Mayumi Tanaka (田中 真弓 Tanaka Mayumi) (born January 15, 1955) is a Japanese actress, voice actress and narrator currently affiliated with Aoni Production. She is known for voicing Monkey D. Luffy in One Piece, Ryuunosuke Fujinami in Urusei Yatsura, Koenma in Yu Yu Hakusho, Pazu in Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Kuririn, Yajirobe and Uranai Baba in Dragon Ball, Kirimaru Settsuno in Nintama Rantarō, Kanna Kirishima in the Sakura Wars series, and MegaMan Volnutt in the Mega Man Legends series and related Capcom crossovers. She is a special lecturer at the Japan College of Arts.
She voices the blue bumblebee android/ship title character and protagonist TwinBee along the various media that comprise the TwinBee series, having especial prominence along the TwinBee PARADISE subseries.
Career[]
Since she was a child, Abe Tanaka –better known later by her stage name "Mayumi Tanaka"– became attracted to acting and devoted herself to theater, eventually deciding to become a professional stage actress. She graduated from Aoyama Gakuin Women's Junior College.
She applied at Bungakuza, Youth Theater, and other theatrical groups in search to obtain a job as an actress, although she was rejected from them all because of the limited area of work she could obtain due to her physical appearance. She also applied for the Fuji TV announcer exam and managed to get in the last five finalists, although she couldn't manage to obtain a job offer either. She began studying singing under composer Kunihiko Suzuki, who was working there at the time. One day, she came across a job offer advertisement for a singer in a bar in Shibuya, Tokyo, and decided to take the job. People from Theater Echo happened to come to the bar and invited her to join their company.
In 1978, she made her debut as a voice actress in Gekijou! Ruben Kaiser, playing the role of Ryoko Takagi. That same year, she played the role of a refugee boy in Hong Kong in the popular detective drama G-Men '75. Also in that year, she appeared in the second installment of Shiroi Kyoto (which was Jiro Tamiya's last work) as a medical student of Goro Zaizen and as a nurse at the Satomi Clinic.
In the 1980s, she appeared alongside Saeko Shimazu in the radio program Animetopia, and not long after that she appeared in Sasuga no Sarutobi. For a long time since 1983, she made a big name for herself by playing the role of Ryuunosuke Fujinami in Urusei Yatsura. It is also known that she was temporarily affiliated with the Ohashi Kyosen Office (currently OK Production).
Even when acting is still one of her main lines of work and she also often performs onstage, in animation she frequently voices male characters that have high pitched voices. In her most iconic works, she often plays the role of hot-blooded and energetic boys, as well as main characters, including: Kappei Sakamoto in Dash Kappei, Sora Sonoda/Itadakiman in Itadakiman, Yuu Tagami in Giant Gorg, Wataru Ikusabe in the Mashin Hero Wataru series, Lucky Man in Very! Lucky Man, Liu Kappei in Chinese Ichiban!, Kuririn, Yajirobe and Uranai Baba in Dragon Ball, Monkey D. Luffy in One Piece, Kirimaru Settsuno in Nintama Rantarō, Tsuwabuki Diamond in Guy King: LEGEND OF DAIKU-MARYU, Pazu in the animated film Laputa: Castle in the Sky, and many others.
In addition to boy roles, in rare cases, she also plays female characters. She made her voice actress debut in Gekiso! Ruben Kaiser, playing the role of the president's daughter, Ryoko Takagi. She also frequently does narration work, such as in Quiz! Hexagon.
In 2006, she was in charge of the leading role in the CD project Queen Gaido (original by Kazuhiko Izu and screenplay by Yoshinori Ito).
In 2011, she received the "Kazue Takahashi Award" at the 5th Seiyū Awards.
In 2012, she formed the theater unit "Konen Keys", along with Kazue Ikura, Eri Takeda and Urara Takano.
In 2013, she received the "Kids Family Award" at the 7th Seiyū Awards.
On January 9, 2017, she was selected in the 6th place in "200 popular voice actors seriously selected! Voice actor general election! 3 hours SP" broadcast by TV Asahi.
Gallery[]
External links[]
- Official profile page at Aoni Production (Japanese)
- Anime News Network
- Behind the Voice Actors
- IMDb
- Wikipedia