Mayumi Tanaka a Big Hit at Sakura Con 2010

April 19, 2010 by Michelle Tymon 

Mayumi Tanaka posing with a Luffy Cosplayer

Article and Photos by J!-ENT’s Michelle Tymon

Luffy from Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece is one of the most unique, energetic, and funny characters you’ll ever see in an anime/manga series and to provide the voice for such a character, I don’t think anyone could play it as well as Mayumi Tanaka. Mayumi Tanaka is one of the most well known seiyuu in Japan to date, with a list of roles including Luffy from One Piece, Krillin from the Dragon Ball series, Koenma from Yu Yu Hakusho, Wataru Ikusabe from Mashin Eiyuuden Wataru and Kanna Kirishima from Sakura Wars just to name a few of her major roles. Recently, she was a guest a Sakuracon 2010 and the fans were rather excited to see her.

Mayumi Tanaka at the Sakura Con 2010 Press Conference

Mayumi Tanaka was born on January 15th, 1955 in Tokyo, Japan as Mayumi Abe. She graduated from Aoyama Women’s Junior College. She had always liked acting, resulting in her becoming a stage actress and eventually a seiyuu. Her roles as a seiyuu mostly consist of those of energetic boys, and she rarely plays girl roles. Among those boy roles, many of them happen to be short (and sometimes bald: ie: Chibita from Osomatsu-kun, and of course Krillin from Dragon Ball). Besides stage acting and being a seiyuu, she also does narration work, one of her most recent and popular narration roles being for the popular quiz show, “Quiz! Hexagon 2”. She has also done Japanese dubs for American movies, one in particular she mentioned and demonstrated at Sakura Con was her version of Babe the pig from the movie “Babe”.

Mayumi Tanaka holding the devil fruits that fans made for her

Mayumi Tanaka was definitely a fan favorite at the convention and all of her events were rather packed with fans. On the first day of the convention, she did a live voice acting stage performance with the Seattle area voice acting group, Dream Catchers where she of course acted out Luffy along with Pazu (Castle in the Sky). As Luffy, she reenacted one of the most memorable and emotional scenes in the beginning of the series with Shanks. She also performed the opening theme to Sakura Wars, “Gekitei (Geki! Teikoku Kagekidan)” and then an original song of hers called “Watashi Amaryllis (I’m an Amaryllis)”. After seeing her perform live, I can say that she may be small in stature, but she has a very powerful voice and an amazing and energetic stage presence. During an intermission, we got to see her son, Kousuke do some juggling and other performance tricks while wearing an official Zoro costume that he borrowed from Kazuya Nakai himself (Kazuya Nakai is the seiyuu for Roronoa Zoro from One Piece). The energetic hour and a half performance ended with Mayumi Tanaka performing the One Piece opening song, “We Are!” with the Dream Catchers.

Mayumi Tanaka posing with the One Piece Cosplay Group

Mayumi Tanaka singing with the One Piece Cosplay Group

On Saturday, she held a fan panel where she answered various questions concerning her roles as well as performed various fan requests. Most of the questions the fans asked had to do with One Piece, which she seemed to enjoy as well. She was also asked about the rest of the One Piece cast quite a bit and she mentioned that not only did their characters get along, but they were all very good friends in real life and outside of work. She mentioned that there were numerous times that even if certain cast members were done recording and had to go to other engagements that a lot of the time they would come back after that engagement was done and they would all hang out until the next morning. Towards the end of the panel, a fan asked her if she would join her and the rest of the “One Piece” cosplayers for their photoshoot and she agreed. About an hour after the panel, Mayumi Tanaka showed up outside to take pictures with the group of One Piece cosplayers and took plenty of pictures of them as well. Throughout the convention, fans also mentioned that she would come up to them if they were One Piece cosplayers and ask to take pictures with them. Fans were definitely excited to see her. A couple of fans even made life sized replicas of the devil fruit for her and Eiichiro Oda, the creator of One Piece.

Mayumi Tanaka taking pictures of the One Piece Cosplay Group

Mayumi Tanaka signing a Luffy poster for a fan.

On the last day of the convention, she had an autograph signing. The line for the signing was so long that the Sakura Con staff had to cut the line off to try to get everyone already in line through because they only had an hour. Tanaka-san personalized most of the autographs and was happy to take pictures with her enthusiastic fans. Despite the efforts of getting everyone through within an hour, only about half of the people in line were able to get an autograph. Tanaka-san and her staff tried to see if they could get a little more time so more people could get through the line, but because the next autograph session starting, the Sakura Con staff had no choice as well. For the people who were not able to get an autograph, Tanaka-san shook everyone’s hands and apologized to as well as thanked each person individually.

The autograph line for Mayumi Tanaka

Tanaka-san expressed numerous times that it was unbelievable that so many people in the US not only had such a strong interest in anime like One Piece, but had such a strong interest in her since she only speaks Japanese and all of her roles are done in Japanese. She said that she was flattered and honored to meet so many enthusiastic fans and the fans were more than happy to have a chance to meet her and interact with her. She mentioned that in Japan, most of the anime fans seemed more introverted in a way and she was happy to see that so many fans in the US were so enthusiastic about their love for anime and her work. She seemed to have a great time in Seattle and I’m sure the fans in Seattle are hoping for her to return soon.