SungWon Cho ( ; ; born December 9, 1990), also known by his internet pseudonym ProZD, is an American voice actor and

YouTuber A YouTuber is an online personality and/or influencer who produces videos on the video-sharing platform YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006. Influence Influent ...

. On his

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channel, Cho produces short comedy skits, unboxing videos, and reviews of

board games Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a comp ...

and snack foods. He is also known for playing Detective Joe Furuya in ''Anime Crimes Division'' and for his many voice acting roles, including FL4K from '' Borderlands 3'', Holst Sigiswald Goneril from '' Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes'' and Ratatoskr from ''

God of War Ragnarök ''God of War Ragnarök'' is an action-adventure game developed by Santa Monica Studio and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was released worldwide on November 9, 2022, for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, marking the first cros ...

''.

Early life

SungWon Cho was born to Korean parents in

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

on December 9, 1990, and later moved to DeWitt, Michigan. He started voice acting in high school when he voiced different characters on a friend's

radio plays Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...

. He attended

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

, where he frequently acted in live performances and graduated in 2012 with a degree in Media Information and Technology. In 2012, after graduating, he described himself as being "in a creative rut" and taught

English as a second language English as a second or foreign language is the use of English by speakers with different native languages. Language education for people learning English may be known as English as a second language (ESL), English as a foreign language (EF ...

to Korean immigrant students.

Career

In October 2012, Cho began daily posting voice content to

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, building an audience and eventually going viral with a video of him singing "

Let It Go "Let It Go" is a song from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Disney's 2013 computer-animated feature film ''Frozen (2013 film), Frozen'', whose music and lyrics were composed by husband-and-wife songwriting team Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert L ...

" from '' Frozen'' as

Goofy Goofy is a cartoon character created by The Walt Disney Company. He is a tall, Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic dog who typically wears a turtle neck and vest, with pants, shoes, white gloves, and a tall hat originally designed as a rumpled f ...

. His first foray into professional voice acting occurred when voice director Deven Mack saw one of his YouTube videos and had him audition for '' Apotheon'', where he ended up securing the role of the main villain Zeus. He remained active on Vine until the 2016 announcement of their shutdown and was also a finalist for the

9th Shorty Awards The 9th Annual Shorty Awards, honoring the best in social media, took place on April 23, 2017, at The Times Center, New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by po ...

for Vine of the Year. Cho shifted his focus to his

channel, his audience following from Vine and having his work often appear on the frontpage of

Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...

. In 2017 Cho starred in his first live action role as the main character, Detective Joe Furuya, in

Crunchyroll Crunchyroll is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Sony through a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Aniplex. The service primarily distributes films and tel ...

's ''Anime Crimes Division'', for which he was nominated for Best Acting in a Comedy for the

8th Streamy Awards The 8th Annual Streamy Awards was the eighth installment of the Streamy Awards honoring the best in American streaming television series and their creators. The ceremony was broadcast live on YouTube on October 22, 2018 from The Beverly Hilton ...

. In mid-2018

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reached out and signed him coinciding with an already planned move to Los Angeles to continue his career as a voice actor. Soon after he was cast in the multi-ethnic

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series '' Gen:Lock'' and told NewsWeek's Phillip Martinez, "Voice acting gives me a lot more freedom because I'm not limited by my physical appearance. I can voice all sorts all different sort of characters." Cho's presence on YouTube grew throughout this time with his channel exceeding 3.75 million subscribers and most of his income between voice acting work coming from sponsorships and ad revenue. His videos are intentionally low-budget and often feature recurring universes with their own casts of characters, including an anime parody ("The Tomoko Chairem Anime Canon") and a role-playing game parody ("King Dragon"), through which he pokes fun at common gaming and anime cliches and tropes. He continued to expand these existing storylines that had originally started on Vine, as well as creating a

Let's Play A Let's Play (LP) is a video (or screenshots accompanied by text) documenting the playthrough of a video game, often including commentary and/or a camera view of the gamer's face. A Let's Play differs from a video game walkthrough or strateg ...

channel ''Press Buttons n Talk'' with his friend Alex Mankin. In 2019 Cho voiced the character FL4K in the popular video game '' Borderlands 3''. He has been a fan favorite in the anime community being a frequent guest at conventions and presenting for the

Crunchyroll Anime Awards The Crunchyroll Anime Awards, also known simply as The Anime Awards, are awards given annually by the anime streaming service Crunchyroll to recognize the best anime of the previous year. Announced in December 2016, the awards were first prese ...

Personal life

In October 2015, Cho became engaged to Anne Marie Salter, whom he had met through an online ''

Super Mario (also known as and ) is a platform game series created by Nintendo starring their mascot, Mario. It is the central series of the greater Mario (franchise), ''Mario'' franchise. At least one ''Super Mario'' game has been released for every m ...

'' fan fiction community. They were married on May 28, 2016. They have two cats named Effie and Sophie who are seen in Cho's videos at times. He came up with the username "ProZD" in elementary school, and said that he would not disclose what it means as "it's so embarrassing that even my wife doesn't know." On April 26, 2022, Cho tweeted that he had finally revealed the meaning of the username to his wife after being together for fourteen years.

Filmography

Film

Television

Web series

Video games

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cho, SungWon 1990 births Living people American male actors of Korean descent American male video game actors American male voice actors American YouTubers English-language YouTube channels Male actors from Minnesota Michigan State University alumni Vine (service) celebrities 21st-century American male actors