One Piece Luffy voice actor Mayumi Tanaka talks about the casting secrets of the past 23 years of sailing adventure

The new animated film of "One Piece", "One Piece FILM RED", was just released on August 6th. It topped the box office over the weekend. In the evening show on the 9th, Luffy's voice actor Mayumi Tanaka talked about the casting secrets of that year. It has been 23 years since the great sailing adventure.

•For popular Japanese comics with extremely long serialization cycles, a character in the animated version can be said to be the voice actor's lifelong role. This is true for Masako Nozawa who plays Son Goku, and for Minami Takayama who plays Conan. Luffy's voice actor Mayumi Tanaka has unknowingly accompanied fans on their sailing adventures for 23 years.

•"One Piece" was first serialized in 1997 and animated in 1999. However, the plot, setting and drawing skills of the early works were somewhat weak. Tanaka said that he had no idea about this work when he received the invitation for the pilot selection, so he had no initiative to strive for it. However, this may be a good thing, because it feels that anything you particularly want to strive for will not go as you wish in reality.

•When the final decision was made on the voice actor selection, because the then rookie voice actor Kazuya Nakai was first decided to play Zoro, the committee hoped that a "senior voice actor" would play Luffy, so Tanaka was pushed up again. Later, it was heard that Oda personally participated in the audition and selection and said that "the actor who played Pazu (the protagonist of "Castle in the Sky" played by Tanaka) is very suitable (Luffy)", so it was finally confirmed with Oda's choice.