Ichirō Nagai


Ichirō Nagai was a Japanese actor, voice actor and narrator from Ikeda, Osaka. He was previously affiliated by Tokyo Actor's Consumer's Cooperative Society, and was affiliated with Aoni Production at the time of his death.

Career

Namihei Isono

Nagai was cast as Sazae-san's character, Namihei Isono, Sazae's father and patriarch of the family in the longest running Anime in 1969 alongsid co-stars Midori Katō and Miyoko Asō until Chafurin filled in for him after his death.

Happosai

He was cast in 1989 until 2008 in Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma ½ as Happosai, the founder and grandmaster of Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū. He often alternates between his role as a villainous grandmaster to one as a lighthearted pervert, Alongside co-stars Kappei Yamaguchi and Megumi Hayashibara, Kenichi Ogata, Masako Ikeda, Noriko Hidaka, Aso, Hirotaka Suzuoki and Kōji Tsujitani, Kōichi Yamadera and Hiromi Tsuru.

Konaki Jijii

Nagai played Shigeru Mizuki's GeGeGe no Kitaro's Konaki Jijii, a comic, absent-minded old yōkai man who attacks enemies by clinging to them and turning himself to stone, increasing his weight and mass immensely and pinning them down between the 60s and 80s alongside Masako Nozawa and Keiko Toda, Isamu Tanonaka, Chikao Ohtsuka and Kei Tomiyama, Nana Yamaguchi, Yuko Mita, Yoko Ogushi, Keiko Yamamoto, Yonehiko Kitagawa, Kenji Utsumi and Yusaku Yara and Jōji Yanami, Keaton Yamada and Kōsei Tomita.

Cherry

He was cast in Takahashi's Urusei Yatsura as Sakura's wandering monk uncle in 1983 alongside co-stars Toshio Furukawa, Saeko Shimizu, Fumi Hirano and Akira Kamiya.

Death

On January 27, 2014, while recording narration for a program in Hiroshima, Nagai suffered a bout of myocardial infarction and was found by a hotel employee. He was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead; Nagai was 82 years old at the time of his death.

Filmography

Television animation

OVA

Theatrical animation

Video games

Live action