Kazuya Tatekabe

Biography

Early life

Tatekabe was born in Kimobetsu, Hokkaidō on July 25, 1934. His ancestors were pyrethrum farmers. His late father used to work for the Iburi Longitudinal Railway, but when he became too weak to continue working, the family moved to Shimokitazawa, Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, in 1942, when Tatekabe was in second grade. If they hadn't done so, he might have stuck in Hokkaidō. He once said, "I might have worked for an agricultural cooperative, gotten married, had grandchildren, watched Doraemon by the stove, and listened to the voice of Gian, who was probably played by someone else, and wondered, 'Who is that nasty voice?'"

Tatekabe was born an only child, and as a young boy, he was similar to the character of Nobita, as he spoke with a slight Hokkaido accent and was a frequent victim of bullying throughout his childhood years.

During the war, while Tatekabe was in fourth grade elementary school, he was evacuated to Asama Onsen in the northeast of Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, but was then evacuated again to Senba in Shiojiri City, Nagano Prefecture. He would wet his bed every night around that time, a habit that continued for six months close to the end of the war. Once he returned to his parents' home from the evacuation site, he was able to finally stop wetting his bed.

Every day when he returned home from Daizawa National School, now known as Daizawa Elementary School, in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, he was absorbed in playing baseball, a passion that continued after entering Tokyo Agricultural Education College Junior High School.

Career

During high school, Tatekabe was asked to take part in the drama club's production of Alt Heidelberg as Dr. Jüttner, to which he was met with praise from audiences, leading him to believe that he had the talent to become an actor and that theater was interesting. However, he did not end up joining the drama club because he disliked being tied down to anything. Afterwards, he started to see plays all over Tokyo nearly every week. He was impressed by every play he saw and thought, "This is the only way I can live my life," and his desire of becoming an actor in the business grew stronger. However, Tatekabe was not particularly interested in acting. After graduating from high school, Tatekabe entered the Department of Theater Arts at the Nihon University College of Art. One of his university classmates and friends was Kiyoshi Kobayashi.

After Tatekabe graduated from high school, he wanted to join a professional theater company as soon as possible and become a trainee. However, when he saw his parents' faces, he could not bring himself to tell them. As an only child, he had previously thought that he would become a businessman someday and take care of his parents. He also did not like studying very much, and had the impression that he would be able to just have fun in the theater department, so he went to the university. Even after entering university, he did not study, but participated in many theater productions, including "The Bottom".

Around this time, Tatekabe began to become interested in producing, and for a while focused on studying as a production staff member.

After Tatekabe graduated from the university, he went around applying to various broadcasting companies with hopes of becoming a television producer, but ended up failing at all of the job interviews he had to do in order to proceed. While working as a stagehand at Nippon Television, he teamed up with university classmate Yasuo Tanaka to form the theater company Engeki-za and performed "Poison and Old Lady" in Sapporo, Hokkaido. Kobayashi asked Tatekabe to join his Izumiza theater company, which Tatekabe agreed to it.

The Izumiza theater company performed plays about the People's Republic of China, but most of the plays were ideological and were considered uninteresting. When Tatekabe was asked if he wanted to do it, he accepted before going on-stage.

Awards

In 2005, Tatekabe, along his Doraemon co-stars Nobuyo Ōyama, Noriko Ohara, Michiko Nomura, and Kaneta Kimotsuki, received the Rikiya Tayama Award at the 14th Japan Movie Critics Awards. In November 2006, they received the Special Award at the 11th Animation Kobe and in March 2007, they received the 3rd Lifetime Achievement Award at the Tokyo International Anime Fair.

Final years and death

In 2009, Tatekabe was diagnosed with gastric cancer and had to have his entire stomach removed. During his medical treatment, he was determined to complete his role as Tonzura in the Yatterman series, as before the cancer diagnosis, he never got a serious illness, therefore having never been hospitalized.

Tatekabe died from acute respiratory failure in Tokyo on June 18, 2015, at 80 years old. He was single all his life, and was said to have been attended by his relatives and staff at his agency during his final moments. After undergoing gastrectomy in 2009, he did not suffer from a recurrence of cancer, but his health declined until his final years, and he died of senility, with his final voice acting role being Max Tennyson in the Japanese version of Ben 10.

Tributes

A memorial caption for Tatekabe was shown at the beginning of the Doraemon anime episode broadcast on June 19, 2015.

Upon the announcement of Tatekabe's death, close family, fans, TV Asahi and former partner Horiuchi mourned his death, as well as his Doraemon successor Subaru Kimura, current Doraemon voice actress Wasabi Mizuta, Akira Kamiya, Shigeru Chiba, and Kazuhiko Inoue on social media, with the Fujiko F. Fujio Museum also sharing a memorial message in condolence.

Tatekabe's wake was held at the Aoyama Funeral Hall on June 23, and was attended by around 900 people, including Subaru Kimura, Wasabi Mizuta, Noriko Ohara, Michiko Nomura, Kaneta Kimotsuki, Keiko Yokozawa, Masako Nozawa, Mika Kanai, Koichi Yamadera, and Keiko Toda. Many voice actors and related parties sent flowers during the event.

At the wake, Horiuchi, as the funeral committee chairman, gave a speech for Tatekabe, and Kimotsuki gave a eulogy.

Kimotsuki, a very close friend of Tatekabe, prayed for the Hanshin Tigers' victory for Tatekabe, as he was a Hanshin Tigers fan, saying, "Hanshin is in the running to win. I hope they win", and ended by crying out in Doraemon character Suneo's voice, "Gian, why did you go before me, even though you're Gian?".

Tatekabe's funeral was held on June 24 at the same location as the wake, being attended by around 600 people. Following the wake, Kimotsuki read a eulogy, expressing his gratitude by saying, "The 26 years of Doraemon have been really fun. It's all thanks to you, Kabe-san," and concluded by shouting "Gian!" as Suneo. Horiuchi, who served as the funeral committee chairman, also spoke out, stating on his official website, "I will never forget your teachings and will see you off without shedding a tear until the very end." At first, he tried to hold back his tears, but at the end, he cried out "Kabe-san, Kabe-san" to Tatekabe's portrait, his voice shaking, and tearfully expressed his gratitude, "He was the best teacher in Japan."

Inside his coffin, Tatekabe was wearing a Gian T-shirt with a microphone resembling Gian's recital mic, with many stuffed plushies of the character by his side. At the funeral procession, 80 balloons in the shape of white birds were released at the office's request and Tatekabe's body was cremated at Kirigaya Funeral Hall in Shinagawa Ward.

Personality

As a voice actor, Tatekabe's most recognized voice acting roles were as Gorilla-Imo from The Gutsy Frog, Dotechin from

Giatrus, Tonzura from Yatterman, Warusa from Time Bokan, and Takeshi "Gian" Gōda from Doraemon.

His voice range was baritone and he was known for playing tough, gorilla-like characters. Tatekabe himself stated that he enjoyed playing generally arrogant characters.

During his time with Haikyo, in addition to providing voice-over work, Tatekabe also did work as an actor and in radio voice over as minor roles without a credited name. His acting jobs for those often required him to stay tied for days despite scenes for him coming few and far between. However, the voice acting work he did never got cancelled, so Tatekabe felt that if he did minor roles, then voice acting was better off for his career.

In the Japanese dub of Ben 10, Tatekabe voiced the role of Max Tennyson. When he originally auditioned, the Japanese dub's production staff were very reluctant to hire Tatekabe for the role. However, when Tatekabe sent his audition over to the United States, the company asked him to be the voice of Max, and therefore he was chosen for the dubbing role.

His hobbies were watching baseball and reading, with his personal motto being "Cheerful, courageous, popular, and sometimes carefree".

Interpersonal relationships

While at Production Baobab, Tatekabe did not want the merger to fail. He was told, "I can't quit Doraemon, but you don't have to do any other work." He also worked as a manager and a senior managing director. With his position in the former, he was responsible for scouting and discovering voice acting talent such as Aki Uechi, Yuko Mizutani, Ai Orikasa, and Wasabi Mizuta, the voice actress of Doraemon since the 2005 series.

He arranged for Uechi to star in Idol Densetsu Eriko from her debut, and also arranged her to audition for the role of Shinnosuke in Crayon Shin-chan. He also had highly recommended Mizutani despite the fact that they were in different agencies at the time.

When a sound director had criticized actress Yūko Gotō, claiming she had an "evil voice", Tatekabe advised her, "The drawback of having a voice that stands out in a bad way can also become a weapon in anime. Poison can also be a medicine."

Gian in Doraemon

In the Doraemon anime television series, Tatekabe famously voiced the character Takeshi Gōda, known by the nickname of "Gian", for 26 years from 1979 to 2005. When he was originally offered the role, Tatekabe had no idea what Doraemon was or who the character of Gian was, wondering, "What is Doraemon?" He had already been familiar with Obake no Q-Tarō, but he did not know about Fujiko Fujio much then.

When he was interviewed upon his departure from the role, Tatekabe said that playing the role of Gian required a lot of energy, as to prepare for recording, he smoked 20 cigarettes a day and drank alcohol six days a week. By late 2004, with his final recording scheduled to occur in about three months, Tatekabe reflected on his time, "I wonder how I'll feel on the last recording day, looking back on 26 years. I might even cry." He also expressed hope that the next voice actor for Gian would be "someone with a kind heart".

Tatekabe wanted to have a drink with the person who would take over the role of voicing Gian in the 2005 series, but was greatly disappointed when he found out that the selected successor for the role of Gian, Subaru Kimura, was 14 years old and a junior high school student at the time of casting. He hoped to live for another five years and then be able to drink with him. Kimura's high school happened to be close to the house Tatekabe lived at, so Tatekabe would often go to see Kimura whenever a school festival or an event was held during the wait. Tatekabe's wish eventually came true, as Kimura turned 20 years old in 2010 and they were able to go out drinking together, which became a trending topic online in Japan in 2014 when Kimura shared two photos from the time on Twitter.

According to Tsutomu Shibayama, director of the Doraemon anime television series and feature films from 1983 to 2005, "The voice actors have a deep understanding of the characters, so I don't have to say anything." Shibayama gave an example through Tatekabe with Gian, as he was extremely conscious of using foul language. Whenever lines like "You idiot!" or "Damn it" were written in the scripts, he would end up receiving complaints from Tatekabe about how "Gian wouldn't say such things." Tatekabe also wrote the lyrics for Gian's signature character song in the 1979 anime, "Ore wa Jaian-sama".

Successors

With Tatekabe stepping down due to his advanced aging, the following other voice actors have taken over some of his roles.

Filmography

Video games

Gunbird (Valnus, Claude)

Gunbird 2 (Valpiro, Blade)

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom (Tonzura)

Project X Zone (Drei Belanos)

Dubbing roles

Everybody Loves Raymond (Frank Barone: Peter Boyle)

Frankenstein's Army (Robert Gwilym: Novikov)

The Man from Hong Kong (Win Chan: Sammo Hung)

Seed of Chucky (Pete Peters: John Waters)

Alice in Wonderland (Carpenter)

Ben 10 (Max Tennyson)

Popeye's Voyage: The Quest for Pappy (Pappy)

Wacky Races (Little Gruesome)

Television

Robot Detective (Dennetsuman)

Choujin Bibyun (Bagdard)