Crayon Shin-chan's Title Role goes to Yumiko Kobayashi

As of Friday, it has been confirmed by the official website for the “Crayon Shin-chan” anime that replacing Akiko Yajima for the title role of the series is Yumiko Kobayashi.

It was previously announced that voice actress Yajima would be stepping down from the role after 26 years due to increasing difficulty in producing the character’s voice naturally. The final episode featuring the voice actress will premiere on June 29. As for Kobayashi’s debut on the show, the episode will be aired on July 6.

Yumiko Kobayashi is a voice actress who began her career in 1998. She is known for a number of notable roles including as Black Star in “Soul Eater” and Matake Ogata in “Shakugan no Shana”.

“Crayon Shin-chan” is a series based on the 1990 manga written and illustrated by Yoshito Usui. The manga ran from August 1990 to February 2010 under the serialization of the Weekly Manga Action magazine and had 50 volumes published.

The first anime adaptation of the series premiered in 1992 with Mitsuru Hongo as its first director. Currently, the series is running with Yuuji Mutou as the director.

The cast for the series include:

Keiji Fujiwara as Hiroshi Nohara
Miki Narahashi as Misae Nohara
Satomi Koorogi as Himawari Nohara
Mari Mashiba as Kazama-kun
Tamao Hayashi as Nene
Chie Satou as Bo-chan
Mie Suzuki as Masao-kun
Ayako Kawasumi as Ai Suotome

The series features five-year-old Shinnosuke “Shin” Nohara in Kasukabe, Saitama Prefecture. It tells of daily adventures along with his parents, baby sister, dog, neighbors, and friends.

“Crayon Shin-chan” has become known as one of the most watched anime series in Japan. been dubbed in 30 languages which aired in 45 countries, has over 940 episodes and 25 full-length films. What’s more, the series has become the 24th highest-grossing animated franchise and more than 100 million copies of the manga have been sold worldwide.

Other than anime and manga, the series has also gained a number of video games for the console and handheld as well as the smartphone and tablet. One of its most recent games was released in 2014 and titled “Crayon Shin-chan: Arashi wo Yobu Kasukabe Eiga Stars! “ a.k.a. “Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called Kasukabe Movie Stars!”

Source: AnimeNewsNetwork