Protagonist Monkey D. Luffy is voiced by a woman in the Japanese original version of the anime One Piece. Mayumi Tanaka has been the voice of the rubber man for 24 years and has proven in many scenes how much emotion is in her voice. A colleague is now particularly highlighting this achievement.
Attention, spoiler alert! This article describes the events from Episode 483 of the anime One Piece. It is an emotional episode in the Marineford arc.
What kind of appearance is it about? Many fans of One Piece, who are already caught up with the current episodes of the anime, must still be watching Ace’s flashbacks with pain in their hearts. Ace is Luffy’s non-biological brother, who protected him with his life.
Ace throws himself in front of a magma fist and is pierced in the process. He can still share his last words with Luffy and dies after a few moments. The straw hat pirate then lets out a bone-chilling scream and cries so miserably that many fans struggled with tears pouring down their faces.
The scene can be seen in the following tweet from Rigby_The_Gamer. From minute 1:00, you can watch the situation again, in which Tanaka brings out the best in her voice:
The performance of Luffy’s voice actress helped a colleague
What does Ace’s voice actor say about it? Toshio Furukawa is the voice of Ace. With this scene, his character had the last living appearance in the anime. No wonder, then, that Furukawa would have preferred not to go to work that day (via X).
He still showed up for work and struggled hard with Ace’s fate. However, the convincing performance of Luffy’s voice actress knocked him off his feet so much that he too had to shed a few tears and was speechless (via 3D Juegos).
On X he writes that he has never seen such a good crying performance. And that means something: The voice actor has been in the business since 1975 and has voiced in animes like Mobile Suit Gundam, Dragon Ball, and Detective Conan. Currently, for example, he can be heard as Hantengu in Demon Slayer.
Thanks to Tanaka’s acting performance, Furukawa was able to accept Ace’s death. After his death in the anime, he only appears in flashbacks, for example, in the current Wano Country arc. By the way, the straw hat crew’s next destination is Egghead Island:
Who is Mayumi Tanaka?
- Mayumi Tanaka is the voice of Monkey D. Luffy and not only voices him in the anime series but also in movies and all video games
- The voice actress is an anime veteran and has voiced characters like Krillin and Yajirobi from Dragon Ball as well as Koenma from Yu Yu Hakusho. A live-action adaptation of the latter is soon to be released on Netflix, but Tanaka will not be voicing in it.
- In animes, Tanaka often voices the role of a boy, but her voice can also be heard outside of animes. For example, Japanese people know her as Babe the pig, Skippy Squirrel from Animaniacs, and John Connor from Terminator 2.
The straw hat pirate is mainly known for his lively character. For example, when Luffy reaches his Gear 5 in the longest fight in anime history, he can’t stop laughing.
However, as she has proven with the scene described at the beginning, she can also wonderfully voice sad scenes. Even in Dragon Ball or Terminator 2, where things get serious, she was able to impress with her performance. Tanaka is a talent that we hope will remain with us for many years to come.
In the Netflix series, Luffy is played by Iñaki Godoy. He wants the whole world to know One Piece: The new series brings one of the biggest mangas to Netflix, the lead actor says: “I want your grandfather to know what One Piece is”
