Photo: Takechangs / CC BY-SA 4.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Hiroshi Otake is the kind of guy who spent his entire life doing one thing and doing it with quiet, unshakeable commitment — lending his voice to characters on screen for decades while most people never knew his name, only that something about the TV sounded right. Born in Kawasaki back in 1932, he was part of the generation that built Japanese voice acting from the ground up, before it had award ceremonies or fan bases or any of the cultural cachet it carries today. The fact that he picked up the lifetime achievement award from the Voice Actor Awards in 2015 tells you everything: the industry looked at this man and said, yeah, we owe him one. He passed away in August 2022, somewhere close to ninety years old, and I find that genuinely moving — nearly a century on earth, most of it spent making fictional worlds feel real through nothing but breath and timing. That's a craft worth respecting.
Overview
Hiroshi Ōtake (March 14, 1932 – August 1, 2022) was a Japanese voice actor and actor born in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture. A veteran of the postwar Japanese entertainment industry, he worked as a voice actor across many decades, contributing to the foundations of Japanese animation and dubbing culture. In 2015 he received the Voice Actor Award for Lifetime Achievement (Kōrō-shō), recognizing his long career and influence on the profession. He passed away on August 1, 2022, at the age of 90.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Hiroshi Ōtake
- Name (Japanese)
- 大竹宏
- Reading
- おおたけ ひろし
- Born
- March 14, 1932 – August 1, 2022
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Pisces / Monkey (申)
- Origin
- Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan
- Occupation
- Voice Actor / Actor
2. Background
- High school
- Meiji University High School and Junior High School
- University
- Meiji University High School and Junior High School
Awards & achievements
- 2015 — Voice Actor Award, Lifetime Achievement (Kōrō-shō)
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
- Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7%E7%AB%B9%E5%AE%8F
Frequently asked questions
When was Hiroshi Ōtake born?
March 14, 1932 – August 1, 2022.
Where is Hiroshi Ōtake from?
Hiroshi Ōtake is from Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan.
What does Hiroshi Ōtake do?
Hiroshi Ōtake works as Voice Actor, Actor.
Voice Actor — see all → · Actor — see all → · More people from Japan →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.