Keiko Nanba (難波 啓子, Nanba Keiko) née Yokozawa, born September 2, 1952 in Chūō-ku, Niigata, Niigata Prefecture, Japan, better known by the stage name Keiko Yokozawa (よこざわけい子, Yokozawa Keiko), is a Japanese voice actress, actress, and narrator. She is also the founder and executive vice president of the Japanese talent agency YU-RIN PRO.CO.ltd. She also runs The Keiko Yokozawa Voice Acting and Narration School. Her former stage name was Keiko Yokozawa (横沢 啓子, Yokozawa Keiko).
She is most well known for her voice acting roles as Dorami in Doraemon, the titular character in Mami the Psychic, Sheeta in Castle in the Sky, O-Jirō in Little Ghost Q-Tarō, Benio Hanamura in Haikara-San: Here Comes Miss Modern, Takeo Kumagami in Mobile Police Patlabor, Roll Caskett in Mega Man Legends, and Fortissimo Piccolo in Okaasan to Issho.
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Biography
Yokozawa was born on September 2, 1952, in Chūō-ku, Niigata, Niigata Prefecture as the daughter of Kyūhachi Yokozawa, a junior high school English teacher.
Although she didn't want to be a voice actress originally, both of her parents, having struggled with Niigata dialect themselves, wanted her to speak standard Japanese, so they enrolled her into a children's theatre company. It ended up disbanding only three years after she joined, but she was able to become a regular in radio dramas thanks to the close acquaintances she made during the time.
In her kindergarten years, Yokozawa would take ballet, piano, and art lessons, but didn't like piano or ballet very much, and only enjoyed making art. From that point on, she had apparently disliked music.
When she was in middle school and high school, she thought about becoming an actress. Whenever she would step on-stage in school plays, she would feel a sense of exhilaration, but that was about it. If she had been more confident about her overall appearance, she would have wanted to become an actress, but because she wasn't, she thought, "That path isn't really for me..." However her parents told her, "Since you've gone to all that trouble to study that, you should become an announcer or something like that."
She graduated from Niigata High School. During Yokozawa's time at junior high school, things like The Time Tunnel were popular and made her want to become a scientist. At the time, she would keep saying "I'm going to do that", but her mother ended up telling her teacher, who then called her in and suggested that she become a news announcer instead.
Now aspiring to become a voice actor, she thought that she could use what she learned to play a wide range of roles, so she decided to pursue a career in voice acting and enrolled in the Broadcasting Department at the Nihon University College of Art.
Per the recommendation of Hisashi Katsuta, she entered Haikyo's "affiliated training school" (now known as the Haikyo Drama Research Institute), and while she enrolled, she made her drama début in Hanaguruma, which aired on NHK General TV, in 1974. Because she had to travel back and forth to Osaka Prefecture for a year to record, she dropped out of the Broadcasting Department. At first, Yokozawa did roles in TV dramas where she showed her face.
What prompted Yokozawa to switch to voice acting work was recording a television commercial for Agnes Lum. At the time, there was no one who matched the actresses' voice image, so Yokozawa was called in at the last minute to provide her dubbing voice. Afterwards the Tokyo Actor's Consumer's Cooperative Society, which she was affiliated with at the time, thought she did voice acting too.
At one point, she was split between acting in TV dramas and doing voice acting. However, as the time required for television dramas increased, it became difficult balancing the two, so Yokozawa decided to solely focus on voice acting, which was what she had really wanted to do. When she first started her voice acting career, she mainly did dubbing for foreign films that aired on NHK.
In 1975, Yokozawa made her voice acting début in Time Bokan. Her first regular role was Kyoko in Dokaben and her first heroine role was Nina in Paul's Miraculous Adventure.
In 1980, Yokozawa got the role of Dorami in Doraemon and it became one of her most well known roles. She voiced Dorami from the character's debut on the show in 1980 until it ended in March 2005 to make way for a reboot series.
In 1982, she started voicing the role of Fortissimo Piccolo in Niko Niko Pun, which aired on Okaasan to Issho.
She also played leading heroine roles in many other productions throughout the 1980s.
Wanting to do narration in addition to a voice actor, Yokozawa worked at the Tokyo Actor's Consumer's Cooperative Society before she officially founded the talent agency YU-RIN PRO in 1988. After that, she decided to retire from frontline voice acting to focus on training the next generation at The Keiko Yokozawa Voice Acting and Narration School. When she decided to start up YU-RIN PRO, she also founded the school at the same time, as she wanted people she had trained to affiliate with her.
YU-RIN PRO's name came from a picture book that Yokozawa wrote for her daughter called Yukiko Yurin. She currently writes and directs theater performances by the actors and training school students who affiliate with YU-RIN PRO.
In February 2026, Yokozawa was announced to have won the Merit Award at the 20th Seiyu Awards. She received the award the following month.
Personality
Her voice range is soprano. She has a slightly sweet sounding speaking voice.
Yokozawa is known for commonly voicing cheerful, happy, and bubbly character roles.
Whenever she acts, she always fully immerses herself into it. And when she has to have to prepare for a role, she focuses on building the character during the audition process, as auditions are normally held in advance. She's said that when its the day to record, she normally receives the script, thinks to herself "Oh, so this is the kind of story it is", and before she knows it, recording the dialogue is already completed.
If she has to voice a character in an adaptation of a pre-existing property, she always makes sure to read and study the original source material before the auditioning process. If it's an original work, she approaches by looking at the character sketches normally provided on-site and using a voice that "naturally comes to mind".
When she first started her career as a voice actress, her goals were to land a leading character role in a Fujiko anime and to make appearances in children's programs. By the time she was in her thirties, both of dreams were accomplished, as she voiced the titular character Mami Sakura in Esper Mami and appeared in the children's program Niko Niko Pun as Fortissimo Piccolo, so when she established her agency YU-RIN PRO's own school, she had felt as if her acting career came to a natural conclusion.
Hayao Miyazaki criticized her performance as Sheeta in Castle in the Sky. In stark contrast, when she voiced Mami Sakura in Esper Mami, original author Fujiko F. Fujio gave her performance high praise, describing her acting as "healthy and good".
During her middle school years, she was a member of the soft tennis club and in college, she was a member of the figure skating club, though could only skate by lifting up her feet slightly.
Her hobby and special skill is swimming.
Filmography
Miscellaneous
Doraemon (1979-2005): Theme song performance (ED)
The Pumpkin Wine (1982-1984): Theme song performance (ED2)
Gatapishi (1990-1991): Theme song performance (ED)
Related people
Masanori Takai – Former TV Asahi announcer and current freelance announcer with Sun Music Production.
Motomi Kōsaka – Former announcer at Niigata Broadcasting and director of the Kita Ward Cultural Center in Niigata City.
Kaori Ishizuka – Announcer at Niigata Broadcasting.