Takeharu Onishi

Takeharu Onishi’s Career Across Anime, Games, and the Silver Screen

Nara Prefecture, Japan gave the world of voice acting one of its most durable ensemble performers on July 8, 1967. Operating under the Arts Vision agency and as a founding member of the theater company Akapera, Takeharu Onishi – known in Japanese as Onishi Takeharu (大西 健晴) – has built a seiyuu career that now stretches across more than two decades of anime, video games, dubbed films, and live stage work. His natural command of the Kansai dialect shapes the texture of many of his performances, lending regional color to characters that might otherwise read as generic.

Long-Running Anime Franchises and Recurring Roles

Onishi’s anime catalog reads like a tour through Japan’s most enduring broadcast franchises. In Detective Conan, he has returned to the series across dozens of episodes, voicing a rotating cast of one-off investigators, suspects, and bystanders – the kind of foundational character work that keeps long-running procedural anime credible. Gintama gave him the recurring role of Murata Tetsuya, a credit he carried into the theatrical film adaptation as well. He has appeared across multiple Crayon Shin-chan films stretching from 2000 through 2022, contributing to one of Japanese animation’s longest-running movie franchises. Additional credits span Hunter x Hunter (2011), where he voiced Shachmono Tocino and other characters across several episodes, Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, Kaleido Star, Kekkaishi as Madarao, Death Note as the shinigami Gook, and The Fable (2024) as Kenjiro Takoda. In 2025, he joined Yaiba: Samurai Legend as Gerozaemon Geroda, keeping his broadcast presence firmly current.

Tingle, Cole Train, and the Video Game Catalog

Among collectors and gaming enthusiasts, Onishi carries two landmark game credits that define his crossover reach. He originated the Japanese voice of Tingle in The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (2000) – the map-merchant with the “Kooloo-Limpah” catchphrase who became a cult fixture of the franchise – and also voiced Tingle in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. On the other end of the tonal spectrum, he brought the thundering energy of Augustus “Cole Train” Cole to the Japanese localization of the entire Gears of War trilogy (2006, 2008, 2011), a role demanding considerable vocal range to match Lester Speight’s original performance. His game work extends further into Zone of the Enders, Tales of the Abyss as Hencken, Deus Ex: Human Revolution as Jaron Namir, Watch Dogs as Tyrone “Bedbug” Hayes, and the James Bond titles 007: Quantum of Solace and James Bond 007: Blood Stone as Bill Tanner.

Happy Hogan and the Marvel Dubbing Legacy

Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan has been Onishi’s most high-profile live-action dubbing assignment, a character he has voiced in multiple Marvel Cinematic Universe releases. Confirmed credits include Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) and Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) – two of the MCU’s highest-grossing films – placing Onishi’s voice inside two of the most watched English-language productions to reach Japanese theaters in recent years. His dubbing catalog also includes Corpse Bride as the Town Crier and the animated series Ozzy & Drix as the character Drix. Alongside his screen work, Onishi has maintained an active stage career through Akapera, the theatrical troupe he co-founded, sustaining a parallel track in live performance that distinguishes him from seiyuu who work exclusively in recording studios. He married fellow voice actress Masayo Kurata in 2021.