Anime NYC 2019: An Interview with Clifford Chapin

This past weekend at Anime NYC, I got the opportunity to talk to Clifford Chapin. Chapin has voiced characters in well known titles like Attack on Titan and Tokyo Ghoul, as well as directing some popular series like Dr. STONE, but he said that now he mostly gets recognized for his role as Bakugo in My Hero Academia.

Clifford Chapin was very happy to talk about his role as Bakugo, a character that he connects with and is never very far from. Voicing Bakugo has helped him grow as a person, now that he’s had this role for several years and is in his 30s and finally settling into being an adult. “A lot of things that Bakugo has gone through – like his pride and his drive and whatnot – those are things that I connect with and have always connected with, but now I connect with them more almost like a thing from the past. Where Bakugo is or was with his damaged pride and his sense of wanting to achieve is very similar to how I was as a teen and a young adult. […] Now I’ve done that. I have gone and succeeded, and I’m very fortunate to be able to say that.”

 He freely admits that most people come up to him at conventions now to talk about Bakugo, and that is due mostly to the global popularity of the show, which they expected to a certain degree. “To be honest with you, the first season came and went, and it was popular, but it wasn’t, like, this explosive success that we were all led to believe initially. And it wasn’t until the second season started airing – when we were doing the simuldub of the second season – and the first season came out on home video, that then it started to really hit.” 

As far as what will happen in season 4, Chapin admits that he doesn’t really know. He says that he doesn’t have time to read the manga for his acting roles, because he uses that time to read for his directing jobs, like Dr. STONE. He is excited about one thing, though. “I’ve seen artwork of a winter outfit that Bakugo gets, apparently, and I’m really eager to see it because I’ve received a lot of fanart of it. I really just want to see it come to life.”

Check out our full interview with Clifford Chapin below:

Author: Jamie Sugah

Jamie has a BA in English with a focus in creative writing from The Ohio State University. She self-published her first novel, The Perils of Long Hair on a Windy Day, which is available through Amazon. She is currently an archivist and lives in New York City with her demon ninja vampire cat. She covers television, books, movies, anime, and conventions in the NYC area.

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