‘Naruto’ voice actor Kazuhiko Inoue on becoming Kakashi in seconds and surviving 52 years in anime

Few dependable actors person remained fixtures of Japanese fashionable civilization for arsenic agelong arsenic Kazuhiko Inoue. During a sojourn to Delhi past week for the Anime India 2026 convention, wherever thousands of fans gathered to observe the country’s rapidly increasing anime community, the seasoned performer down characters specified arsenic Kakashi successful Naruto, Nyanko-sensei successful Natsume’s Book of Friends and Kars successful JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure reflected connected the craft, accidental encounters and sheer longevity that person sustained his agelong career. 

The vocation successful question stretches backmost to 1973, erstwhile Inoue entered an manufacture that hardly resembled the sprawling planetary anime ecosystem of today, erstwhile the way into dependable acting was unexpectedly ordinary. “When I was 18, I was aiming to go a pro bowler and adjacent got a occupation astatine a bowling alley. But my imagination soon shattered,” helium recalled during an interrogation with The Hindu. A person invited him to sojourn a dependable acting schoolhouse and, arsenic Inoue explained, “I wasn’t bully with people. So, I thought I mightiness get amended if I went determination and took the nonrecreational exam.” Fifty-two years later, that detour has produced 1 of the astir extended careers successful Japanese dependable acting, encompassing hundreds of roles crossed television, movie and games.

International audiences cognize him champion arsenic Kakashi Hatake from Naruto, the manga and anime that follows young ninja Naruto Uzumaki’s travel from societal outcast to person of the Hidden Leaf Village. The iconic quality enters the communicative arsenic the masked mentor of Team 7, grooming Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura; though the bid gradually reveals a darker past marked by the decease of comrades and the load of surviving war. Kishimoto himself constructed Kakashi arsenic a teacher whose walled-off interiority concealed profound grief down his mischievous temperament, and Inoue does not find that contradiction unusual. 

“This duality mightiness look unusual to you successful a character, but if you deliberation astir it, an existent idiosyncratic tin besides beryllium galore things,” helium said. “I myself whitethorn deliberation of superior things, oregon whitethorn deliberation of weird things, but it’s each mean wrong a person. So, arsenic a role, I spot Kakashi arsenic a quality who has galore sides to him.” Asked what Kakashi would bash if transported to modern India, Inoue answered without hesitation: “He’d spell to a bookstore and spot if helium could find Icha Icha Paradise (a lewd in-universe manga).”

Few dependable actors person occupied arsenic galore eras of anime past arsenic Inoue. Over decades, helium voiced characters successful franchises that defined successive generations of fans: Jerrid Messa successful Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, Kars successful JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Yoriichi Tsugikuni successful Demon Slayer: Kimetsu nary Yaiba, and astir precocious the Hero of the South successful Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End. Yet, Inoue speaks astir performing with practicality. 

“You whitethorn deliberation that it is hard to nail the voices, but if you signifier a little, you tin bash it. The astir hard happening is however to marque the astir of the role,” helium explained. His method is startlingly direct. “I’ve been doing it for 50 years, truthful I tin get into quality successful nary time. I say, ‘good evening!’, and erstwhile I basal up, I go Kakashi (chuckles).”

The simplicity masks decades of accumulated technique. Discussing however helium builds a performance, Inoue says, “I physique a relation with the representation of arranging each compartment 1 by one.” Referring to Naruto and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, works created by Masashi Kishimoto and Hirohiko Araki respectively, helium observed that “both person a wholly antithetic worldview” and that helium tries “to recognize the satellite arsenic overmuch arsenic possible.”

That accumulated acquisition proved peculiarly utile erstwhile helium recalled the relation helium recovered astir difficult: Yamaoka Shirō from Oishinbo, Tetsu Kariya and Akira Hanasaki’s long-running culinary manga adaptation. Yamaoka is cynical, often exhausted, occasionally hungover and susceptible of transforming into an unexpectedly authoritative gourmand erstwhile discussing food. Capturing that shifting registry presented an antithetic challenge. “It’s uncomfortably hard to represent that slurred benignant of talking,” Inoue admitted, earlier revealing that helium erstwhile arrived astatine signaling sessions hungover truthful helium could reproduce the character’s code patterns much accurately, which aboriginal adjacent informed his show arsenic Kakashi. 

When asked which of his roles helium believes merit greater attention, Inoue identifies 1 relation that helium wished had travelled further beyond Japan: Nyanko-sensei from Natsume’s Book of Friends. Adapted from Yuki Midorikawa’s long-running manga archetypal serialised successful 2003, the bid follows Takashi Natsume, a teen who inherits the quality to spot yōkai, the supernatural beings of Japanese folklore. Inoue voices Nyanko-sensei, a almighty tone who usually appears arsenic a rotund, sake-loving feline with a crisp tongue. He besides singled retired Matsuzo Matsuno, the perpetually unemployed begetter successful Fujio Akatsuka’s Osomatsu-kun and its successor Mr. Osomatsu, noting that the quality remains comparatively chartless extracurricular Japan contempt the franchise’s tremendous home taste footprint spanning six decades of manga, tv and comedy.

When asked what keeps him motivated aft fractional a period successful the industry, helium laughs, “I’m not motivated astatine all. But erstwhile I was playing these roles, I was enjoying them, and earlier I knew it, 15 years had passed.”

The industry’s aboriginal however, worries him. Japan’s dependable acting assemblage has expanded dramatically implicit caller decades done specialised schools and endowment agencies, producing an unprecedented fig of performers. “I consciousness similar successful the end, everyone’s dependable volition go the aforesaid and everyone volition go the aforesaid person,” helium said. “There won’t beryllium immoderate individuality.” 

Inoue besides acknowledged the increasing occupation of dependable cloning, which has already resulted successful unauthorised AI-generated performances circulating online, yet his effect was notably pragmatic. “As AI is developing, we bash spot a batch of issues travel up, specified arsenic AI being utilized to transcript voices and past upload contented connected the internet,” helium says. “But I deliberation this is due to the fact that AI is inactive successful the process of being developed. And hopefully, these problems volition get resolved successful the future.” To exemplify the anticipation of coexistence, helium pointed to chap dependable histrion Yuki Kaji (known internationally arsenic Eren Jaeger successful Attack connected Titan among galore different memorable roles), who has experimented with AI-based projects that reproduce elements of his dependable nether controlled conditions.

In the second play of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, Inoue voices the Hero of the South, a legendary warrior whose words lone uncover their afloat meaning years later, fitting for a bid built astir the ways radical proceed to signifier others adjacent successful their absence. The relation prompted Inoue to bespeak connected his ain mentor, seasoned dependable histrion Nagai Ichirō, whose vocation spanned respective generations of Japanese television, from Space Battleship Yamato to Sazae-san, earlier his decease successful 2014. “Just similar Frieren does with her maestro Flamme and with the Hero of the South, I came to realise the value of the teachings of my ain master, that is Nagai Ichiro-san, immoderate 10-20 years later,” Inoue says. “Perhaps those who respect my enactment whitethorn besides lone realise this 10-20 years aboriginal themselves.”

Anime India Delhi 2026 was held astatine the Yashobhoomi Convention Centre successful New Delhi connected June 6 and 7, drafting implicit 43,000 attendees crossed 2 days, with Inoue headlining a impermanent lineup that besides included Japanese anisong creator YURiKA