Mayumi Tanaka, the voice acting legend from the anime industry, has offered her talents to a lot of roles, but none of them has been as big and honorable as Monkey D. Luffy from One Piece. She has been voicing Luffy since the beginning, when the anime series started way back in 1999. Thus, she has devoted the majority of her career to Luffy’s character.
She loves the character so much that once she officially stated that she might be ready to bid farewell to her journey as a voice actor, and she would want Luffy to be the last character that she voices within the anime world.
While this comment reflected her admiration for Luffy’s role, the Japanese voice actor had to break her promise because of another role. Last year, she surprised everyone by taking on the role of Turbo Granny, from the wildly popular anime series, Dandadan, that is soon returning with another season.
Mayumi Tanaka wanted Luffy to be her last performance
In 2022, Oricon reported that Tanaka went to the 7RULES variety show, where she talked about her journey as a voice actor, her favorite characters, and her voice acting aspirations. She revealed that she has been associated with the voice acting industry for almost 50 years, and Luffy from One Piece is definitely her most iconic role within the series.
Tanaka stated:
Even putting aside the question of whether I can still voice young boys after this, I feel like I’ve accomplished everything I ever wanted to do with that sort of role. I’ve voiced many young boy characters in my time, and I want to conclude my work in the voice acting industry with Luffy.
According to the Japanese voice actor, she feels like she has achieved everything she could have hoped for during her journey. She has voiced many iconic roles, but she would love to conclude her career as a voice actor with Luffy’s character.
Aside from Luffy, her most iconic role is Krillin from Dragon Ball, followed by other major roles like Naoto in Astro Boy, Nurikabe Nyobo in GeGeGe no Kitaro, etc.
Dandadan made Mayumi Tanaka break her promise
Given that the One Piece protagonist is her most memorable character, Mayumi Tanaka’s desire to wrap up her career with Luffy’s role is undoubtedly reasonable, but she was unable to keep her word for very long. And the series that made her break the promise was Dandadan, as she voiced the character of Turbo Granny within the series.
Turbo Granny was surely a different role for Tanaka, as she usually voiced young male characters. Thus, it posed a big challenge for her, and she still managed to ace the role, making it one of the most iconic performances in terms of voice acting in the entire series. What’s shocking is that Turbo Granny is a recurring role in Dandadan, which means she had to manage her schedule between Dandadan and One Piece.
Now, the series is returning with a second season, and this means that anime fans will once again get to see Tanaka perform in a role other than Luffy from One Piece. Hopefully, she will give her best performance and ace it just like she did last year.
One Piece and Dandadan are currently available to watch on Crunchyroll.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
