Dragon Ball Villain Majin Buu's Japanese Voice Actor, Kozo Shioya, Passes Away at 71

Kozo Shioya, the Japanese dependable histrion down Majin Buu successful Dragon Ball Z and the Dragon Ball video games has died aged 71. As announced by his bureau Aoni Production connected Wednesday and reported by Oricon, Shioya passed distant connected January 20 from a cerebral hemorrhage.

Shioya was the Japanese dependable for each appearances of Majin Buu crossed the Dragon Ball anime and games, with the objection of the genie-like villain’s mini mentation successful 2024’s Dragon Ball Daima, who was voiced by Shiho Amuro.

Fellow Dragon Ball VA Ryo Horikawa, who plays Vegeta, tweeted that helium was “utterly shocked” to perceive the quality of Shioya’s passing, adding that “he was idiosyncratic that I knew since the precise opening of my dependable acting career. We would often spell retired drinking with everyone aft recording. I person thing but amusive memories of him.”

Kozo Shioya, the Japanese Voice Actor for Majin Buu has passed distant astatine the property of 70. Rest successful Peace 🙏 pic.twitter.com/IQ4QMdNOri

Prolific dependable histrion Noriko Hidaka recalled moving with Kozo Shioya galore times, but that voicing One Piece’s Bell-Mère alongside Shioya’s Genzo was “particularly memorable.” She described the chap histrion arsenic similar “an older brother,” and that helium was a reassuring beingness erstwhile they were recording.

As good arsenic voicing Majin Buu successful Dragon Ball and Genzo successful One Piece, Shioya voiced characters crossed a wide scope of anime and crippled series. This included recurring roles successful the Sengoku Basara franchise, successful which helium played Yoshimoto Imagawa and Xavi. He was besides the Japanese connection VA for characters successful Mobile Suit Gundam, Bleach, Naruto, and Metal Gear Solid (playing Fatman successful MGS2 and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev successful MGS3).

To commemorate the bequest of Kōzō Shioya, let's retrieve Majin Buu's astir emotive infinitesimal successful Dragon Ball Z ❤️‍🩹 pic.twitter.com/unq7S1crSX

Very bittersweet to perceive astir the passing of Kozo Shioya. When I archetypal swapped to the Japanese mentation of the amusement good implicit a decennary agone now, his show arsenic Majin Boo was 1 that truly stuck with me. He genuinely made that quality terrifying successful ways I'd ne'er experienced before. pic.twitter.com/M61FEw8vZK

Dragon Ball precocious announced 2 caller anime bid and a caller crippled project, Age 1000. If you missed it, here’s a rundown of each the reveals made astatine the bid 40th day event, Dragon Ball Genkidamatsuri, past Sunday.

Image credit: Aoni Production.

Verity Townsend is simply a Japan-based freelance writer who antecedently served arsenic editor, contributor and translator for the crippled quality tract Automaton West. She has besides written astir Japanese civilization and movies for assorted publications.