Nobuyuki Hiyama

is a Japanese voice actor, narrator, and radio personality currently affiliated with Arts Vision. His vocal register is described as a metallic lyric tenor suitable to voice a mature variation of coming of age young men. Combined with an impactful execution on battle cries, he earned his reputation in voicing heroic protagonists commonly found in works of the mecha, fighting, and fantasy genres. Hiyama is recognized for his portrayal of Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho, by starring twice within the Brave Series franchise as Maito Senpuuji of The Brave Express Might Gaine, and Gai Shishioh of the King of Braves GaoGaiGar. He also played Link in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Hiyama was born in Hatsukaichi, Hiroshima at the Red Cross Hospital, and grew up enjoying casual amateur baseball with friends. His mother was of Japanese descent born in Taiwan during the end of World War II who resettled back to Japan after the war. Greatly influenced by his father, Hiyama flourished in history and social studies class since middle school, but wasn't fond of the idea of participating in extracurricular activities; yet Hiyama had no choice but to pick up at least one activity for each semester due to school regulations, and ends up wandering through Go, Shogi, and his school's Radio Club by his second-year middle school. According to Hiyama, his middle school radio club experience was "in all honesty, awful." and "was bored to the point of resigning from the club" by his 3rd year and end his middle school club life with Japanese calligraphy. Upon entering high school, Hiyama believed he could "finally start pursuing his dream of not participating in any school clubs," but ends up being reluctantly dragged into his high school's radio club due to a close schoolmate of his wanting to join the club yet doesn't want to enter the club alone. Hiyama noted his high school radio club experience was "far more interesting" than he expected, "we get to plan on what to broadcast for morning assembly, and not only that, we even produce our own radio dramas.