Bin Shimada

Commanding the Air from Niigata

Bin Shimada was born in Niigata in 1954. His early training in theater gave him diaphragm control that few colleagues of his generation achieved in their first years of work. He started out in supporting roles until the anime industry noticed his talent for characters with a double edge.

And then came outer space.

In 1985, he voiced Paptimus Scirocco in the series Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. This role defined his style for almost a decade because Shimada avoided the exaggerated shouting typical of the era and went for pure, absolute coolness. Japanese audiences responded with fascination to a villain who didn't need to raise his tone to be threatening.

But his ability to shift his vocal range didn't stop with icy characters. Shimada realized early on that longevity in voice acting depended on not being typecast into a single kind of voice (something many actors of the 1980s failed to avoid).

From Broly's Scream to Babidi's Laugh

In 1993 he recorded voice sessions for Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods. There he brought Broly to life, a character whose attacks and scarce, roar-based dialogue demanded an exhausting physical effort. Shimada finished those recording sessions with his vocal cords pushed to the limit of their endurance.

Shimada never needed digital effects to sound terrifying.

Interestingly, years later he played Babidi within the same franchise. The contrast between Broly's raw power and the shrill, cracked voice of the sorcerer showed that his throat worked like a precision instrument. For Babidi he used a laryngeal constriction technique that he sustained through hours of recording without losing the character's pitch.

His name became indispensable to Toei Animation. He worked steadily on One Piece, taking on roles as different as the comic villain Wapol and the strategist Foxy. In each of these projects he applied a theatrical approach to acting, in which physical gesture always accompanied the sound of the voice.

The Technical Challenge of the New Century

Many actors of his generation retired or cut back their workload once they reached sixty. Shimada did the opposite. In 2018, he returned to his most demanding role in the film Dragon Ball Super: Broly and reworked the character into a version with more emotional nuance than the original from the 1990s.

In 2022, he took part in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, bringing the same energy to the dubbing sessions as he did three decades earlier. His working method hasn't changed over time: he still prefers to study the script on paper and mark up the breathing points of his characters before stepping into the booth.

And the gamble paid off.

In 2024, his schedule stayed busy with video game projects and long-running animated series. Unlike colleagues who moved into voice directing, he preferred to stay behind the microphone to preserve the purity of the craft. Bin Shimada is represented by Aoni Production, and his profile lists more than three hundred appearances in different animated productions.