One Piece Star Comments on Providing Joker's Japanese Dub Voice

Joker was one of the most critically and commercially successful film releases of last year, and as we round out the awards season the film is still enjoying all kinds of success with multiple Golden Globes wins and the like. As the film prepares for its home video release, fans in Japan are getting ready to own the film as well as pre-orders for its upcoming January 29th release in Japan fast approaches. With the announcement of the opening pre-orders, fans have also been treated to an inside look at its Japanese dub.

Surprisingly, Hiroaki Hirata (who fans will recognize as the voice of Sanji in One Piece among many other things) provided the voice for Joaquin Phoenix's Arthur Fleck in the dub, and offered a comment as to what fans should look out for when watching the film at home.

As noted by Phileweb, Hirata had the following to say about the upcoming home video release and his time working on the film, "Two points recommended by Hiroaki Hirata who was in charge of the dubbing of Arthur! First, a taxi with a man wearing a clown's mask passes through Arthur, and Arthur with a soft smile at that time — I think this is the best scene to see."

Elaborating further, Hirata noted another scene fans should keep an eye on, "[T]he other is where Arthur transforms into a complete "joker", a back view of walking towards the elevator, a look up before the door closes, Of course, dance on the stairs, of course, please take a look at the Japanese dubbed version on digital distribution!"

This crossover of worlds definitely throws us all for a loop, but it's not the only crossover between the two. In a recent ad for Nissin's Cup Noodles, there was a surprise cameo from Joaquin Phoenix's Joker hidden among a crowd. It's a total blink and you'll miss it cameo, but now that a One Piece star provided the Japanese dub for the film it's definitely hitting much harder.

Eiichiro Oda's One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has since been collected into over 80 volumes, and has been a critical and commercial success worldwide with many of the volumes breaking printing records in Japan. The manga has even set a Guinness World Record for the most copies published for the same comic book by a single author, and is the best-selling manga series worldwide with over 430 million copies sold. The series still ranked number one in manga sales in 2018, which surprised fans of major new entries.

via Phileweb