Special Voice-Actor Roundtable

Nozawa: I was.

Tsuru: So was I.

Horikawa: I was just told, “do it”.

Furuya: I didn’t audition.

Nozawa: Lucky you. (laughs)

Furuya: That’s because it’s a supporting role. (laughs)

Horikawa: It’s because Vegeta appears partway through. Maybe that’s why there wasn’t an audition?

Furuya: The show didn’t have very many auditions. The reason is because they used nothing but veteran voice talent.

Furuya: That they really did want to make it a good work. Mako-san¹, the main character, is a major veteran, so if they wanted to cast people to match her, there wasn’t anyone besides us, was there!

All: Ohh… (laughter)

Tsuru: I was new. (laughs)

Furuya: You may have been new, but you were good; that’s different. (laughs)

Nozawa: Even so, there truly were a lot [of industry veterans] in the studio.

Nozawa: When I was cast as Goku, it was the greatest thing. I had always wanted to be in one of Toriyama-sensei’s works. When I perform, I naturally get into the role, but Goku in particular was a boy who I could naturally get into easily. Only, I had to be careful about the fact that he grew up deep in the mountains, and didn’t know very much about things. Because I do know. Lots of things. (laughs)

Tsuru: At the very beginning, I was paired with Mako-san, and I was always nervous…. But my saving grace was Mako-san’s unadorned personality. Up to that point, I had had mostly well-behaved roles, but Bulma was closer to earth (laughs), so she was easy to play.

Suzuoki: Tenshinhan appears partway through; you really feel pressure when you start participating in a series that’s already in-progress. But with Dragon Ball, I was able to to relax and insinuate myself smoothly, in a good way. You know, he started out as an enemy.

Nozawa: That’s right. He was so despicable. (laughs)

Suzuoki: So, in the studio, Mako-san would say things to me like, “what a loathsome jerk”. (laughs) Tenshinhan is different from ordinary humans, but his interactions with Chiaotzu showed his humanity, so I wasn’t very conscious of him not being an earthling.

Furuya: At first, Yamcha was cool. Like a lone wolf in the wilderness. He wasn’t good with women, yet he fell for Bulma, and before you knew it, he became a ladies’ man. (laughs)

Furukawa: Becoming easier and easier to play. (laughs)

Suzuoki: The scenario writer matched him to you, Tōru². (laughs)

Nozawa: Vegeta took Bulma away from him, though, didn’t he?

Furuya: Even though Yamcha was dead-set on Bulma. (laughs)

Furukawa: I’ve always been full of goodwill towards Mako-san…

Furuya: Full love?

Furukawa: Full of goodwill!³ (laughs) So I was incredibly happy to be able to work together with her. We hadn’t performed together very much prior to that. Mako-san approaches people kindly, even if she only sees them once in a while, so I was able to relax. Only, Piccolo was difficult to do.

Furukawa: It was difficult performing constantly with a low voice. If I let down my guard, it would become lighter, and the people around me were all really good. I was tense.

Horikawa: The first time I performed together with Mako-san was in Dragon Ball. She was someone I had always admired, so the first time I saw her, I felt like, “Ah! Nozawa-san is here!” With regards to Vegeta, just when I thought he was a fierce-fighting enemy role, he awakened to his humanity, and before you could say, “look at that!” he had a child, and I wondered what would become of him. (laughs)

Tanaka: During the test prior to the actual recording, Mako-san or Jōji Yanami-san would joke around. They were very funny, but at the beginning, I didn’t understand, and I thought, “maybe they’re upset”.

Furuya: It does make you wonder if something’s up. (laughs)

Tanaka: Originally, Kuririn was a dirty-minded, underhanded, bad kid, but that time was more fun. I heard that Yajirobe wouldn’t appear together with Kuririn, but eventually they came to appear in the same frame! So, thinking I needed to distinguish them clearly, while I had said “~da be”⁴ up till then, I changed it into Nagoya dialect, like “Nani ittoryāsu”⁵.

Suzuoki: It’s a pretty strange Nagoya dialect, though. (laughs)

Nozawa: The one that left the deepest impression is the scene where the Red Ribbon Army attacks while Goku is in the toilet at Sno’s house. When I saw the door shot full of holes by a machine-gun, I thought, “What do I do? Goku’s just died”. Then, the door swung open, and [Goku] came out, with an “Owww~”. (laughs) I like that part the most. For Gohan, it’s the episode with just him and the robot.

Nozawa: That, and also the episodes of him training with Piccolo.

Furukawa: That also left an impression on me.

Nozawa: It really seemed as though [Piccolo] was picking on him. But I like how he idolized Piccolo as his teacher. Goten is a cute kid, isn’t he? He’s not a goody two-shoes, but he’s cheerful, and seems like he might live in your neighborhood.

Nozawa: Both of them were cool. With Bardock, I thought, “So Goku is this person’s son”.

Nozawa: No, I don’t consciously try to distinguish my performances. As soon as I saw the image, I was able to enter [character] immediately.

Furuya: That’s probably something only Mako-san can do. If it were me, I’d hate it. (laughs)

Tanaka: We don’t record separately.

Furukawa: That’s because the lines are close together. If they were further apart, we could do it, though. Normally, we can’t.

Tsuru: I liked Bulma at the very beginning, when she was energetic and a bit cheeky. What left an impression was the one where she wasn’t wearing any panties, and showed [Kame-Sen’nin]. (laughs) And also, I thought she was going to marry Yamcha, but….

Furuya: I know, right?!

Tsuru: I don’t get the romantic process for that part. (laughs)

Nozawa: That’s right; Goku was out of the blue, as well.

Furuya: Really, the second generation needed to be strong, so the child of Yamcha and Bulma just wouldn’t cut it. (laughs)

Tsuru: One day, all of a sudden, she married Vegeta and gave birth to Trunks… “Huh? What just happened here?” is how it felt. (laughs)

Horikawa: There wasn’t even any sort of foreshadowing.

Furuya: At that time, I just wanted to leave the studio and go home. (laughs)

Tsuru: However, after that, I tried to bring myself to love Vegeta, but… it was a struggle. (laughs)

Furuya: It’s troublesome. (laughs)

Suzuoki: The process of Tenshinhan becoming a good guy along the way was fun. In the second half, he doesn’t have many appearances… he’s weak. (laughs) He would fight, at least, but he’d lose immediately, and go back to not showing up. The intervals got wider… like the Olympics.

Furuya: Just participating has significance. (laughs) Yamcha was that way, too. And on top of that, in the end, he says, “I’m not going,” and stops participating. (laughs) Once upon a time, there was a cool Yamcha, training together with Kuririn, but….

Tanaka: It was only training. (laughs)

Furuya: Yes, he didn’t have any real battles. To be honest, I asked the director, Yamauchi-san, “Make Yamcha cool”. Maybe he threw that in there for me. (laughs)

Furukawa: For Piccolo, it begins and ends with his training scenes with Gohan. It got an incredible reaction from the fans, as well. And also, what made an impression on me because it’s not like Piccolo was the scene where he made a pun.

Nozawa: Yes, that’s right; that was unexpected. (laughs)

Furukawa: He goes to get a driver’s license, and his driving is lousy. (laughs) I also strained my voice in an episode, about half of which was constant fighting. That’s because everyone’s energy level was amazing. Also, in fighting scenes, it would look as though he had multiple hands, and when I tried to match my voice to that, it was rough.

Furuya: You have to leave the appropriate amount of space. (laughs)

Horikawa: What left an impression on me with Vegeta was Goku’s line to him, “You must feel a terrible regret,” when he was killed by Freeza. He was highly conscious of his elite status, and yet he made a tearful plea to Goku. I felt a sort of sorrow. And also, the scene towards the end, where he whispers to Goku, “You’re number one.”

Nozawa: But the scene where he embraces Trunks was good, too.

Horikawa: Ah, that part was good, too. “Take good care of Bulma—of your mother.”

Tsuru: I wasn’t there at the time, but I heard about it afterwards, and I was moved.

Horikawa: [Vegeta] expressing his love for Bulma with that sort of line is something that’s hard for Toriyama-sensei to do.

Tanaka: To be honest, as far as I’m concerned, Kuririn suddenly growing hair is something that doesn’t sit well with me. (laughs) I thought he’d had that look because of religious reasons, after all…. Maybe he did it because #18 called him an old, bald midget, but I think I’d really like an episode where he ends up growing his hair out….

Suzuoki: “Hair” this, “hair” that; say that it’s the hair on his head, already!⁶ (laughs)

Tanaka: (laughs) …Anyway, Kuririn having grown out the hair on his head was the thing that left the deepest impression on me.

Nozawa: Really, when it comes to Kuririn, he’s [got to be] bald.

Tanaka: And also, it was a shock when Kuririn died for the first time. Tenshinhan won the championship at the Tenka’ichi Budōkai, and Kuririn went back to get something Goku forgot….

Nozawa: It was so sudden, and in the middle of a gentle mood.

Tsuru: That’s because you didn’t think he’d come back to life time and time again. (laughs)

Tanaka: Dragon Ball is amazing. Even when you die, you show up again with a halo. (laughs)

Nozawa: When Vegeta gave his trademark, “Hmph!” he shot mucus out of his nose. (laughs)

Horikawa: Yūji Mitsuya-san really cracked up at that one. (laughs)

Tanaka: What made me laugh the most was Suzuoki-san’s “squeaky shoe incident”. A noise was getting into the recording, so there was a big fuss over what the sound might be. (laughs)

Suzuoki: I didn’t even realize it, myself. There was a, squeak-squeak, whenever I walked, but I had no idea that it was me.

Horikawa: Are they those shoes little kids wear?

Suzuoki: No, no; just regular shoes.

Furuya: They don’t look like the kind of shoes that would make noise.

Suzuoki: For a while, Yanami-san would say to me, “Those shoes wouldn’t make noise, would they”. (laughs)

Furukawa: Come to mention it, it was really funny when Junpei Takiguchi-san read “Son” as “Mago”.⁷ (laughs)

Horikawa: But if you did that, Suzuoki-san, we’d immediately know that you were looking for a laugh.⁸ (laughs)

Furukawa: It was right there just as he turned the page, so it caught him by surprise. (laughs)

Nozawa: The scene early on where Piccolo laid an egg was disgusting.

Furuya: Also, Takeshi Aono-san is good at those disgusting things.

Tsuru: It felt like, “Don’t ever lay another one!” (laughs)

Furuya: This isn’t really about the recording, but a while back, I told a boy in elementary school, “I play Yamcha in Dragon Ball,” and he said, “Really? Yamcha?…”⁹ (laughs)

Tanaka: That’s because little kids like strong characters. Even I will say things like, “Kuririn and Yamcha are the strongest earthlings. The rest of them are all aliens.” (laughs)

Nozawa: The other day, I was at an izakaya¹⁰. And the university student sitting next to me made a big fuss, saying, “It’s Goku’s voice, Masako Nozawa!” He told me, “I’ve been a fan since I was in elementary school.” But we really have been doing it for that long, haven’t we? (laughs)

Horikawa: Way back, a woman with dyed-brown hair, who looked like she was in a motorcycle gang, called out to me. Just when I thought she was going to deck me, she said, “Vegeta-san, please shake my hand”. (laughs)

Tanaka: There was an anime-original story where Kuririn likes this girl named Maron; at that time, we received a lot of letters: “Why does Kuririn like that girl?!”

Nozawa: When Goku got married, as well, we got letters saying, “Why?”

Furukawa: While I was appearing in Dragon Ball, the elementary school I graduated from had its 100th anniversary; I was asked to do a speech, so I went. I signed something like 500 autographs for the kids, so it was rough, but at that time, they had a commemorative tree-planting, and a sign saying “Piccolo’s Tree” was hanging from it.

Nozawa: Wow, that’s really nice.

Nozawa: It was a real shock. We often performed together in the manner of a grandfather and grandchild; it was like we were a pair. But during the recording for the movie¹¹, everyone would say, “Miyauchi-san is watching, so let’s do it cheerfully.”

Furuya: Even now, I feel as though he’ll just show up in the studio all of a sudden.

Nozawa: You know how even adults listen better to what the people they like say? In the same way, I’ve taped messages time and time again and sent them to children in comas due to things like traffic accidents or illness, or to kids who are picky eaters. Even the children who are in comas, when they hear that, they show a response. Goku, Gohan, and Goten, who possess qualities like kindness, courage, consideration, cheerfulness, and power, are close to children as friends, as older brothers, and sometimes, as love interests, and can give them encouragement. They believe the three of them are entirely alive, which makes me very happy. The greatest thing is how they are alive inside everyone, and live together alongside them. I consider it a point of pride, having been able to play a role like that. Dragon Ball truly is a marvelous work.