Junko Takeuchi

Junko Takeuchi is a professional Japanese voice artist (seiyuu). Like many other female voice actresses in Japan, she often voices young male characters. A good example would be the very popular Japanese anime "Naruto", where she voices the main character, a hyperactive ninja named Naruto Uzumaki; or a classic shounen anime "Hunter x Hunter", where Takeuchi-san does the voice of the 12-year-old main character Gon. You can find out more about her roles in anime and a short biography below.

Junko Takeuchi was born on April 5th, 1972 in Saitama, Japan. Her hobbies are reading and watching professional wrestling, and her blood type is B. Like mentioned before, she has voiced a lot of young male characters in various animes; you might think she has a rough voice, but that's not true at all! You can listen to a song 'Kuroi Hitomi' by Junko Takeuchi below. I wonder how she can pull it off, singing a beautiful song like that and voicing a goofy teenager like Naruto!

Naruto is a 12 year old, hyperactive, prankster ninja living in the hidden village of Konoha. He has a dark secret: the terrible Nine-Tails Fox, a beast which nearly destroyed the village 12 years ago, is sealed in his belly. As a result, Naruto is hated and shunned by other villagers, but he never gives up and constantly struggles to be accepted. Naruto's greatest dream is to become Hokage: the strongest ninja in the village, who's job is to lead and protect it's people.

The anime has went on for hundreds of episides, and is now in its second, post-timeskip part titled Naruto Shippuden. Junko Takeuchi is still voicing the goofy, yet reliable protagonist, and I'd say she's done a great job at making Naruto sound a little more mature.

Interestingly, the voice of Naruto in the English dub is also performed by a female voice actress, Maile Flanagan.

Voicing Naruto in more than 600 anime episodes is certainly no small feat. However, it would be unfair to Junko Takeuchi to only mention this particular anime. Indeed, she has starred in many great series like Inazuma Eleven, Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, Digimon, and others. MAL has a nice list of all her anime roles.

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