The Anime Man

Joseph Tetsuro Bizinger VI (born 28 September 1994), better known as Joey Bizinger and known online as The Anime Man, as well as by his music alias Ikurru, is a Japanese-Australian YouTuber, voice actor, songwriter, rapper, and podcaster. His video work focuses on anime, manga, Japanese culture, language, and gaming. Bizinger is also known for his interviews with people in the Japanese entertainment industry, such as light novel authors, mangakas, and voice actors in anime. As of April 2021, Joey has over 2.8 million subscribers and over 444 million views on YouTube.
Early life.
Bizinger was born on 28 September 1994, the son of a Japanese mother and an Australian father of Hungarian and German descent. Bizinger's mother wanted to ensure that he would retain his Japanese heritage by exclusively speaking Japanese to him and showing him Japanese anime on home video, with "Doraemon", "Sazae-san", and "Pokémon" being especially prevalent in his early childhood.
He attended the Sydney Japanese School for a few years during primary school; however, his parents moved him to Allambie Heights Public School after being dissatisfied with the quality of education the Sydney Japanese School was providing. At the same time, they decided to enroll him and his younger sister Ellie in a Japanese language school on Saturdays to ensure they both kept learning the language.
At St. Paul's Catholic College in Manly, New South Wales, Bizinger was the only student of Japanese descent in his class and was often asked by his peers if he knew about anime, as the medium was beginning to grow in popularity with teenagers in Australia and around the world. This, alongside a school project to create a website, spurred him to make a website where he reviewed anime. He kept making the reviews even after the project ended, and continued to post the reviews until he attended Sydney University. While studying there, he started to make some YouTube videos to be posted on his website, but eventually decided to switch entirely to the platform. Bizinger admitted to having used drugs in his high school time, but claimed he used "nothing serious".
Bizinger attended Sydney University, where he graduated in 2016 with a degree in Computer Design Technology.
Career.
After graduating from university, Bizinger moved to Japan, where he had originally planned to work in information technology, but by then his YouTube channel had grown so successful that he could work on it full time. He has also done voice acting in video games "Grisaia Phantom Trigger" and "No Straight Roads", as well as a role in the "Pop Team Epic" anime series.
Bizinger has participated in Animecon events in Finland a couple of times, first in Kuopio in 2017 and the following year in Helsinki. On 18 December 2019, Bizinger released an album entitled "A Picture Frame Full Of Memories" under the stage name Ikurru, performing both piano and vocals, with references to his late grandfather Eishiro Suzuki. Bizinger has since released another album under Ikurru, along with two EPs and two singles as of February 2021. Bizinger sings and raps in both English and Japanese in his music.
On 5 June 2020, Bizinger started a podcast called "Trash Taste" with Thai-British YouTuber Gigguk (Garnt Maneetapho) and Welsh YouTuber CDawgVA (Connor Marc Colquhoun). The podcast's YouTube channel currently has 878,000 subscribers.
Personal life.
On 30 April 2016, Bizinger announced his relocation to Japan, and he has lived there since then. On 4 November 2016, he announced that he and fellow YouTuber Akidearest had started dating. They are currently living together in Tokyo.