At this year’s Anime NYC, we had the opportunity to speak to legendary voice actor Toshio Furukawa alongside other members of the press. Furukawa-san is well known for his roles as Ataru Moboroshi in Urusei Yatsura, Portgas D. Ace in One Piece, Piccolo in Dragon Ball, and Shin in Fist of the North Star. The conversation covered a variety of his voice acting roles but gave particular attention to Dragon Ball, One Piece, and Urusei Yatsura.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Voice Acting and General Questions
Q: What made you become a voice actor?
A: I was mostly a theater actor to start my career. But right then, one of my bosses said, “Hey, why don’t you try voice acting?” Just because he, the boss, was also a voice actor. So he just kind of called me in and that’s how it started. He was voicing for the TV series FBI for the main character in that show. And he took me to the recording session and the director asked me to try voicing. And then that’s how we started. My very first work was — maybe you may not know it — but there’s a TV show called Chips. It’s a traffic officer TV series, and that’s my very first work. I did the voice for Eric Estrada. That’s the character’s name.
Q: Do you have a favorite Popeye episode from when you were growing up?
A: I wasn’t really voicing for any characters for Popeye, but my senpais were in the show voicing some of the characters, so that’s one of the reasons why I kind of started this career. When Popeye becomes stronger, he eats spinach, but then he squishes the spinach can, and as I was a little kid, I was always wondering, wait, if he’s strong enough to squish the can, why would he eat spinach anyway? That’s a question I had when I was a kid.
Q: In One Piece and Dragon Ball, you play strong, brave characters. Compared to Ace and Piccolo, what is it like playing weaker, more cowardly characters like Inspector Yamamura and Detective Conan?
A: Both stronger characters and soft characters broadened my ability to play all kinds of roles. I really appreciate every single one of the characters I played.
Q: How has your experience interacting with fans in the USA been different from Japan?
A: When I come to America, every time I enter a stage, American audiences, they just shout. They’re very excited and then they show their emotions, out loud, vocalized. But, on the other hand, in Japan, they’re very, very quiet and it’s really interesting to see those differences. So, when, back in the day, the voice actress, legendary voice actress, Masako Nozawa, who voiced Goku — Masako-san and I went to these anime conventions in America, and Masako-san did Kamehameha to the American audience and then 3,000 people in the audience stood up and did Kamehameha back to us and that was a great memory. I was very surprised. I wanted to try it too, so I stood up and did Makankosappo to the audience, and then people did the Special Beam Cannon back — and I thought “Oh, I guess that’s different in this language” (laughs).
Q: You’ve done a lot of voice acting, many different roles. Do you have a favorite role and why?
A: Piccolo. Piccolo appears in the TV series as a villain at first but then as the series goes on, he becomes a friend to Goku and all the friends and they build a friendship and fight together. Also, he has this gentle part of his personality as well as a strength to protect his peers. So he has both elements within him and I think it’s very cool. That is why I love him so much. Nowadays Piccolo has even become like a housekeeper to Gohan’s household.
Q: I often hear from voice actors that working on video games kind of strains their voice. When it comes to working on games, what’s been your experience vocally?
A: In terms of a recording session in the video game industry, it’s a fairly quick recording session. We record pretty much three types in every line. If a character is getting damaged, there’s a soft damaged, medium damaged, and heavy damaged line. And so for every single line, we do three types. So it was quite challenging to vocalize three different types, every single line. But again, it’s only me in the recording booth. […] So it’s a very productive recording session. Pretty much every time I get it right for the first recording session, so I don’t have to redo it. I normally get 300 words done in half an hour. And I’ve never really experienced taking an hour for 300 words. The fastest case is maybe 10 minutes for 100 words. [ . . . ]
Q: What are some of your favorite manga and anime of all time?
A: Dragon Ball, One Piece, Patlabor. The character, Azuma Shinohara [from Patlabor], that was my most natural voice range. My usual speaking voice range. So I didn’t really remake anything or adjust anything. It was very natural, my voice that I used. And if I remember correctly, Oshii Mamoru, the director, we talked about something like this before we even recorded the session. so Director Oshii mentioned please be natural as much as possible. And so a lot of characters that I played, there were some characters that I was kind of over-acting for [he demonstrated an example of over-acting a few lines]. But then he said, “Oh no, no, no, that’s too much.” So he wanted more real conversation, human beings talking face to face. So that was my characterization in that series.
Q: In terms of challenge, what role would you say you’re most proud of performing in your career?
A: Any of the characters that I play weren’t easy, and they all had challenges in certain ways, but I especially found it quite hard to play feminine roles like Hawkeye from Sailor Moon and General Blue from Dragon Ball. During the Swordsmith Village Arc of Demon Slayer, I played Hantengu, one of the demons. And it was quite hard for me because he was scared throughout a lot of episodes and the only voice I vocalized was “Hee.” And then one day, I just had the one word in the recording session and I went home. There was such a day, it was a quick day, but yes, it was quite hard to vocalize that one word. So, I entered the recording room and then I said, “Oh, hi, thank you, hey, hey, how are you?” And I said, “Hee!” and then, “Alright, good work guys, bye.” It was a minute, literally a minute of work.
Q: When you started in the industry, you were recording for a Japanese audience. Now that anime is a worldwide industry, how has your job changed?
A: Throughout my career, when I started, I thought I loved my job. But I found out that it was more than that. Nowadays, throughout the world, there is now pop culture, anime, manga — it’s a worldwide well-known form of content. I was invited to all kinds of conventions, all over the world, throughout the year. And then, one day, I got invited to this party, a government-related upper-scale party. This ambassador, he said that in this world, there is a lot that is taken care of with power. There’s political speaking, and war is never-ending, and that’s taken care of with power, and a strong power. But then, what I was very impressed by from his words was that he said, “What you are doing through your performance, anime culture and manga culture, it takes away all the boundaries [of] culture, ethnicity, and language.” So, I thought, “Oh, this is not only my favorite job, but I have this mission that I can pursue.” My mindset kind of shifted in a good way at that point.
Dragon Ball
Q: Sadly, Akira Toriyama passed away earlier this year. Piccolo is one of your most well-known roles; what was your relationship with Toriyama like?
A: Normally we didn’t get to see each other so often because he didn’t come to recording sessions every time. But we often would meet at industry parties. He would say to me, “Oh, the next movie is going to be very tough, so I’m wishing you the best,” and that kind of cheered me on throughout the series. And the film [he last cheered me on for] is the Dragon Ball Super Hero, and that’s also one of the more memorable works for me.
Q: Piccolo was recently given some time in the spotlight, during Dragon Ball Super Hero. How was it taking center stage as that character?
A: I’ve been acting out this Piccolo role for a long time, and I really looked forward to it. And he doesn’t really transform into some other forms. But in this film, Piccolo got to transform into Orange Piccolo, so I was very excited because that’s something that I was wishing for, [for] Piccolo to transform into some different forms.
Q: When it comes to acting technique, what do you hope fans remember about your vocal approach to Piccolo?
A: My vocal range is not so low, it’s fairly high, higher pitched, but that’s my vocal range. And it’s A to F, that’s my vocal range. During the audition, I demonstrated a line, and the sound director would say, “Could you try a lower pitch?” And then, “Try lower,” and then, “Could you try a little more lower?” And lower voice, and then they said, “Oh, that’s it. Let’s go with that range.” Yeah, that’s kind of a tough moment, but I’ve got that, I brought it up.
Q: Piccolo and Ace have such a cultural and worldwide impact. Were you aware of how these characters were going to impact the entire world before taking the roles?
A: For both Piccolo and Ace, when I received the character to play, I wasn’t expecting that they would last long. I thought that these characters would be killed soon enough would be gone. So I was very surprised that they even survived through so many episodes and I am so happy to live as those characters for this long.
Q: You said that Piccolo was your favorite character to do. What was your most memorable moment or fight for Piccolo?
A: When Piccolo stands in front of Gohan to protect him, and there’s a hole in his stomach […] it was the best moment that we had. So that’s my favorite memorable scene.
Urusei Yatsura
Q: What went through your mind and where were you when you heard Urusei Yatsura was going to get rebooted?
A: I was at the agency office and my manager kindly mentioned that it was going to be rebooted and also he kindly asked whether I would be okay with being Ataru’s father.
Q: How does it feel to return to Urusei Yatsura?
A: The new voice actor for Moroboshi, Hiroshi Kamiya, is [from] the same agency as mine, so I was very glad to be playing as his senpai, because we have a very close relationship as a senpai and kouhai. Before the series started, we even had a “Hey, good luck,” and “Oh, I’ll do my best,” that kind of moment. We had that special moment together.
Q: In Urusei Yatsura, Ataru’s characterization would often differ depending on the director or writer. How would you get into character when Ataru’s character would frequently change from episode to episode and throughout the series?
A: Ataru’s character itself had lots of different assets in his personality. So he’s very serious at times but then the next second he becomes a very comedic character. For example, there’s a beautiful lady in his left and he would say, “I love you” in a very ikemen voice and also on the other hand, the right side, there’s another beautiful lady and then he’s kind of, you know, it’s like sexual harassment, but touching her butt. So that kind of serious, very ikemen essence one second and the next second, a comedic scene. It happened at the same time, in the same scene so at the time it was very challenging but it was quite fun to play.
Q: Looking back on your work as Ataru, are there any particular episodes or moments that stand out as your favorite or most memorable?
A: So there is an episode where there are only Ataru and Mendo appeared — just two of us in the entire episode and the director said to us “Well, since you guys know each other very well I guess we could just wing it” and we did it. We recorded the entire scene, the first half 13 minutes and the second half 13 minutes, a total of 26 minutes, and we just winged it without any rehearsals or talking about it. But then we got it right the first time so that day I got to go home very early. That’s a very memorable moment while acting as Ataru.
One Piece
Question featuring a spoiler for One Piece (episode 483 / chapter 574)
Q: As Ace himself, as the voice of Ace, was it sad to see that character go?
A: So the day of the recording session of the episode [when Ace died], I really didn’t wanna go to the recording studio because I knew what was gonna happen. But before then I casually asked the producer “Hey, is Ace gonna die sometime soon?” But then he didn’t tell me of course for confidentiality. But I’d read the manga so I knew what was gonna happen and it was very sad to find out that he had to go.
We’d like to thank Toshio Furukawa for taking the time to speak to members of the press at Anime NYC and walk us through so many aspects of his storied voice-acting career.
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