Kenjiro Tsuda, who voices Kento Nanami in the Japanese version of Jujutsu Kaisen and Seto Kaiba in Yu-Gi-Oh!, is waiting on a Tokyo District Court decision due on Wednesday, September 30, in his lawsuit against TikTok. He says an anonymous account narrated its videos with an AI imitation of his voice, and the case is thought to be the first in Japan to test whether a performer can defend the sound of their voice against a machine-made copy.
The account, with an avatar like one of Tsuda's characters, posted at least 188 clips about urban legends, the occult and conspiracy theories between July 2024 and September 2025 and gained about 210,000 followers. Tsuda's side puts its monthly earnings from views at 500,000 to 750,000 yen and argues that people watched for the voice rather than the thin material. The account has since disappeared, so the question for the judge is whether TikTok should have removed the posts.
He sued in November 2025, citing an audio analysis and arguing that his publicity rights over the commercial use of his identity were violated, and that it traded on a famous name in breach of Japan's unfair competition law. TikTok, according to court records reported by AFP, describes the narration as a generic male voice, questions whether Tsuda is famous enough nationally for the competition claim, and says a platform merely hosts what users post.
Japanese voice actors have lined up behind him. The Japan Actors Union's Yuko Sasaki said performers spend years and money building their voices and want ownership recognised as a basic right; she and Bin Shimada belong to No More Unauthorized Generative AI, a campaign founded in 2024, and Shimada warned a TikTok win could leave the profession exposed to unchecked cloning on social media and discourage younger actors. Michihiro Ikemizu, an 83-year-old veteran, backed the suit while arguing that live, responsive acting is the one thing AI cannot reproduce.
Japan has no statute naming the voice. A Justice Ministry expert panel began work on the issue in April, and last month the ministry issued non-binding guidance placing voices under publicity and likeness rights. The State Minister of Justice, Hidehiro Mitani, has said it is too much to expect voice actors to settle the matter through lawsuits. Tatsuhiro Ueno, an intellectual property professor at Waseda University, told AFP it was very unlikely Tsuda would be denied publicity rights outright, noting that the Nanami role has made his voice widely known in Europe, and expects wide interest. Voice Over Herald notes that other countries are adding protections piecemeal, Mexico among them, but that this case turns on the anonymous uploader and the platform's duty, which many of those laws do not reach. A win for Tsuda would give Japanese performers their first court-tested answer on who owns a voice; a loss would suggest that calling a clone generic is a workable defence.
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