Masako Katsuki

Masako Katsuki has the low voice, and Japanese animation does not write many parts for it. She came out of the Theater Echo company, debuted as Mary Scott in an animated White Fang, and spent the eighties at the serious end of the medium: Reccoa Londe in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam in 1985, Maria von Trapp in Trapp Family Story, Maya Kitajima in Glass Mask, plus work on Legend of the Galactic Heroes and a 1987 adaptation of The Tale of Genji.

The two roles that carry her name are both women who have earned their authority and are tired of it. Michiru Kaioh, better known as Sailor Neptune, is the aloof one who has already worked out what is happening while everyone around her is still shouting. Tsunade in Naruto is the same instinct scaled up, a leader with a gambling habit and a short fuse, and Katsuki has now voiced her across the original series from 2002, all of Shippuden, a run of features and then Boruto, which is roughly a quarter of a century in one part.

She narrates at least as much as she acts, and the recent credits show a performer who has aged into the roles the industry eventually found for her: Shenlu in The Apothecary Diaries in 2023, Leviae in Cautious Hero, Sheffield in The Familiar of Zero, and, much earlier, the assassin Zakuro in Ninja Scroll in 1993. She moved from Theater Echo to 81 Produce and has not visibly slowed down in forty years.