Beloved Character’s Voice Actor Returns, But Not For Arkanoid

Nobuyo Oyama is famous for voicing everyone’s favourite earless robot cat from the future Doraemon and, well, looking like Doraemon.

From 1979 to 2005, Oyama voiced Doraemon. The 74-year-old was retired from the show and was replaced by a new Doraemon voice (not quite the same!) and a new Doraemon theme song (not as good as the previous one!).

Her lengthy resume is predominately the Doraemon television show, Doraemon movies and Doraemon video games. But this November, Oyama is voicing the menacing bear character “Mono-Bear” in PSP game Danga-Ronpa – a role she initially rejected.

As previously posted, Dangan-Ronpa, which means “winning an argument with bullets”, is like Battle Royale, but with a psychotic bear instead of a psychotic Beat Takeshi.

Dangan-Ronpa is set in a school in which the students are trapped and the only way to escape is for them to kill each other. One student actually ends up dead, and players must sleuth out the killer. Evidence is stored in “word bullets” that are later used in rapid-pace dialogue. The game is stocked with stereotypical characters like an otaku, an idol, a jock, etc.

Besides voice acting, Oyama is quite the gamer. Well, quite the Arkanoid gamer. She first played the game at a game centre in 1988 and is able to clear the entire game on one coin. “I’m terrible at other video games,” she confesses. In the clip below, she plays through Arkanoid while doing Doraemon’s voice.

The role in Dangan-Ronpa marks Oyama’s first voice-acting role in five years.

［ゲーム1週間］大山のぶ代、5年ぶり声優復帰　亀田妹は「スティッチ」イベントに | ホビー | [マイコミジャーナル]