Hisashi Katsuta was a Japanese actor and voice actor. He is best known for his voice-over portrayal of Professor Ochanomizu in three anime adaptations of the Astro Boy franchise, and also voiced Dr. Hoshi in Astroganger, Professor Tobishima in Groizer X, and Shin'ichirō Izumi in Tōshō Daimos.
His voice acting career started in 1948 when he appeared in NHK's 1948 radio adaptation of the Shi Nai'an novel Water Margin, and he was contracted to the broadcaster in 1949 before being released in 1954. Katsuta would later become a pioneer in voice acting in Japan. He started dubbing work with the Japanese dub of The Buccaneers, a television drama produced in the United Kingdom in 1956. He later cited Surfside 6 and The Beverly Hillbillies, both American live-action shows in the 1960s, as two of his most memorable dubbing works. In 1963, he was cast as Dr. Ochanomizu in the anime Astro Boy. The Ochanomizu character would become Katsuta's own magnum opus, and he would later reprise his role in both the 1980 and 2003 anime adaptations of Astro Boy, as well as the film adaptations Hero of Space and Shinsengumi. In addition to Dr. Ochanomizu, he also voiced Dr. Hoshi in Astroganger, Professor Tobishima in Groizer X, and Shin'ichirō Izumi in Tōshō Daimos. In 1979, Katsuta voiced the fictional depiction of King Louis XV of France in The Rose of Versailles and a fictional depiction of the Sengoku-era samurai Sanada Yukimura in Manga Sarutobi Sasuke. He had minor roles in several anime series, including Cat's Eye, Dororo, Jetter Mars, Katri, Girl of the Meadows, Kimba the White Lion, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Marine Boy, Megazone 23, Musashi no Ken, Oishinbo, Perman, Shin Jungle Taitei: Susume Leo!, The Monster Kid, and Voltes V. Katsuta was taught by "veteran voice actors" and felt that he wanted to teach voice actors, and after being a lecturer in several voice acting schools, he started a voice acting class in April 1982, which in April 1987 would later become the Katsuta Voice Acting Academy, where he would be dean. He later published a book on voice acting,, and later credited the fact that voice acting in Japan has a history as his reason for authoring the book. He also published Soshite seiyū ga hajimatta, an autobiography that feature thirty-two voice actors with a prominent impact on Japanese culture. He was one of three winners of the Synergy Award at the 3rd Seiyu Awards on 7 March 2009.
Death
Katsuta died of senility on 21 February 2020, at the age of 92 in a hospital in Ōme, Tokyo; he was survived by his wife Katsumi.
