Recently, it has been bittersweet for One Piece fans. While there are still plenty of things to look forward to for the franchise, including the second season of the live-action adaptation and the continuation of the Egghead arc in the anime, fans had to say goodbye to a prominent voice actor. Kazuki Yao, the Japanese voice actor for Franky the Cyborg in One Piece, announced earlier in December he was retiring from the role. Yao expresses his sadness for leaving, but claims he doesn’t believe he could deliver the quality needed to play Franky. It was announced at Jump Festa 2025 that Subaru Kimura will be taking over for Yao, who also attended the event.
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Yao received plenty of well wishes and happy retirement comments from all kinds of fans and professionals. Yao shared on his X, formerly Twitter, account that he received a nice yet hilarious goodbye gift at a Jump Fest party. The gift was a Franky statue with Yao’s face on it instead of Franky’s. It’s a nice gesture that shows how intricately linked the actor was with Franky, and how similar they were. It’s often been commented that Yao has more than a passing resemblance to Franky, so the Franky figure with Yao’s face isn’t too out-of-the-ordinary. As a joke, Yao and the people at the party called the statue Yaonki.
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Kazuki Yao’s History With One Piece
Even though Franky wouldn’t appear in the anime until 2005, Kazuki Yao was already an established cast member for the One Piece anime. He was already the voice actor of the secondary antagonist Jango in the early arcs of One Piece. Jango would become a recurring character throughout the series, with Yao continuing to provide his voice. Yao would then voice another villain in the series, Bon Clay aka Mr. 2, who soon became a fan-favorite character.
However, Franky would become his biggest role in the franchise. Initially revealed as an antagonist of cybernetic enhancements, the character would join the crew of the Straw Hats as the group’s shipwright. Yao gave Franky plenty of oddball enthusiasm, best exemplified by Franky’s catchphrase “SUPER!” Even though his retirement is a terrible loss for the anime, fans all over the world are grateful for Yao’s dedication to the character after all these years and wish him a “SUPER” retirement!
