Requiescat in pace
Mar. 11th, 2013 01:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tilly_stratfordVoice actor Goro Naya passes away at age 83.
Most famously he was the original voice of Inspector Zenigata in Lupin III (and the longest-serving cast member besides Kiyoshi Kobayashi, having voiced Goemon in the pilot episode), and is the second one of the original cast to pass away (he did a beautiful eulogy at Yasuo Yamada's funeral).
Goro Naya became my favourite member of that voice cast, mostly because he had such range - he turned the Zenigata from a sadistic asshole of the manga into a sympathetic civil servant. He also handled comedy so, so well, even when the gags didn't play to his strengths (like the running joke that Zenigata is terrible at English when he himself had the best English diction of the entire cast).
He had a very long and varied career both before and during his decades-long stint in Lupin III, both in anime (like in Space Battleship Yamato, Kamen Rider and Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind) and as a dubber of Hollywood films for the Japanese market (he was the regular dub voice for Charlton Heston, Clint Eastwood, Clark Gable, John Wayne and John Cleese). He did badass really well.
Really sad at this news. I think I'm going to rewatch some Lupin episodes now...
Most famously he was the original voice of Inspector Zenigata in Lupin III (and the longest-serving cast member besides Kiyoshi Kobayashi, having voiced Goemon in the pilot episode), and is the second one of the original cast to pass away (he did a beautiful eulogy at Yasuo Yamada's funeral).
Goro Naya became my favourite member of that voice cast, mostly because he had such range - he turned the Zenigata from a sadistic asshole of the manga into a sympathetic civil servant. He also handled comedy so, so well, even when the gags didn't play to his strengths (like the running joke that Zenigata is terrible at English when he himself had the best English diction of the entire cast).
He had a very long and varied career both before and during his decades-long stint in Lupin III, both in anime (like in Space Battleship Yamato, Kamen Rider and Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind) and as a dubber of Hollywood films for the Japanese market (he was the regular dub voice for Charlton Heston, Clint Eastwood, Clark Gable, John Wayne and John Cleese). He did badass really well.
Really sad at this news. I think I'm going to rewatch some Lupin episodes now...
