Ricco Fajardo

Ricco Fajardo’s Path from Stage to Booth

The full legal name on the call sheet reads Fredrico Pafford Fajardo – though the dubbing world knows him simply as Ricco. Born October 26, 1983, in San Jose, California, and raised as a second-generation American, he pursued musical theater at UC Irvine before earning an MFA in classical acting from Southern Methodist University. That dual training – the physicality of stage work married to the vocal precision of classical technique – gave him tools that most voice actors spend years trying to develop. His entry into anime dubbing came through an unexpected audition invitation from fellow voice actress Brina Palencia while the two were on a film set together. That door opened in 2012, and Fajardo has not stopped working since.

My Hero Academia and the Role That Defined a Generation

When Funimation cast Fajardo as Mirio Togata – the indomitable third-year hero known as Lemillion – the role demanded something beyond a capable read. Mirio is one of My Hero Academia’s most emotionally complex figures: relentlessly sunny on the surface, carrying devastating loss underneath. Fajardo’s theater background gave him the range to track that emotional arc across multiple seasons, holding Mirio’s buoyant energy intact while the character faces sacrifice that would hollow a lesser protagonist. The performance became one of the most cited in MHA’s English dub, drawing consistent attention from fans and critics for how precisely it honored the source material.

BLUELOCK, Dr. Stone, and the Art of High-Energy Performance

Two other cornerstone roles sit alongside Mirio in Fajardo’s body of work. As Taiju Oki in Dr. Stone, he plays the series’ most physically exuberant character – a teenager who communicates almost entirely in raw, thunderous enthusiasm. Sustaining that energy across three seasons without the performance curdling into parody requires real control, and Fajardo delivers it with a consistency that earned the role high praise within dub circles. The challenge with Yoichi Isagi in BLUELOCK runs in the opposite direction: Isagi is calculating, obsessive, and cold-edged under pressure. Landing the shift between Isagi’s internal monologue precision and his on-field ferocity gave Fajardo one of the most technically demanding performances in his catalog.

Zombie Land Saga, Frieren, and the Breadth Behind the Name

Kotaro Tatsumi in Zombie Land Saga showcases a register Fajardo excels at that often gets overlooked: unhinged comedic authority. Kotaro is a character who screams, monologues, and controls every scene he enters through sheer manic force. The role requires commitment without self-consciousness – something stage training supplies in abundance. On the other end of the tonal spectrum, Wirbel in Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is a quieter, morally layered mercenary whose arc across a handful of episodes leaves a lasting impression. Benimaru in That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Nozel Silva in Black Clover, Lakan in The Apothecary Diaries, and Takeshi Enomoto in Wind Breaker round out a career spanning action, comedy, fantasy, and psychological drama. His 2026 return as Kotaro Tatsumi in Zombie Land Saga: Yumeginga Paradise confirmed his long-running ties to some of anime’s most enduring English dub productions.

A Career Built on Range, Rigor, and Staying in the Work

What separates Fajardo from the wider field is not simply the number of titles on his resume – it is the quality differential maintained across them. Working across Funimation/Crunchyroll, OkraTron 5000, Sound Cadence Studios, Bang Zoom!, and Studio Nano, he has shown no allegiance to any single character type. The comedic recklessness of Kotaro, the heroic warmth of Mirio, the cold ambition of Isagi – each reads as a distinct human being rather than a variation on a house style. Based in Texas and active on the convention circuit, Fajardo continues expanding across anime, video games, and animation, with credits in titles including Borderlands 4, Fire Emblem: Engage, and the 2026 slate still in production.