Johnny Yong Bosch

Life and career

Bosch was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and raised in Garland, Texas. His father was a soldier in the Army and met his mother while stationed in South Korea. He was interested in martial arts at an early age, inspired by martial arts movies and Bruce Lee. He taught himself martial arts at first, mimicking moves from Lee as well as Jackie Chan. He said he was ridiculed a lot when he was young and became a bully, but made a change for the better after studying kung fu. In addition to training in martial arts, in which he won several competitions, he also played soccer.

Power Rangers

Bosch auditioned for the Power Rangers show in Dallas when he was informed by his martial arts instructor. In 1994, he landed the role of Adam Park, the new Black Power Ranger, replacing Walter Emanuel Jones in the second season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Bosch said that when he got the part, he changed his middle name to Yong, which was part of his mother's given name, at the request of Saban who thought his credited name needed to be more Asian. For the feature film Power Rangers: The Movie, he did all of his stunts after his stuntman had broken his leg. He also noted that among all the different animal characters the Rangers got to be associated, his was associated to a frog. In Power Rangers Zeo, Bosch's character became a Green Ranger. His final regular stint in the franchise was in Power Rangers Turbo, where his character passes his Green Turbo Ranger powers to a new member. He played Park in the second feature film Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie. In looking back at his acting for the show, Bosch said that "Power Rangers was a lot of fun but it was a kid's show and very cheesy because of it, which made getting work after that really hard. Plus, I didn't know squat about acting then." His best friends on the set included Jason David Frank (who played Tommy Oliver), Jason Narvy (who played Skull) and Nakia Burrise (who played Tanya Sloan). At the request of Power Rangers director Koichi Sakamoto, he had a guest appearance in the episode "Once A Ranger" 'in Power Rangers Operation Overdrive in 2007 for the franchise's 15th anniversary; where he mentioned he got to go to New Zealand. He and Narvy also starred in the film Wicked Game, also known as Extreme Heist, which was directed by Sakamoto and features several other Power Rangers alumni. He is cast in the upcoming sci-fi action movie The Order, which features many former Power Rangers actors.

Voice acting

Bosch voiced Vash the Stampede in Trigun as his first job and for various Japanese anime, including notably Bleach as Ichigo Kurosaki. In 2006, he worked once again with Koichi Sakamoto on the film Broken Path. In 2007, Bosch co-starred alongside Ray Park in a comic-book style action film, Hellbinders. Among other works, Bosch also voiced Lelouch Lamperouge in Code Geass in 2008 and Izaya Orihara in Durarara in 2011. Among video games, Bosch liked voicing Nero in Devil May Cry 4 as he got to visit Japan to do the motion capture.

He voiced Final Fantasy game's character Firion in Dissidia: Final Fantasy, and Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, Yang in Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition, Tohru Adachi and the protagonist Yu Narukami in the Persona 4 games and anime adaptation, and host of AnimeTV, which started its second season on Revision3 In 2015, he voiced character Kung Jin, in the new Mortal Kombat X. He is also the voice of Zero from the Mega Man X series in the Marvel vs. Capcom series.

In the Viz Media dub of Sailor Moon and the newer Sailor Moon Crystal, he voices Artemis. On the anime show Yo-kai Watch which has aired on Disney XD in the U.S., he voices the lead character Nate Adams. He also voices Noby in the US release of Doraemon.

Eyeshine

Bosch got involved in music by teaching himself how to play guitar. In his band Eyeshine, he provides vocals, songwriting, and guitar. He describes the type of music he plays as "Edge Rock. We're somewhere on the edge of sounding like Grunge, Alt. Rock, Punk and Pop." His musical inspirations include The Beatles, Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Oasis, Led Zeppelin and also movie soundtracks.

The band released an instrumental album called Sonosis. Bosch described the album as "something you could just listen to and could move you to feel something" and that "the titles were a reflection of the emotions we felt as we wrote the songs".

Personal life

Bosch is of half Korean descent. He is the second oldest of four children in his family. He has mentioned being a Christian in some of his interviews. He is married, and has a daughter named Novi and a son named Jetson.

Discography

A list of Eyeshine albums: