TARAKO
TARAKO is an actor, born 1960.
A small girl narrating her own boring afternoons and a sadistic cartoon bear came out of the same throat, which is the shortest useful summary of TARAKO. Her voice was low, husky and completely unmistakable, so she was never going to be cast as a conventional ingenue and never needed to be.
Her first role was a preschooler on Urusei Yatsura, and she spent the 1980s in the middle of the anime boom taking small parts in films that are now canon: additional voices in My Neighbor Totoro, Madge in Castle in the Sky, Toto in They Were Eleven, the title role in a 1983 television Alice in Wonderland.
Then came Momoko Sakura. Chibi Maruko-chan began in 1990, ran until 1992, returned in 1995 and has been on Japanese television ever since, and TARAKO voiced its title character for more than three decades. The trick of that performance is that she never plays cute. Maruko sounds bored, sly and faintly exhausted, like an actual child rather than an adult's idea of one, and it is why a gentle domestic comedy about nothing much has outlasted almost everything around it.
The rest of the catalogue is stranger than the Maruko fame suggests: Kirara in InuYasha, Altena in Noir, Zazie the Beast in TRIGUN STAMPEDE, Debeko in DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION, and best of all Monokuma in Danganronpa: The Animation, where the childlike register she built a career on is turned into something genuinely menacing. She died in 2024, still working, still Maruko.
Movies (16)
- My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
- Warriors of the Wind (1984)
- Castle in the Sky (1986)
- Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer (1984)
- Sea Cat (1988)
- Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction Part 1 (2024)
- Yona Yona Penguin (2009)
- Chibi Maruko-chan: The Boy from Italy (2015)
- Chibi Maruko-chan (2019)
- Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction Part 2 (2024)
- Chibi Maruko-chan: My Favorite Song (1992)
- Go! Anpanman: Nosshi the Dinosaur's Big Adventure (1993)
- They Were Eleven (1986)
- Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Team Go-Getters Out of the Gate! (2006)
- Futari wa Precure Splash☆Star the Movie: Tic-Tac Crisis Hanging by a Thin Thread! (2006)
- Tales of the Bizarre 20th Anniversary Spring Special: Popular Episode Competition (2010)
TV (16)
- Chibi Maruko-chan (1990)
- InuYasha (2000)
- Danganronpa: The Animation (2013)
- Mrs. Pepper Pot (1983)
- Noir (2001)
- TRIGUN STAMPEDE (2023)
- DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION (2024)
- Magical Taluluto (1990)
- Alice in Wonderland (1983)
- Coji-Coji (1997)
- Combat Mecha Xabungle (1982)
- Mushiking: The Guardians of the Forest (2005)
- FM999: 999 WOMEN'S SONGS (2021)
- Little Big Nose (1983)
- Pluster World (2003)
- Taotao (1984)
Where to start with TARAKO
Begin with Chibi Maruko-chan, though it helps to know what you are getting: a low-stakes domestic comedy about a lazy schoolgirl, running for decades, with a flat sardonic delivery holding the whole thing upright.
For contrast, go straight to Danganronpa: The Animation and hear the same voice as Monokuma. That pairing tells you more about her range than any list of credits could.
The bit parts in the era's big films are a pleasure to spot rather than a reason to watch on their own: My Neighbor Totoro, Castle in the Sky as Madge, They Were Eleven as Toto. The late work shows she was still being cast against type well into the 2020s, in TRIGUN STAMPEDE and DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION. Save Noir for when you want her doing cold and adult.