He's got over 1.3M followers, but his parents are still his biggest fans.
SungWon “ProZD” Cho has 1.3 million subscribers on YouTube,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and for good reason. The 27-year-old actor, whose voice was once described by a commenter as “audible chocolate,” has gained a devoted fan base for his sarcastic skits lampooning popular tropes in anime and video games.
Now, after signing with a talent agency and moving to Los Angeles, the star of Anime Crimes Division speaks with Inverse about YouTube, family, and his burgeoning acting career.
Although Cho became an internet celebrity for his short videos, he refers to his YouTube fame as a happy coincidence.
Cho is probably best well-known for his skit poking fun at inevitable heel turns in video games.
It was a career long in the making. In high school, Cho got his start in voice acting by performing in radio plays written by his friend David Michael Kinne, playing a variety of characters from nerdy middle schoolers to officers.
He went on to study media arts and technology at Michigan State, where he was frequently cast as an actor for live productions because of his comedy skills. In between those performances and roughly 900 hours spent playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf (now you know why he uses so many Animal Crossing tracks in his videos), Cho was also learning video production and refining his acting, improv, and writing.
The low production values and quick, flippant nature of Cho’s videos may lead some to believe that what he does is easy, but that’s only because Cho makes it look that way. In truth, those shorts are born out of years of refining his rhythm, timing, and jokes. One of his latest videos, a 30 second clip of a gamer asking his grandmother to name all the Smash Bros. characters, took around one hour to produce.
Cho referred to this thumbnail as the "clickbait face".
Unfortunately, that fame has also made him a popular target. The top comments on his videos are generally supportive but these praises are always accompanied by a dark underbelly of trolls. Ironically, Cho says that this is actually an indication that his channel is growing.
Cho’s voice can be heard in a number of shows and video games, but playing the role of Detective Joe Furuya in Anime Crimes Division has whet his appetite for more live-action roles.
Of course, being a prominent Asian American creator on YouTube has brought more than just criticism about his content. Many of the trolls posting in Cho’s comment section resort to ethnic slurs, making Cho’s presence as a media figure all the more important.
Cho’s been emboldened by Asian American entertainers making strides in the industry. Although he resists labeling himself as a role model, he also understands that he’s been a source of inspiration for other young Asian Americans aspiring to a career in media.
ProZD’s Biggest Stans? His Mom and Dad.
Cho has over a million admirers and fans but none of them are as fervent as his parents.
While Cho’s parents were always supportive of his voice acting career, they still encouraged him to hedge his bets by regularly mentioning graduate school. At a certain point, the grad school suggestions stopped. Although they still don’t completely understand what Cho does, they do know that he’s kind of a big deal.
Cho met his wife Anne Marie on a Super Mario fan fiction site. A truly modern romance.
At first, Cho dismissed the looks he got in public as a coincidence. But now after years of his content going viral on YouTube and Reddit, he accepts that he’s become a millennial celebrity.
These days, his dad checks Anime Crimes Division daily to chart how many views it’s received and his mom makes a Facebook post congratulating him whenever he hits a career milestone. She even reads his Twitter, to his horror.
As for the future, Cho is involved with a few more projects that he can’t talk about. Until then, he encourages everyone to check his Twitter feed for updates, which his mother will be sure to mention.