Ayane Takemoto

**Ayane Takemoto** (kanji: **竹本絢音**, born May 18, 1965) is a Japanese writer and voice actress, and Yuuki's mother.

## History

Ayane was born in Yokohama, Japan on May 18th, 1965, as Ayane Naka (**那珂絢音**), to a grandma and grandpa Yuuki hasn't mentioned. She was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome at age 3. Ayane grew up watching *Tetsuwan Atom*, *Majokko Meg-chan*, and *Captain Harlock* on television, as well as Japanese dubs of *The Flintstones*, *Looney Tunes*, and her absolute favourite, *Scooby Doo, Where Are You?*.

When she was 12, Ayane took a trip to Chicago with her family. This was her first time in the US. They stopped at Marriott's Great America and rode the then-recent Turn of the Century rollercoaster. Ayane loved it, and ever since then, she has been a fan of rollercoasters.

Ayane met Yosuke Takemoto when she was 14, in 1979. They eventually married in 1982. Also in the early '80s, *Star Wars* mania was in full swing in Japan. Ayane had the original trilogy on VHS and several manga adaptations. The undubbed versions were used to teach English in her high school. Ayane's favourite character was Boba Fett, whom she had a crush on and dedicated a poem to.

Ayane then worked as a secretary for a Japanese law firm until mid-late 1995, when she became pregnant with Yuuki. Originally, she was going to name her baby "Kintaro" if they were a boy, after the famous Japanese legend. But, of course, the baby turned out to be a girl, and Ayane named her "Yuuki," since it sounded "youthful" and "refined." Afterwards, Ayane and Yosuke moved to America, since the Japanese not only loved America, they loved New York.

Ayane got a job as a secretary in an office in Paramus, New Jersey, close to Paramus Park. She also made a living selling things on eBay, including *Crash Bandicoot* action figures.

Ayane and Yosuke got into *Space Ghost Coast to Coast* on the Cartoon Network, *Rocko's Modern Life* and *The Ren & Stimpy Show* on Nickelodeon, and countless crime dramas like *Oz* and *The Sopranos* on HBO. Ayane commonly took likings to minor characters in the cartoon shows she watched, and would make them into her own characters. An example: when she first moved to America, a commercial for *Tetris Blast* (*Bombliss*) was airing in which a cockroach laments over the game containing "Mega Bombs" as if they were nuclear bombs. Ayane thought this ad was hilarious, and made the cockroach into a character called "Mu the PTSD Cockroach." She wrote a pilot episode of a cartoon about Mu, and got someone at the nearby community theater to voice him, but she never sold the pilot due to fear over both Nintendo of America and Cartoon Network suing (the latter being because the pilot was similar to their own *Tales of Worm Paranoia* short.) Ayane even voiced her own work, being Princess Nighty Night in an also unreleased pilot (based on a One-Scene Wonder from *Superman: The Animated Series*.)

In 2002, Ayane took Yuuki to see *Scooby Doo* in theaters. When the fart joke happened, Ayane began to freak out that they used "tasteless humour" in *Scooby Doo*, and that "The real Kuruppaa will be angry about this!!" Ayane preferred the sequel, which came 2 years later, over the first one.

## Filmography

* *Mu the PTSD Cockroach* (June 1996) - Writer
* *Princess Nighty Night* (January 1997) - Writer, Voice Cast (Princess Nighty Night, Iris)
* *Derringer S* (April 2002) - Writer, Voice Cast (Meiko)

## Trivia

* Ayane's favourite roller coaster was Moonsault Scramble at Fuji-Q Highland.
* Ayane mainly enjoys puzzle and racing video games. However, she liked playing *Star Wars: Demolition* (a vehicular combat game), mostly playing as Boba Fett.
* Yuuki got her childhood dislike of gross-out humour from Ayane, judging by the *Scooby Doo* story above.
* Ayane still knows the words to the Japanese *Birdman* theme song, and she has sang it in front of Yuuki when she was visiting her in 2021.
* *Derringer S* was the only script Ayane wrote that got produced. It was a parody of *Mazinger Z* that aired in between shows on "a certain Japanese television station."
* One of the posts in the infamous Kanako takeover stated that Ayane had died in October 2017. This, of course, is not true, as Yuuki has stated Ayane is alive and well.