Voice actor Yusuke Kobayashi sat down with GosuAnime to talk all about the Knight King Arthur Boyle!
GosuAnime had the chance to sit down with prolific voice actor Yusuke Kobayashi during Anime Festival Asia Singapore 2025, whose expansive career has scoped many anime titles and roles, one of which was Arthur Boyle, the Knight King from the smash hit shonen anime, Fire Force.
Arthur is characterised as an ultra-confident idiot, albeit sometimes arrogant and stubborn, with a strong and solid sense of justice. As a pyrokinetic, Arthur is capable and strong, and his relationships with his peers in Company 8 span from strong kinship to friendly rivalry.
Yusuke Kobayashi has voiced Arthur since the first season, and in this interview, we dive into his perspective of Arthur as a character, and what to expect as Fire Force finally concludes in 2026.
Your role as Arthur from Fire Force is characterised by his confidence and heart. What approach did you take to get into his character?
Yusuke Kobayashi: The most important thing for me to play Arthur is his confidence. Basically, Arthur’s confidence comes from nowhere–he’s just super confident.
He believes in himself. He believes in nothing else but himself. So in a way that’s coming from a little bit of his stubbornness, too. So the key energy I put into this is to make sure that I channel that in him, and make sure that I know what I’m doing to play Arthur’s role.
During Season 3’s first cour, was there a moment in the booth where you felt especially connected to Arthur, as if you truly understood what drives him?
Yusuke Kobayashi: Yes. So knowing that this is going to be the last season, it motivated me a lot, because you see, when Fire Force first began, everyone was still new and young. And now that we’ve experienced so much more, I saw the whole thing evolve over time, over experience, and over seasons. It made me think: okay, I’m just going to do a really good job here. It’s the end and it’s good to put a nice, solid seal on my performance.
Without revealing any spoilers, what should fans expect from Arthur as Season 3 continues, especially in terms of his growth or the challenges ahead?
Yusuke Kobayashi: So, I’m trying not to spoil anything, but just be ready for something really unexpected.
In Fire Force, there’s a really thin line between good and evil–the good guy and the bad guy. Everyone has different sides. It’s really difficult to see what’s this or what’s that, what’s black or white, and it’s really just understanding the philosophy behind (it).
So it could be a little bit philosophical, but also that’s the beauty of it. So, hopefully, that will be delivered to you, the viewers.
In the entirety of Fire Force, what was your favourite line as Arthur?
Yusuke Kobayashi: A line huh? In the second episode of the second season, there’s a scene where Shinra (the main character) gets possessed by the First Pillar and turns into a monster, and Arthur saves him.
In that scene, there’s a line where he says “Protect your loved ones. That’s what knights, heroes, and firefighters are all about!”
So Arthur has to speak in a very positive way. He’s always trying to be a knight, but he doesn’t really have any feelings for the firefighters. But in that scene he says “protect your loved ones”, I resonate with that line.
If you could voice a character type or genre you haven’t explored yet, what would it be?
Yusuke Kobayashi: In the future, I want to play a bad guy, someone like Joker. But then again, Joker is not, you know, this bad guy until the end. He becomes part of the community. But nonetheless, someone like Joker. A bad guy.
But if possible, I want to play a bad guy who doesn’t befriend the main character. A bad guy who is always hated until the very end–that’s (the role) I want to do in the future.
Fire Force Season 3 Part 2 is premiering on 10 January, 2026 on Crunchyroll.