Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes (2022) - Holst
- AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative (2022) - Gen Ishiyagane
- Master Detective Archives: Rain Code (2023) - Number One
- Detective Pikachu Returns (2023) - Will Butler, Additional Voices
- Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name (2023) - Boss
External Links[]
- SungWon Cho at the Internet Movie Database.
- SungWon Cho on the Anime News Network's encyclopedia.
- SungWon Cho on Behind The Voice Actors.