Japanese Voice Actor Yasuo Iwata Dies October 24, 2009

Yasuo Iwata , Jan. 19, 1942 – Oct. 24, 2009, voice actor in one of Japan’s most watched TV anime series, has died of lung cancer. He was 67.

He was best known for playing the next-door neighbor, Nanbutsu Isasaka, in the long-running anime series “Sazae-san So” a part he held since 2002. Iwata was the third person to have voiced the romance novelist character who lived in the next house from the main family in which the comic centers around. “Sazae-san So” first appeared in the local papers in 1946 as a comic strip making it one of the oldest comics and animations in Japan and known to almost everyone there, young or old.