Sora (Kingdom Hearts) is a fictional character.
Sora (Kingdom Hearts) . Introduced in the first Kingdom Hearts game in 2002 , Sora is portrayed as a cheerful teenager who lives in the Destiny Islands and has been best friends with Riku and Kairi since childhood . Sora was originally designed by Kingdom Hearts series director and character designer Tetsuya Nomura during a discussion between Disney and Square about who should be the protagonist of the series . Nomura came to regard Sora as his favorite character that he had designed , and pushed for the character to have a leading role in the Kingdom Hearts story in spite of the character 's youth . Throughout the series , Sora has been voiced by Haley Joel Osment in the English version and Miyu Irino in the Japanese version . For his depiction as a child in the prequel Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep , Sora was voiced by Luke Manriquez and Takuto Yoshinaga in English and Japanese , respectively .