Ichirō Murakoshi (村越 伊知郎, Murakoshi Ichirō; December 2, 1930 – May 23, 2007) was a Japanese actor, voice actor, and narrator from Tokyo, with his birth name being Yoshikazu Murakoshi (村越 義一, Murakoshi Yoshikazu).
He graduated from the School of Commerce, Waseda University. Ever since his school days, he had loved acting.
After he graduated from university, Murakoshi went to go work in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government for a while, but joined the Rengosa theater troupe in 1954. He was an affiliated member of Theater Echo since 1956.
He was active in a wide range of fields from dubbing to providing narration for tokusatsu, being beloved for his voice role as Norisuke Namino in the Sazae-san anime since he debuted in the role on December 14, 1969.
Final years
In July 1998, Murakoshi took a break from entertainment activities due to suffering from laryngeal cancer and stepped down from the role of Norisuke Namino on Sazae-san after voicing the character for many years. He returned to performing, but because it had become difficult to produce vocal sounds to his personal satisfaction, he decided to retire from voice acting and continued focusing on stage activities and training the younger generation.
