Ichirō Nagai
Namihei Isono. Nagai was cast as "Sazae-san's" character, Namihei Isono, Sazae's father and patriarch of the family in the longest running Anime in 1969 alongside co-stars Midori Katō (Sazae) and Miyoko Asō (Fune) until Chafurin filled in for him after his death. Happosai. He was cast in 1989 until 2008 in Rumiko Takahashi's "Ranma ½" as Happosai, the founder and grandmaster of Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū. He often alternates between his role as a villainous grandmaster to one as a lighthearted pervert, alongside co-stars Kappei Yamaguchi and Megumi Hayashibara (Ranma Saotome), Kenichi Ogata  (Genma), Masako Ikeda (Nodoka), Noriko Hidaka (Akane Tendo), Aso (Cologne), Hirotaka Suzuoki and Kōji Tsujitani (Tatewaki Kuno), Kōichi Yamadera (Ryoga Hibiki) and Hiromi Tsuru (Ukyo Kuonji). Konaki Jijii. Nagai played Shigeru Mizuki's "GeGeGe no Kitaro's" Konaki Jijii, a comic, absent-minded old yōkai man who attacks enemies by clinging to them and turning himself to stone, increasing his weight and mass immensely and pinning them down between the 60s and 80s alongside Masako Nozawa and Keiko Toda (Kitaro), Isamu Tanonaka (Medama oyaji), Chikao Ohtsuka and Kei Tomiyama (Nezumi-Otoko), Nana Yamaguchi, Yuko Mita (Neko Musume), Yoko Ogushi, Keiko  Yamamoto (Sunakake Baba), Yonehiko Kitagawa, Kenji Utsumi and Yusaku Yara (Nurikabe) and Jōji Yanami, Keaton Yamada and Kōsei Tomita (Ittan Momen). Cherry. He was cast in Takahashi's "Urusei Yatsura" as Sakura's wandering monk uncle in 1983 alongside co-stars Toshio Furukawa (Ataru Moroboshi), Saeko Shimazu (Shinobu Miyake), Fumi Hirano (Lum Invader) and Akira Kamiya (Shutaro Mendo). Death. On January 27, 2014, while recording narration for a program in Hiroshima, Nagai suffered a bout of myocardial infarction and was found by a hotel employee. He was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead; Nagai was 82 years  old at the time of his death.