Miyoko Aso

Miyoko Aso was born in Tokyo in 1926 and held one job longer than most actors hold a career. She was the first voice of Fune Isono in Sazae-san, from the show's debut in 1969 until 2015, forty six years inside a series that has never gone off the air. Her departure was announced in September 2015 and completed that October, when Yorie Terauchi took the part over.

Her specialty was age, played without condescension. Cologne in Ranma 1/2 is a shrunken martial-arts elder with the timing of a stand-up comic. Pinako Rockbell, in the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist and its film sequel, is a grandmother carrying far more grief than she ever says aloud. Frau Rottenmeier in Heidi: Girl of the Alps is pure starch; Rachel Lynde in Anne of Green Gables is village gossip given moral weight. Then there is a whole shelf of witches and crones, in Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics, the Andersen mermaid film, and the 1982 Wizard of Oz, where she is the Good Witch of the North.

She acted on camera too, including the 2006 film Aogeba Totoshi for director Jun Ichikawa. She died in August 2018, three years after stepping away from Sazae-san.