seiyuu
/ˈseɪjuː/noun, verb
seiyuu is a noun meaning “A voice actor in a native-language version anime, a video game, a radio broadcast or an advertisement in Japan” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled S-E-I-Y-U-U, and it appears about once in every 13 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of seiyuu is seiyuus.
What does seiyuu mean?
noun
- 1
A voice actor in a native-language version anime, a video game, a radio broadcast or an advertisement in Japan.
And the seiyuus all fit very nicely with their characters, especially Takuya, who voices our main man, Hikigaya.
verb
- 1
To take on a role as a voice actor in a Japanese production, or perform a certain character in such a production.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce seiyuu?
- /ˈseɪjuː/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-seiyuu.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of seiyuu
- seiyuus plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- seiyu
- seiyū
- seiyuuing participle, present
- seiyuued participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is seiyuu?
Seiyuu appears about once in every 13 million words in written English, the 109,062nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does seiyuu come from?
Borrowed from Japanese 声優 (seiyū), from Middle Chinese 聲 (*ɕiɛ̝ŋ, “sound, voice”) + 優 (*ʔɨu, “actor”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).