Mayumi Tanaka

Mayumi Tanaka is a Japanese actress, voice actress and narrator best known internationally as the voice of Monkey D. Luffy in One Piece and Krillin in the Dragon Ball franchise. Born in Tokyo on 15 January 1955, she has worked professionally since the late 1970s and is represented by Aoni Production. Her official agency profile also lists work in theatre, television narration, radio, games, foreign-film dubbing and publishing, reflecting a career broader than anime alone.

Tanaka's voice has often been used for energetic boys, comic heroes and resilient underdogs. One of her defining early roles was Ryunosuke Fujinami in the 1981 Urusei Yatsura television series. She later voiced Pazu in Hayao Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky, giving the Studio Ghibli adventure one of its central child protagonists. In Dragon Ball she became known as Krillin, one of the franchise's longest-running supporting heroes, and also voiced Yajirobe and Uranai Baba in related productions.

Her most globally famous role is Monkey D. Luffy, the rubber-bodied pirate protagonist of One Piece. Tanaka began voicing Luffy when the television anime launched in 1999 and has continued through the franchise's long run of television episodes, films, specials and games. The performance combines comic directness, appetite, loyalty and sudden emotional force, helping define the tone of one of the most commercially successful manga and anime properties in history.

Tanaka's other major anime roles include Koenma in Yu Yu Hakusho, Kirimaru Settsuno in Nintama Rantarō, Kanna Kirishima in the Sakura Wars franchise, TwinBee in Konami's TwinBee series, MegaMan Volnutt in Mega Man Legends, Giovanni in Night on the Galactic Railroad and multiple roles listed by Aoni Production across television anime and children's programming. She has also narrated and hosted television and radio programs in Japan, and her theatre background includes work with Theatre Echo and the troupe O-Peretta.