Eric Vale

Eric Vale’s Dual Life at Funimation’s Creative Core

The name Christopher Eric Johnson Jr. might not ring bells, but the voice behind Future Trunks, Vinsmoke Sanji, and Tomura Shigaraki is woven into the DNA of American anime dubbing. Operating under the stage name Eric Vale – adopted in 1999 when he joined the Texan voice actors’ union, which already had a registered Eric Johnson – he built one of the most wide-ranging careers at Funimation Entertainment, extending far beyond performance into writing and direction.

Dragon Ball and the Breakthrough Role

When Funimation needed a voice for Future Trunks in Dragon Ball Z, the casting proved career-defining. Vale gave the time-traveling Saiyan a quality that balanced raw anguish with quiet determination – something that carried through Dragon Ball GT, Dragon Ball Super’s “Future Trunks Saga,” and Dragon Ball DAIMA. The World Martial Arts Tournament Announcer, a recurring comic presence across the franchise, also belongs to Vale. Playing a hero and a comic foil within the same universe demonstrated exactly the kind of range that would define his career.

One Piece, Fullmetal Alchemist, and the Art of Contrast

Vinsmoke Sanji has been Vale’s longest-running assignment – over a thousand episodes of One Piece from 2007 onward, plus every major film entry from Alabasta to Red. Sanji’s swaggering chivalry demanded charm and warmth. What made Solf J. Kimblee in both Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood so striking was the opposite quality – a cool, calculating intelligence that never tipped into scenery-chewing. These two characters alone showed how differently Vale could inhabit male archetypes without repeating himself.

My Hero Academia and Expanding Into Villainy

Taking on Tomura Shigaraki across every season of My Hero Academia required Vale to chart a deteriorating psyche – from unstable menace to something far more terrifying in the Final Season arcs. It sits in sharp contrast to gentler roles like Yuki Sohma in both the 2001 and 2019 Fruits Basket adaptations, where a soft-spoken vulnerability was the entire point. Toggling between those registers across parallel productions is a skill that recording booth walls rarely reveal to audiences.

The Writer and Director Behind the Booth

ADR directing credits on Detective Conan, Gunslinger Girl, and multiple Dragon Ball Z films, combined with head writer credits on over fifty anime titles – including One Piece’s early English episodes, Ouran High School Host Club, and Spice and Wolf – make Vale one of the most creatively involved figures in Funimation’s history. Outside anime, he wrote the indie thriller film Chariot and performs with the sketch comedy troupe Folding Chairs alongside his wife, voice actress Alese Watson-Johnson.