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Cross Dressing Voices / Anime

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  • Known for voicing boys, Mayumi Asano has voiced male characters such as: Claus Valca in Last Exile, Horiuchi Hironari in Bleach, and Hisoka Kurosaki in Descendants of Darkness.
  • Although Sachiko Chijimatsu is probably best known as the longtime former voice of Nobita's mother in Doraemon, she's voiced a number of boys, including Kabu in Sally the Witch ('60s series) and Napoleon (Snagglebit) in The Littl' Bits.
  • Natsumi Fujiwara is usually chosen to voice younger males like Chihiro Komiya of Shounen Maid, Ginko Sajihara of Qualidea Code, and Red Harewataru of Soaring Sky! PreCure.
  • Yuko Gibu plays a young boy, Yuuki Aihara, in Go! Princess Pretty Cure, while his teenage form is voiced by a male actor.
  • Megumi Han provided voices for boys such as: Gon Freecss in Hunter × Hunter (2011), and Kirio Inasa in Ushio and Tora.
  • Yui Horie has voiced some male characters like Riki Naoe of Little Busters! and Mizuho of Otoboku - Maidens Are Falling For Me although she doesn’t in the spin off Futari no Elder, due to Mizuho replaced by Chihaya.
  • To date, at least three Hungarian dubbed Animax series did this unintentionally. Both Kurama from YuYu Hakusho and Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) were not only given female voice actors, but clear female voices. Kiyone from Bleach on the other hand ended up with a defined and manly tenor for at least two episodes before the directors realized that she's got BOOBS.
    • The latter was even more facepalm-inducing since Sentarou even called Kiyone the Hungarian equivalent of "bitch"...
    • However, Envy got a male voice after a handful of episodes, which he retained throughout the rest of the series and Brotherhood.
  • Hiromi Igarashi lent her voice to young boys with Kiitaro from Kiitaro Shounen no Youkai Enikki, Orion in Amnesia, and Jin Russell in Problem Children are Coming from Another World, aren't they? being just a few examples.
  • Mariya Ise has voiced male characters like: Nagisa Shingetsu in Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls, Itsuki Noya in Ebiten, Romeo Conbolt in Fairy Tail (where she also voices the female Levy McGarden), and Touka Kamiazuma in Tōka Gettan.
  • Akiko Kimura has voiced many male characters including: Mamoru Yoshimura of Venus to Mamoru! and Yuuki "Koji Onishi" Oonishi in Transformers: Car Robots just to name a few.
  • Sayaka Kinoshita had voiced a few boys like En from Beelzebub and others.
  • Eri Kitamura had a few male roles including: Mahiro Yasaka of Nyaruko: Crawling with Love!, Aki Shiina in Miss Caretaker Of Sunoharasou and Sanpeita Kobayashi of Kemeko Deluxe!.
  • Yumiko Kobayashi and Mayu Kudou both play male roles in Suite Pretty Cure ♪; Kobayashi voices Souta Minamino, while Kudou plays the eight Fairy Tones.
  • Yuu Kobayashi has been known to voice male characters such as: Shou Oota of Ginga e Kickoff!!, Dan Kuso of Bakugan Battle Brawlers, Hiroshi Kuzumi in Ookami Kakushi and Mariya Shidou of Maria†Holic.
  • Having her own fair share of male roles, Sachi Kokuryu has provided voices to boy like Yuuto Kamiya of Miracle Wanda and many others.
  • Mikako Komatsu is no stranger when it comes to voicing boys. Joseph Carter Jones of Heroman (also her first role ever!), and Yuma in Towa no Quon are just a few examples.
  • Ami Koshimizu voiced Takuto Hasegawa in Magician's Academy and Hirose Takuma in H₂O: Footprints in the Sand.
  • Able to provide a multitude of voice roles, Houko Kuwashima delivered her voice to boys including: Fuyuki Hinata in Sgt. Frog (taking over for Tomoko Kawakami), Nakahito Kagura of Steel Angel Kurumi, Taiyou Asukawa of Cardfight!! Vanguard: G, and Minoru Kokubunji of Chobits.
  • In the world of Mexican dubbing, Luffy was voiced by the same actress that dubbed Jessie from Pokémon: The Series (Diana Pérez). Also, Ben Tennyson and Naruto Uzumaki share voices with Mimi Tachikawa, Unazuki Furuhata, Gumball Watterson and Dee Dee (Isabel Martiñón).note  Also, Bart Simpson and Orihime Inoue by Claudia Mota.
  • Megumi Matsumoto voiced young men including: Kunikida in Haruhi Suzumiya, Robin in Le Chevalier d'Eon, Ryuuta "Max Taylor" Kodai in Dinosaur King, Kazuhiro Mitogawa in Ga-Rei -Zero- and more.
  • Voice actress Junko Minagawa is known for voicing young boys as well as older women. Such examples are Echizen Ryoma of The Prince of Tennis, Aoyagi Ritsuka from Loveless, Julio from KiraKira★Pretty Cure à la Mode, and brief character Ryuu-oh from Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-, who was voiced by an adult male in his original work. All those while voicing Ayaka Yukihiro from Negima and Cornelia Li Brittania from Code Geass!
  • Akihiro Miwa, a male actor and cabaret singer, has played female roles in two Miyazaki films: The Witch of the Waste in Howl's Moving Castle and Moro in Princess Mononoke, who is a giant wolf for which a deep growling voice is actually quite appropriate. The English dub of the latter just went with Gillian Anderson, however.
  • Kōki Miyata, a male actor, plays the female Olifio in Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure.
  • Other notable North American voice actresses who voiced boys or young male teens:
  • Masako Nozawa has portrayed many "young boy" characters over her career. In addition to Goku as mentioned above, she was Kitaro (1st and 2nd GeGeGe no Kitarō series, Hakaba Kitarō) and Tetsuro Hoshino (Galaxy Express 999), among other roles. She was also the original Japanese voice of Esteban in Taiyo no Ko Esteban. These days however, she prefers "elderly woman" roles such as Honoka's grandmother in Futari wa Pretty Cure.
  • Mitsuki Saiga has played many male roles in anime and video games, including Makoto Kousaka in Genshiken, Jing in King of Bandit Jing, Rossiu Adai in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Nasu Suketaka Yoichi in Drifters and Elk (and Endrance, who shares the same real-life identity as Elk, only older) in the .hack universe. (She also voiced Tsukasa, who may or may not count for this trope.)
  • Chika Sakamoto has played quite a few other young boy roles, including Kentaro in Maison Ikkoku, Kazuya in Kimagure Orange Road, and Peter in Princess Sarah.
  • Known for voicing boys, Yuko Sanpei provided voices for: Hajime Yasaka of Natsu no Arashi!, Kakeru Aizawa in Area no Kishi, Konata Saionji in UFO Baby, and many others.
  • Often being type-casted as young men, Ryōko Shiraishi has provided voices: Hayate Ayasaki in Hayate the Combat Butler, Kyousuke Ishihara of Boku no Imouto wa "Osaka Okan", Ryuushi Shiratori in Mahoraba, Takumi Hayami of Sky Girls just to name a few.
  • Minami Takayama has been known to voice male characters. Her best known examples are: Conan Edogawa of Case Closed and Hajime Hinata/Izuru Kamukura of Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School and Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair.
  • Fujiko Takimoto is no stranger when it come to voicing males. Some of her works are: Suguru Misato in Mahoromatic, Ryo Ninomiya in This Ugly Yet Beautiful World, Hideyoshi in Buzzer Beater and Suguru Fujisaki in Gravitation.
  • Mutsumi Tamura also has a specialty of voicing boys such as: Lux Arcadia of Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle, Kio Kakazu of Cat Planet Cuties, and Jonah Mar of Jormungand just to name a few.
  • Mayumi Tanaka also played male roles in two Tatsunoko Production anime series from the early '80s: Lillibit (Willibit in the U.S. version) in The Littl' Bits and the title character in Dash Kappei.
  • Misuzu Togashi has lent her voice to male characters including: Yukiteru Amano in Future Diary, Hibiya Amamiya in Mekakucity Actors and Kouki Hayasaki in Oneechan ga Kita.
  • Known for being type casted as boys, Reiko Takagi voiced: Tadase Hotori in Shugo Chara!, Masaki Edogawa in Sora no Manimani, Yoshitaka Waya in Hikaru no Go and Nobunaga in Haruka Nogizaka's Secret.
  • Billie Lou Watt was among the first American voice actors for anime dubbing. She specialized in voicing young boys including the title characters of Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion (or Jungle Emperor in Japanese), Taro The Dragon Boy, and Jimmy Sparks from Gigantor, Jack from an anime version of Jack and the Beanstalk, and Christopher Peepers from Superbook. Christopher Peepers' Japanese equivalent, Sho Asuka, was also voiced by a woman (Masako Sugaya).
  • Akira Kamiya admits that Kōichi Yamadera is excellent at doing a woman's voice. See below for a certain "trick" he pulled for the dub of Disney's Aladdin...
  • Keiko Yamamoto played Tare-chan in '70s Devilman, Rabi in Majokko Meg-chan, and Eros in Little Pollon.
  • Tsubasa Yonaga is one of the very few male seiyuu whose character in the English dub track is voiced by a female, such as Shuu Kannogi from Bleach, Nemu Takada from Blue Exorcist, Nova from Arcana Famiglia and Tony from Tiger & Bunny, the first two are voiced by Brianne Siddall in the English track, the third is voiced by Kara Greenberg, and the last is voiced by Laura Bailey.
  • Agito/Akito in Air Gear.
  • In the Streamline dub of AKIRA comes one of the strangest examples one of the council members (the little grouchy old man) was dubbed by Barbara Goodson.
  • All of the main bread-headed superheroes in Anpanman are voiced by women, with only two of the six being female, and one of the males being a young child. Most of the schoolchildren are voiced by women, as well. Tendonman also has a female voice, which stands out compared to Katsudonman and Kamameshidon, who are obviously voiced by men. On the flip side, however, is Princess Dorian, who is voiced by a man.
  • In Assassination Classroom:
    • Nagisa is voiced by a female in both the original and the English dub.
    • Itonia is voiced by a woman in the original.
  • Armin Arlert of Attack on Titan is voiced by a woman in Japanese. Averted in the English dub by having a male voice actor voice Armin.
  • Battle B-Daman, Yamato Deiwa is voiced by Reiko Takagi in the original. English dub averts this. Bull Borgnine and Tsubame Tsubakura are voiced by women in both the original and English dub.
  • Momoko Ohara is popular with voicing boys like Kakeru Ryugasaki in B-Daman Crossfire.
  • B-Daman Crossfire has: Kakeru Ryugasaki, Subaru Shirogane, Ryuuji Sumeragi, Shumon "Simon" Katsumiya and Daiki Watari are voiced by women in both the original and English dub.
  • Yoruichi from Bleach. While she has a perfectly normal voice, she has a man's voice as a cat.
    • Same in the Latin American dub.
    • A rather confusing example occurred in the recent filler arc. Mitsuki Saiga (a woman!) provides the well defined, MALE voice of Zabimaru's baboon side, who looks like a well endowed woman. Wrap your brain around THAT.
  • Ciel Phantomhive in Black Butler is voiced by a female in both the original and the English dub.
  • Blue Exorcist:
    • Konekomaru Miwa averts this is voiced by Yūki Kaji in Japanese. The English dub plays this straight by casting Mona Marshall as Konekomaru.
    • The second season's dub also plays this straight by casting Kari Wahlgren as Karura, despite being averted in the original Japanese version where he is voiced by Ayumu Murase.
  • Heppokomaru (Gasser) from Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo was voiced by Naomi Shindo.
  • In Boku No Pico (curiously a crossdressing anime), even though the cast is never revealed, it's quite obvious that the boys in that series are voiced by women, to the point where they make little effort to sound like a real boy (probably to please its target audience).
  • Chaos Dragon has Ibuki voiced by a woman in Japanese and English.
  • Kazune Kujou is voiced by no other than Miyuki Sawashiro of Kamichama Karin.
  • Joshua Christopher is played by a female seiyuu in Chrono Crusade — although in the drama CDs and English and German dubs he's played by an adult man, instead.
  • Naoto Miura in Clockwork Planet is voiced by Yoshino Nanjo. The English dub averts this by having a male voicing Naoto.
  • In the Hungarian dub of Cowboy Bebop, Ed was voiced by a teenage boy. The translators likely assumed that Ed was a boy, based on her name. In the movie, however, Ed is voiced by a woman.
  • Crayon Shin-chan:
    • This is lampshaded in the Gag Dub.
      Shin: ... You have the body of a first-grader, and the ass of a baby... (Shin's voice switches to Laura Bailey's natural voice) and the voice of a grown woman.
    • Another time, he said something along the lines of "What I've learned is that women are evil, but we still need them to voice boys in cartoons."
  • Crush Gear Turbo has a few examples: Kyousuke Jin, Kouya Marino, and Kuroudo Marume.
  • In Cyborg 009, Ivan/001 is traditionally voiced by a woman, owing to him being an infant. His actresses have included Fuyumi Shiraishi (also known as the voice of Patalliro), Sachiko Chijimatsu, and Kana Ueda, among others. However, this was averted for the English dub, where R. Martin Klein voiced him in a nasal, high, yet clearly masculine voice.
    • Joe/009 himself was originally voiced by Sachiko Chijimatsu in a 1965 drama vinyl record, perhaps to play off how youthful he appeared in the early manga. All following adaptations cast him with a male actor, to make him more obviously a boy in his late teens.
    • Great Britain/007 was voiced by Machiko Soga in Toei's 1960's movies and TV anime to go along with his Age Lift into a Bratty Half-Pint. All other adaptations depict 007 as an adult and thus give him male actors.
    • This was the case for young boy characters in the 2001 anime, which the English dub mostly kept to (utilizing actresses such as Barbara Goodson and Mona Marshall) — with the very prominent exception of the younger Joe/009, who was voiced by Takako Honda in the original but by Joshua Seth in the dub. This also affected the Mutant Warrior named Phil (voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro in the original but Richard Cansino in the dub), and Joe's childhood friends (who kept the actors that voiced their adolescent selves in the dub).
    • The French dub of the film The Legend of the Super Galaxy had Joe voiced by an actress named Sylvie Feit.
    • The So Bad, It's Good Swedish dub has Timm Mehrens voicing literally everyone. This averts the trope for all male characters, but unusually plays it straight for all the female characters.
  • Despite being an antihero, Matatabi from Cyborg Kuro-chan is voiced by a woman Makiko Ohmoto.
  • In Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Chihiro Fujisaki is voiced by Kōki Miyata. Subverted when it's revealed that Chihiro is actually a crossdressing boy, but played straight in the both versions of the English dub, where he's voiced by Dorothy Elias-Fahn in the game, and Kara Edwards in the anime.
  • Near is voiced by a woman in both the Japanese and English versions of Death Note. Unusually for this trope, the character is supposed to be an adult, albeit a young one; Word of God gives his age as 21 at the end of the series.
    • This trope was probably used to emphasise how childlike Near is, both in terms of looking like he's very young and of his behaviour.
    • The Hungarian dub, at first, hired a woman to voice Near. Eventually the dubbers realized that Near was a male, so they hired a man to voice the character.
    • In the second live-action movie, the voice of Rem, a female Shinigami, was provided by Shinnosuke "Peter" Ikehata.
  • Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba:
    • The first databook confirmed Ukogi is a male sparrow, but since the series pushes him as a cute pet, his sparrow sounds are done by female voice actresses who make him sound more adorable.
    • Despite taking the form of a woman at the end of the first season, Muzan in his female guise is still voiced by his usual male voice actors.
    • The English dub plays this straight by casting Jeannie Tirado as Kotetsu, despite being averted in the original Japanese version where he is voiced by Ayumu Murase and the Latin American Spanish dub where he's voiced by Jorge Rafael.
    • A child Kyojuro is voiced by women in both the original Japanese version and the English dub.
    • In the Latin American Spanish dub, Senjuro is voiced by Ileana Escalante.
    • Tanjiro is voiced by a female in the Taiwanese Mandarin dub.
  • In Devil Hunter Yohko, Yohko's Cool Old Lady Madoka is voiced by... the male seiyuu Yūji Mitsuya. (Save for the time when she's temporarily de-aged, since Satomi Koorogi voices her younger self.) Later, Madoka's estranged twin sister appears... and she's voiced by Shigeru Chiba.
  • D.Gray-Man:
    • Allen Walker is voiced by Sanae Kobayashi. In the English version, he is voiced by Todd Haberkorn.
    • In Hallow series, Sanae Kobayashi was replaced by Ayumu Murase in voicing Allen Walker. In English dub, Todd Haberkorn reprised the role.
  • T.K. has different voice actors between Digimon Adventure and Digimon Adventure 02 due to this trope. At age 8, he is voiced by the female Hiroko Konishi and Wendee Lee, while at age 11 he is voiced by the male Taisuke Yamamoto and Doug Erholtz.
    • Regarding the original Japanese version of Digimon, it's easier to list which of the main characters don't fall under this trope:
    • The English dub generally had men voicing the male characters, probably to help hide how young they all are. Takato's official age in the Japanese version is 10, while the old Fox Kids website listed him as 13. This is especially jarring when the Japanese version gives Mega-level badass Digimon such as WarGreymon the same voice as their rookie level.
    • Digimon Data Squad mostly averted this; because the male characters on the show were much older than earlier seasons, Marcus, Thomas, and their Mons all have Male VAs.
    • The Greek dub of Digimon Adventure plays this straight with Tai, Izzy and T.K., but averts it with Matt and Joe, who are voiced by adult men.
    • The Norwegian dub of the show has Agumon and all of his evolutions voiced by a female. The movie however averts this by having him be voiced by a man.
  • Digimon: The Movie: In addition to examples carried over from the series, the film has Peggy O'Neal as Botamon, Brianne Siddall as Kuramon, Mona Marshall as Terriermon, and Wendee Lee as Kokomon, all female actors voicing male characters. The redub adds Madeline Dorroh as Cody, Cherami Leigh as Lopmon, and Marissa Lenti, who is agender, as Sora's mother.
  • In Digimon Universe: App Monsters:
    • Yumi Uchiyama voices Haru Shinkai.
    • Shiho Kokido voices Torajirou "Astra" Asuka.
  • Digimon Adventure: (2020):
    • Aside from Izzy (voiced by Anne Yatco), T.K. (voiced by Corina Boettger, who is nonbinary and also voices the female Palmon) and Patamon (voiced by Lizzie Freeman), who had all been voiced by female actors in the dub of the original series, just as in Japan, this is notably the first time Gomamon has been voiced by a woman in the English dub as well as the Japanese version (Alex Cazares).
    • Ponchomon, a side evolution of the female Palmon, is voiced by male Alejandro Saab.
  • In the English dub of Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning, the male Lui's younger self is voiced by female Erin Yvette, while Ukkomon, who is referred to with male pronouns, is voiced by Giselle Fernandez, who is non-binary.
  • Dororo: Every version of the titular character is played by a woman: Minori Matsushima in 1969, Ikue Otani in Blood Will Tell, and Rio Suzuki in 2019. Subverted when it's revealed that Dororo is a girl.
  • Notorious in the original Japanese version of Dragon Ball/Z/GT where every character who was introduced as a child (except Uub, Upa, and Piccolo, whose appearance as a child was very brief) more or less keeps the same voice actress even after the character has grown up. This is no more obvious in the main character Goku (voiced by Masako Nozawa) who, despite being well over 40-years-old in Dragon Ball GT (when he is not shrunken into his child form), still sounds like a little kid. This has a rather jarring effect, especially among those who were only familiar with the dub (which did change the voice as the character changed ages).
    • Yajirobe is also voiced by a woman in Japanese, despite being introduced as an adult. Krillin's seiyuu, Mayumi Tanaka, was presumably cast as Yajirobe because Goku says in the manga that Yajirobe sounds like Krillin.
    • Fortuneteller Baba is voiced by the male Junpei Takiguchi in the original Dragon Ball anime and early Dragon Ball Z, who was replaced by Mayumi Tanaka from the Majin Buu Saga onwards.
    • It should be noted that the same woman also voices his sons Gohan and Goten, his father Bardock, and his Identical Stranger Turles; for everyone else, it's mostly a case of Generation Xerox (and Nozawa being that damn good), whereas the English dub usually casts men to voice the Son family once they age past puberty. Nozawa however plays each character slightly differently, such that long-time viewers can tell which character she's voicing just by audio.
    • Dragon Ball Super introduced Goku's new Evil Twin, Goku Black, who also shares Goku's Japanese voice actress, but speaks in a much more chilled and dignified manner, whereas Goku himself has a bit of a high pitched and brash sounding voice.
    • The Latin American Spanish dub also did this. Goku was originally voiced by Laura Torres, as well as young Gohan and Goten. The older Goku is voiced by Mario Castañeda. Older Gohan and Goten are voiced by Luis Alfonso Mendoza and Víctor Ugarte, the latter being recognized for appearing in most (if not all) of the major anime dubs (including but not limited to Neon Genesis Evangelion (Shinji), Naruto (Sasuke), Digimon Adventure (Jou Kido) and Bleach (Ishida).
      • The Brazilian dub, based in the Latin American one, had both Goku and his kids dubbed by women when children (Gohan and Goten were even dubbed by the same actress, Fatima Noya). Their voices were also masculine when adults, though. It was really funny to see the same actresses who dubbed Goku and his sons as children dubbing Hotaru and Chibiusa.
      • The voice actress for Goku in the then-unaired episodes of the original Dragon Ball series, Úrsula Bezerra,note  would go on to voice Naruto Uzumaki. She worked in Dragon Ball GT as well, to voice Kid Goku.
      • In the Danish dub, which was spawned from the French dub, Son Gohan is voiced by the female Pauline Rehné. It is fitting... in the beginning. But the Danish dub ends after the Freeza saga, so she never got to voice Gohan grown-up. She did also voice baby Son Goku and the female soldier of Bardock's team in the TV special about Bardock (For those who are curious, Son Goku's Danish VA voiced Bardock.)
      • In the Italian dub, Young Goku was originally voiced by Patrizia Scianca, the same voice actress of young Gohan and Goten. Young Krillin was voiced by women, first Veronica Pivetti and then Marcella Silvestri. Kid Trunks and Gotenks are also voiced by the same woman, the late Monica Bonetto. The adult counterparts of Goku, Gohan, Krillin, and Trunks have male voice actors.
    • The English dub has Freeza voiced by Linda Young, who sounded very feminine in voice, but gave a masculine delivery.
      • ...Which actually resulted in a small set of confused, isolated fans being completely shocked the first time Freeza was referred to as "he". (The small stature and shiny black lips certainly do not help in this regard.) Note that in the original, Freeza had a deep, impressive-sounding voice (but feminine delivery) and there was no room for confusion at all.
      • Linda was originally cast to match Pauline Newstone, who voiced Freeza in the short-lived Saban dub. Frieza was given an aged female voice presumably to sound more like an alien without sounding over-the-top homosexual that a male voice would have sounded.
      • In the original Freeza spoke using very feminine language, something which didn't translate into English.
      • Averted in the LA-Va dub, where he's voiced by Gerardo Reyero who has a bass tone. He speaks very slowly and with a very formal speech, which becomes more and more rude as he gets angry.
      • Averted as well in Spain and all the French-based dubs. The voice sounded like a middle-aged man, but strangely it suited Freeza's physique, since it was not too deep.
      • Averted in Dragon Ball Z Kai, where Freeza is voiced by Chris Ayres (AKA Johnny and Mr. 11).
    • In addition, Stephanie Nadolny (Colleen Clinkenbeard from Kai-onwards) voices Kid Goku and Gohan in English, with Kara Edwards (the voice of Videl) voicing young Goten. Laura Bailey voiced Kid Trunksnote  and Dende, Chiaotzu was voiced by Monika Antonelli (who also voiced Puar, but that character's gender is debatable), and Laurie Steele voiced the young Krillin.
    • In the AB Groupe / Ocean dub of the second half of DBZ for Europe and Canada, Android 19 was bizarrely voiced by female VA Cathy Weseluck. Funimation's dub had a male though.
    • The Hungarian Gohan and later Goten were both voiced by the same actress, and are usually regarded as some of the best performances in the otherwise fairly mixed-quality dub, as she was one of the very few actresses in the country who managed to pull off a male kid voice and act at the same time. High-pitched and shrill? Yes. But rarely ever feminine-sounding. It got jarring, though, when Gohan became a teenager — he only received a new, this time absolutely male, voice after growing up. Then, there's Dodoria, who was voiced by a deep-toned woman, which is either a spectacularly failed case of this trope, or (more likely) a case of He's a Woman in Hungary.
  • Nasu Suketaka Yoichi in Drifters is voiced by Mitsuki Saiga in Japanese. The English dub averts this by casting Justin Briner as Yoichi.
  • The English dub of Durarara!!x2 plays this straight by casting Kira Buckland as Neko, despite being averted in the original Japanese version where he is voiced by Ayumu Murase.
  • In elDLIVE, the English dub plays this straight by casting Morgan Berry as Chuta Kokonose, despite being averted in the original Japanese where he's voiced by Ayumu Murase.
  • Fairy Tail: The male mascot Happy is voiced by female voice actress Rie Kugimiya.
  • Zen “Chase” Makunouchi is voiced by females in both the Japanese and the English dub of Fighting Foodons.
  • Fire Force has a few:
    • Maaya Sakamoto plays this straight where she voices Sho Kusakabe in the original Japanese version. This is averted in the English due to Sho being voiced by Justin Briner.
    • Yu, a young boy and Vulcan's apprentice, is voiced in the dub by Kristen McGuire and he was given an almost child-like voice. This is averted in the original Japanese version where he is voiced by Shouya Chiba.
  • Yuki Sohma in Fruits Basket was played by Aya Hisakawa, despite being in high school.
  • Both of the Elric brothers in Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) were voiced by women in the original Japanese version; Anime!Wrath and Envy were also voiced by women in both the Japanese and English versions.
    • In fact, Edward's seiyuu, Romi Park, is actually pretty well-known for providing voices for angsty male teenagers quite a lot. Tao Ren from Shaman King, Hitsugaya from Bleach... Katsushiro from Samurai 7...
    • Averted in the dub of the 2003 series, where Ed was voiced by Vic Mignogna (an adult man) and Al was voiced by Aaron Dismuke (an actual preteen boy). However, Al's new VA in the Brotherhood dub is a woman (Maxey Whitehead). (Dismuke went through puberty, so he turned out to be too deep voiced But then he played the younger version of Hohenheim instead.)
    • The Latin American dub of the 2003 series also averts it, with both Elrics being voiced by adult males (José Manuel Vieira is Ed, Johnny Torres is Al). Sames goes to Wrath, played by the male Hector Indriago (in his true form) whereas his seiyuu was Nana Mizuki. Vieira and Torres would later return for the dub of the Brotherhood series.
    • Same for Spain's dub in Ed's case. He's performed by Ricardo Escobar, an actor specialized in teenager characters.
    • In Brazil, all male characters voiced by women in the original version listed above are voiced by adult men as well, though Ed and Envy's V As (Marcelo Campos and Sílvio Giraldi, respectively) were in their mid-to-late thirties by the time of the dub, while Al and Wrath's (Rodrigo Andreatto and Fábio Lucindo) were in their mid-to-late twenties. Marcelo and Rodrigo also played their respective characters in all their appearances as children during the series. It's also worth to note that all voice actors mentioned in this trope example not rarely play characters much younger than themselves.
    • Also Selim Bradley (Pride).
  • In Future Diary the main character Yukiteru is voiced by a woman in the Japanese. Fitting since he's an Expy of Shinji Ikari. This was almost played straight for the English dub as well with Josh Grelle, who was undergoing the process of changing sexes but stopped taking hormones before doing the series.
  • Randoll from Future GPX Cyber Formula is voiced by Youko Matsuoka in all of the series' entries.
  • The Japanese version of Gamers! (2015) plays this trope straight by having Megumi Han voice Keita Amano. The English dub averts this by having a male voicing Keita.
  • Melissa Fahn as "Specs" ("Megane") in the North American dub of Gate Keepers.
  • GEAR Fighter Dendoh has Hokuto Kusanagi and Ginga Izumo voiced by Youko Matsuoka.
  • In the anime adaptation of the popular manga Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin, Gin (the main character) is played by the Japanese voice actress Eiko Yamada. In the next series, Ginga Densetsu Weed, Gin's son, Weed, is played by Japanese voice actress Sachi Kokuryu.
  • Mamiko Noto as Yukinari Sasaki in Girls Bravo.
  • Hiromi Hirata has voiced male charaters such as Roux Liskin (Rumpelsti Ltskin) in The Good Witch of the West.
  • A very, very strange example of this is seen in The Great Mission to Save Princess Peach!. One would expect the male character voiced by a female to be Kibidango, the cute little puppy who helps the Mario Bros. through the adventure. But no, he's voiced by a guy. The character that got subjected to this trope was Bowser, being voiced by Japanese soul singer Akiko Wada. He got a male voice actor in the Super Mario Amada Series though, where he was voiced by Masaharu Satō.
  • Gundam Build Fighters:
    • Gundam Build Fighters has Sei Iori and Sachi Kokuryu as Reiji.
    • The sequel Try has Sekai Kamiki Voiced by Kazumi Togashi.
  • In the English dub of Haré+Guu, young Haré is voiced by Philece Sampler (who also voiced Cody in Digimon Adventure 02), while in the original japanese his voice is done by Rikako Aikawa. Secondary character Toposte got a dub subversion, though, voiced by Konomi Maeda in the original, and David Duncan in the dub.
  • Hayate the Combat Butler:
    • The titular character himself is voiced by Ryouko Shiraishi, Wataru is voiced again by a girl, Marina Inoue, and Sir Taiga is voiced by Rina Satou, who also voices the robot inventor Shiori Makimura.
    • Averted in the Filipino dub where Hayate Ayasaki and Wataru Tachibana are voiced by male voice actors with Jonel Bituin (later, Fourth Lee)lent the voice of the former and Ely Martin (later, Jefferson Utanes and AJ Concepcion) lent the voice of the latter but Taiga remained voiced by a woman (Charmaine Cordoviz).
  • The anime for Hetalia: Axis Powers features Yuki Kaida as China, Ai Orikasa as Sealand and Romi Park as Switzerland. The latter also doubles as a Shout-Out to Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), as his sister Liechtenstein is played by Rie Kugimiya.
    • In the CD dramas, Kugimiya also plays Latvia. However, in the TV series Latvia was voiced by the male Kazutada "Kokoro" Tanaka, who also plays Poland.
    • China is also played by a woman (Clarine Harp) in the English dub as well, although Switzerland is voiced by John Burgmeier.
    • Subverted in the cases of Iceland, Norway and Hong Kong. There were many online rumors pointing out to them getting female seiyuu for the animated series, with some even including prospect names (Mitsuki Saiga for Iceland, Miyuki Sawashiro for Norway, and Junko Minagawa for Hong Kong). However, the anime had them voiced by males instead — with Ayumu Asakura as Iceland, Masami Iwasaki as Norway, and Motoki Takagi as Hong Kong.
    • Played for Laughs in the English dub of "I Was Overwhelmed by Heroines", in which Latvia's Nyotalia counterpart is still voiced by his regular voice actor.
  • Hello! Sandybell: Tomas Bolme voices Kitty's mother in the Swedish dub.
  • Despite being a teenager, Satoshi from Higurashi: When They Cry is voiced by a woman. Keiichi is the same age as him and averts this trope.
  • Majority of the male characters in the otokonoko anime Himegoto are voiced by women:
    • The protagonist, Hime Arikawa being voiced by Yuuki Kuwahara.
    • Hime’s brother, Kaguya Arikawa voiced by Chinatsu Akasaki
    • Hiro voiced by Azusa Tadokoro
    • Mitsunaga Oda voiced by Ayane Sakura
  • How to Keep a Mummy has Sora Kashiwagi is voiced by Mutsumi Tamura. Minami Tsuda voiced the younger Sora.
  • In Hunter × Hunter, both versions of the anime had crossdressing voices for Gon, Kurapica (who is in his late teens but is androgynous looking), and Killua. In the 1999 anime, those three characters were voiced by Junko Takeuchi, Yuki Kaida and Kanako Mitsuhashi respectively, while in the 2011 anime, those three were voiced by Megumi Han, Miyuki Sawashiro and Mariya Ise, in that order. The only main character who averts this is Leorio, who is voiced in the 1999 version by Hozumi Gouda, and in the 2011 version by Keiji Fujiwara.
  • In ICE, Julia is played by a man in both Japanese and English.
  • Inazuma Eleven:
    • The Japanese version has many male characters voiced by female seiyuus. The protagonists of the first two series, Endou and Tenma, are voiced by Junko Takeuchi and Yuka Terasaki respectively and most of the Bishonens and young/young-looking characters are voiced by female seiyuus as well.
    • The English dub has far fewer examples, as most of the boys, including a big part of those voiced by women in the Japanese version, are voiced by men. However, Endou Mamoru/Mark Evans still plays it straight with Sarrah Hausser.
  • Inuyasha:
  • In Ixion Saga DT, Jun Fukuyama voices Mariandale, the princesses' maid. Turns out she's transgender.
  • Kamisama Minarai: Himitsu no Cocotama and its Sequel Series Kira Kira Happy Hirake Cocotama have the majority of the male Cocotamas voiced by women, with the exceptions being Tama-Senin and Coco-Senin in the former and Pantonio, Doku-Doctor, Sebastian and Kagi-Sennin in the latter.
  • Marina Inoue voices both genders of Natsuru Senou in Kämpfer. It was later averted in English dub with Howard Wang and Sabrina Owen in two respective genders.
  • Karakuri Circus: Masaru Saiga, a preteen boy, is voiced by a woman named Chihiro Ueda.
  • The Secret Craven: Colin Craven is voiced by a woman, Minami Takayama.
  • In the Kaze to Ki no Uta OVA, Serge, Gilbert, Rosemariné and Sebastien are voiced by Noriko Ohara, Yuko Sasaki, Yoshiko Sakakibara and Yōko Ogai, respectively.
  • Voltes V: Hiyoshi is voiced by Noriko Ohara, who also voices Katherine. Even the Greek and Italian dubs cast a female voice actress for him.
  • Kimba the White Lion has five voice actors, so it's no surprise that nearly every if not every child is voiced by a woman, including Kimba, the manliest character in the show. The exception is the 1989 anime, where Kimba is voiced by grown males for the English Dub and the original Japanese version.
  • Knight's & Magic has Rie Takahashi voicing Ernesti (Eru) Echevarria. Despite Eru's effeminate appearance, he is voiced by Justin Briner in the dub.
  • Sixteen-year-old Shinkuro in Kure-nai is voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro. Sawashiro is a great voice actress, but it's still slightly weird. He was a big Playing Against Type role for Mrs. Sawashiro, who until then played Moe girls rather than anything.
  • With the characters of Kyou no Go no Ni being elementary school children, it’s not surprising that the boys would be voiced by female seiyuus.
  • Dio Eraclea in Last Exile was voiced by Junko Noda in the Japanese version. Not so in the English dub, where he was voiced by Joshua Seth.
    • Same could be said of Japanese Claus. In Japanese he was voiced by Mayumi Asano, and in English by Johnny Yong Bosch.
    • As well as Lucciola, and unlike the other two, it's the same in both versions.
  • Love Kome -We Love Rice- has two examples:
    • Misae Komori as Komachi Akita
    • Nina Tamaki as Maru Niko
  • The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer: Taiyou Akane, the youngest male Beast Knight, is voiced by female voice actress Mutsumi Tamura.
  • A number of one-time, minor female characters in Lucky Star are voiced by a male actor with a very raspy voice. This seems to be part of the joke.
  • A new comer, Keaki Watanabe voices a 17-year-old teenage boy named Testa Lielbelle in Luger Code 1951. This is also her very first role as a seiyuu.
  • In both the Japanese and English versions of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, every young male is voiced by a female. In the original version, said voice actresses sometimes take the role of actual females in the series as well, which can lead to some interesting surprises, like learning that Vivio, Nanoha and Fate's adopted daughter, shares the voice actress of Yuuno, the enemy of the Nanoha/Fate shipping faction.
  • Ayane Sakura plays Souta Kishibe, a.k.a La Pucelle, in both his male and female forms in Magical Girl Raising Project.
  • In the Magi anime adaptation, Aladdin is voiced by Kaori Ishihara in Japanese, and by Erica Mendez in English.
  • In the anthology series, Manga Sekai Mukashi Banashi, in addition to women voicing young boys sometimes even teenagers like Romeo from Romeo and Juliet and Prince Siegfried from Swan Lake were voiced by women; the Frankenstein episode took this to the extreme as even middle aged and old men had female voice actors.
  • Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers has Akira Akatsuki voiced by Mitsuki Saiga.
  • Mazinger Z: In Spain, sixteen-year-old male Kouji Kabuto was voiced by voice actress Julia Gallego, who is an adult woman.
  • Merc Storia has Yuu voiced by Mutsumi Tamura.
  • Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch has a few. Lady Bat makes the most sense, being a Creepy Crossdresser to begin with, and the voice actress, who had previously played Maria on the show (and came back to reprise her first role twice), managed to sound like an effeminate man. Not to mention she was shown talking to herself, since she also played Fuku. The others were a Weasel Mascot, an androgynous looking angel and an excitable underclassman boy, all of which are also popular choices for women to play.
  • Asuhi Imizu of Mikagura School Suite is voiced by Ai Kakuma in Japanese and a woman in English.
  • Surprisingly, a female voices the 16-year-old Sai Saici in Mobile Fighter G Gundam, whereas the male Kappei Yamaguchi voiced him in the Japanese version.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam Wing's Quatre was voiced by Ai Orikasa. Averted in the English dub, where he's played by Brad Swaile.
  • A rather interesting (and literal) twist in Mobile Suit Gundam 00: In one of the drama CDs, Tieria poses as a female student to infiltrate the high school that Louise and Saji attend. While disguised, his voice is provided by...his normal voice actor, Hiroshi Kamiya, who can apparently pull off a rather convincing female voice. Who knew? This is repeated in the second season, where Tieria dresses as a woman (with giant boobs) to infiltrate a party the bad guys are throwing. Considering Tieira was a major source of Viewer Gender Confusion before the show aired...
  • Monochrome Factor has Mitsuki Saiga voicing Haruka.
  • Monster:
  • Tao in Mysterious Cities of Gold was also played by a woman in both the original 1982 Japanese (Junko Hori) and 1998 Japanese redub (Motoko Kumai).
  • Nabari no Ou has two examples:
    • Miharu Rokujou voiced by Rie Kugimiya in the original and a woman in the English dub.
    • Yoite is voiced by a female in Japanese. Averted in the English dub.
  • Naruto:
    • Both the Japanese and (nearly any) dub version (except for Polish, German, Czech, Hungarian, European Spanish, Filipino and Italian at least) have the title character of Naruto voiced by a woman (Junko Takeuchi and Maile Flanagan in Japanese and English, respectively), where as all other male children his age are voiced by men in both the English and Japanese versions, except for Haku and the kids that are younger than Naruto of course.
    • A weirder example is Orochimaru, whose Japanese voice is a woman despite him being a very effeminate adult male. His dub voice is instead a man who imitates the mannerism of the woman who voiced the body he was disguised as when introduced.
      • In the Latin-American dub, Orochimaru first has a female VA as he goes under his Grass Ninja disguise. After his true identity is revealed, he's voiced by a male voice actor who does a similar trick as Steven Blum.
      • Spain's dub does exactly the same. Though in his case, David Robles (Orochimaru's Spanish voice) instead of imitating feminine mannerisms, goes for a subtle-yet-obvious evil tone approach. Too bad his voice sounds too young for the character, like a man in his 20s to early 30s. Orochimaru is supposed to be over 50.
      • What makes this whole thing even stranger is the fact that the person Orochimaru disguises himself as is male in the original Japanese version.
    • Naruto's son, Boruto, is also voiced by a woman in Japanese (Yuko Sanpei) and English (Amanda Céline Miller).
  • Aya Endo lent her voice to some male characters, most notably Cruz Schild in NEEDLESS.
  • Rina Sato was the voice of ten-year-old Welshman Negi Springfield in Negima! Magister Negi Magi. (In an interesting twist, Negi's voice in the North American dub is provided by an adult man who manages to sound convincingly like a ten-year-old boy.)
  • Shinji Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion is voiced by a woman (Megumi Ogata) in the original Japanese version. Ogata has made a living out of voicing young boys and teenagers (Shinji, Yukito, Kurama), as well as tomboyish girls (Sailor Uranus).
    • She also voiced Kenshin Himura in the drama CD's that predated the Rurouni Kenshin anime.
    • She voiced Naoi in Angel Beats!, who is in a one-sided Ho Yay relationship with the male protagonist.
    • And then she played Makoto Naegi and Nagito Komaeda in both the games and the anime versions of Danganronpa.
  • In almost every version of One Piece, Chopper was voiced by a female. This includes both the original Japanese voice (Ikue Otani) and her brief substitute (Kazue Ikura). 4Kids had Lisa Ortiz... using the exact same voice she used for Musa on Winx Club, to boot. The Funimation dub continues this with Brina Palencia. In his normal form, this is OK, but when he frequently transforms into a six-foot-tall Yeti creature, the results are kind of weird.
    • The Filipino dub is one exception. Chopper is voiced by a male (Maynard Yanes). Also unlike most other dubs, Chopper's voice in the dub is not child-like. His voice also deepens during his larger transformations.
    • Such is the case for Luffy as well, despite him being 17 (19 after the Time Skip). He is voiced by Mayumi Tanaka, who also voices Krillin, in Dragon Ball. She also voices Daiya from Gaiking: Legend of Daiku Maryu, which is rather amusing since he falls into the line of Hot-Blooded, "Gar" mecha pilots.
      • Enforced by Funimation dub when it comes to Luffy. Originally they wanted to have a male cast voicing him but Executive Meddling by Toei forced them to pick a female cast by him. As a result, they chose Colleen Clinkenbeard as his voice actress. Strange though, seeing that she's voiced very adult females such as Yuuko, Nice, and Riza.
      • The first Brazilian dub had Luffy voiced by a man... and only covered half of the 4Kids run. The eventual redub comissioned by Toei also had a woman as Luffy.
  • Osomatsu-kun:
    • Osomatsu-Kun had most of the boy characters played by women in the 1966 and 1988 adaptations, which was kept for their appearances in the pachislot game.
    • The sextuplets would avert this in Osomatsu-san after growing up, with their seldom-seen 1966 selves also averting the trope by being voiced by the same actors. Only Chibita and Hatabou keep this up now (voiced by Sachi Kokuryu and Momoko Saito respectively), both being young enough looking to get away with it.
  • In Overlord, the English dub plays this straight by casting Morgan Berry as Nphirea Balear, despite being averted in the original Japanese version where he is voiced by Ayumu Murase.
  • The title character of Panpaka Pants is a boy piglet voiced by female seiyuu Yoshino Nanjō.
  • In the anime of The Pet Girl of Sakurasou, male Ryuunosuke Akasaka is voiced by female Yui Horie.
  • Pokémon: The Series:
    • Ash Ketchum has been voiced by three women in the English dub. Naturally, his original Japanese voice was female, too (Rica Matsumoto, better known around here as a member of JAM Project).
    • Veronica Taylor, Ash's first English actress, also used the exact same voice for GaoGaiGar's Mamoru Amani.
    • The German dub didn't even try. While his first voice was quite passable, his second voice came from the same actress who voiced Sailor Jupiter throughout the years of Sailor Moon. The shows would occasionally air back-to-back, too. Subverted in season 20, when the male Felix Mayer took over as Ash.
    • He's also voiced by a woman (Voula Kosta) in the Greek dub.
    • Averted in Spain. He is voiced by Adolfo Moreno, a voice actor that, despite being over 30, has a voice that can easily voice characters less than half his age. He is also Sasuke Uchiha's Spanish voice before the Time Skip, among many others.
    • Also averted in Turkish, Hindi, Hungarian, Swedish, Norwegian, Indonesian, Italian, Hebrew, French, and Danish.
    • As well as in the LatAm version, in which Ash used to be voiced by Gabriel Ramos (a.k.a. "Gabo"), the only dubber famous enough to have his own program in MTV. And as years pass, you can't help notice that Ash's voice has become rougher with time. In the last chapters of the season 11, he was voiced by Irwin Daayán, and then, in the season 12, Gabo returned as Ash's voice, recording from Argentina, where he lived for a few years due to having been moved to MTV's Argentinian headquarters. In the Season 13, due to the studio change, and other factors, he is now voiced by Miguel Ángel Leal, better known as the second voice of Jaden Yuki in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX.
    • Exactly the same case of the Brazilian dub, in which Ash's been played by Fábio Lucindo since the series' beginning and in all movies and specials. Unlike Ramos, however, he still voiced the character until he moved to Portugal for a bit due to studying at the University of Coimbra (he came back to Brazil in 2018). After the dub moved to Rio de Janeiro, Ash still has a male voice actor (Charles Emmanuel).
    • Meowth is voiced by a woman (Inuko Inuyama) in Japanese.
    • Hun of Team Rocket (in English) and Saturn of Team Galactic (in Japanese) are also voiced by women, and obviously so. Neither is even trying to sound masculine, despite both characters being referred to as men.
    • Also in the English dub, a lot of old hags are voiced by Jimmy Zoppi/Billy Beach/Carter Cathcart/whatever pseudonym he happens to be using.
    • As is common with little boys in anime, Max is voiced by a woman in both the original and dubbed version of the show.
    • Same with Parker (Chloe's younger brother).
    • In the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers animated specials, both Wigglytuff (Sarah Natchonenny) and Chatot (Maddie Blaustein) are voiced by women. This was Blaustein's final role in the franchise before her death.
  • Subversions in Project A-Ko: Captain Napolipolita and Agent D are often mistaken for men, especially the latter, but they're actually women (their entire race is all-female). They're voiced, in both English and Japanese versions, by men. On the other hand, Mari, a hulking schoolgirl that is an eight-feet-tall mass of muscle and menace (and an obvious parody of Fist of the North Star,) by all rights should have a deep, manly voice, but she opens her mouth... and a cutesy, high-pitched voice comes out.
    • Spy D is voiced by Tesshō Genda, who is a well-known Japanese live-action actor renowned for his "tough guy" roles. In fact, Spy D's personality and physical appearance were based on Tessho Genda. It is reported that he had no idea the character was female until he saw the finished movie.
    • The cutesy, high-pitched voice in the first movie makes the English line "What? I ain't no boy, just 'cuz I shave every day!" even more amusing upon first hearing it.
  • Punch Line:
    • Yuuta is played by a woman, which is a bit unusual considering his age but is not unheard of. Subverted when it turns out Yuuta is biologically female. He is a boy who switched bodies with a girl.
    • The German dub cast a male voice actor for Yuuta. As his body is biologically female, this is a straighter example than his Japanese voice.
  • Radiant:
    • Yumiri Hanamori voices Seth.
    • Averted in English and French dubs. In English, Seth is voiced by Christopher Llewyn Ramirez.
  • Abe no Masahiro of Shōnen Onmyōji is voiced by females in the Japanese and the English dub.
  • Sarah Strange was the original voice of boy-type Ranma in the North American dub of Ranma ½. When she left after the third season, Richard Ian Cox took over the role. However, Strange used a more masculine delivery than Cox, and it resulted in her voice almost sounding like Ralph Macchio at times. For some reason, she didn't also voice girl-type Ranma, but she did get a shot voicing boy-type Ranma disguised as a girl, and her voice didn't sound much different.
    • In the European Spanish dub of the series, the same actress portrayed both sides of Ranma. This led to a spot-on performance as female Ranma... and a male Ranma that sounded like an eight-year-old boy. Or a castrato.
    • The Mexican dub was even stranger: the voice of Wholesome Crossdresser Tsubasa Kurenai, while in disguise or dressed up as a schoolgirl, was performed by a woman. As soon as he revealed he was male, he was given the voice of a very gruff male actor who in no way resembled, or even tried to, the actress' performance in the slightest.
    • The Brazilian dub was even stranger with Tsubasa; he was voiced by Julia Castro, whose career in voice acting is almost restricted to voicing little boys. But truth is, her voice for little boys sounds great and can even fool anyone with an untrained ear, while her voice for women is... atrociously horrible.
  • The younger male characters in Revolutionary Girl Utena are voiced by female seiyuu, most notably Aya Hisakawa as Miki. The English dub plays them as male — maybe understandable as teenage Miki, but Tsuwabuki is a third-grader who sounds at least twice, perhaps three times his age (damn, Akiko Yajima). Given that his young age is a major point of the character, it's pretty jarring.
  • Kenshin Himura in Rurouni Kenshin, an adult male, was played by a woman, Mayo Suzukaze. Which is unusual in that the character is 28 by the start of the series, sometimes even mistaken as older, and a Retired Badass. Then again, he seemed to be seriously swinging away from that and more towards Bishōnen. Averted in most other languages, where Kenshin has a male voice actor.
    • His real-life counterpart, Gensai Kawakami, was indeed said to be rather effeminate (as in pretty and small).
    • The actress is also a former otokoyaku (or player of male roles) for the Takarazuka Revue, so she had some experience playing adult men. She does a very convincing tenor as his serious Superpowered Evil Side; with his usual boyish voice, she falls in and out of believability.
    • Also 18-year-old Bishōnen Soujirou Seta, voiced by Noriko Hidaka (not to be outdone, the Enghish dub uses two voices, both female: Tara Jayne and Lynn Fisher. Averted in the New Kyoto Arc OVA, where hs is voiced by Clint Bickham).
    • Averted in Spain in Yahiko's case. A 10-year-old boy was voiced by a male actor, David García Llop. In the original and English, a woman voiced the role.
  • The protagonist of Saber Marionette J is voiced by a woman in Japanese, which would be unremarkable if not for the voice actress not doing a terribly good job at it (making Otaru sound almost as much like a woman as the marionettes around him)
    • The same actress, Yuka Imai, did far better as Nabuca in Now and Then, Here and There — as one of the older members of a child army, he rarely sounded like anything but a teenage boy.
    • Averted in the Mexican dub of the series, where actor Irwin Dayaan did an excellent portrayal of a youthful yet manly sounding Otaru.
  • Half-example: On Sailor Moon, The Sailor Starlights are played by women, which isn't odd at first as in the manga they are women like all Sailor Senshi, just crossdressers like Haruka.... until one realizes that in the Anime version, the Sailor Starlights physically become men in order to hide their identities and pose as a pop group singing about a woman, namely their Princess. Once they transform and turn back into women, they are no longer cross dressing voices. The musical versions might match up too however, as Henshins happen offstage (Or on a darkened stage with the aid of body doubles) and it is not stated if the characters are actually physically male or just crossdressing ala the manga.
  • In Sailor Moon, Usagi's brother, Shingo, was voiced by the actress who would later play Sailor Pluto during the '90s anime. This was the case in 'Crystal' and the '90s English dub, where he became "Sammy." Rather infamously, this was dropped in the Viz dub, where he was given a surprisingly deep voice.
  • In Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, the lead villain Gel Sadra is meant to be a woman, but is voiced by the male Masaru Ikeda, who performs her in a barely-convincing, flamboyant falsetto tone. This confused the Saban dub team to the point where they initially changed "Mallanox" to be a man in the scripts, but later had to backtrack and refer to the character as a woman when it became hard to hide her backstory. Even so, they still kept R. Martin Klein as her voice actor when she was dressed in her full villain garb, while then having an unknown voice actress portray her while out of costume.
  • SD Gundam World Heroes: Wukong Impulse Gundam, who is a boy, is voiced by Aki Kanada, who is a woman.
  • Being a series about voice actresses, Seiyu's Life! has several in universe examples, most notably in the last episode when Ichigo says that Futaba has a talent for voicing young boys.
  • The English dub of Servamp plays this straight by casting Michelle Rojas as Old Child, despite being averted in the original Japanese version where he is voiced by Ayumu Murase.
  • Sgt. Frog:
    • Kumiko Watanabe voices Keroro Gensou, from his days as Chibi Kero (elementary school age thereabouts) to present-day full-grown galactic invasion commander.
    • In addition, Tamama is voiced by Etsuko Kozakura and Fuyuki was voiced by first Tomoko Kawakami and later Houko Kuwashima. Although voiced by a male as an adult, Giroro's younger self is voiced by Aki's actress in flashbacks.
    • In the English version, this is averted in the case of Keroro who is clearly voiced by a guy, while Giroro's child voice is voiced by the same actor as his adult self. It's still played straight for Tamama and Fuyuki however, as they're respectively voiced by Brina Palencia and Leah Clark.
  • Strange example in Shinya! Tensai Bakabon: Jun Fukuyama plays the part of the voluptuous Mama using his usual contralto voice... but only because he was also voicing Papa when he decided to change his voice actor. He barely had to change tone to pull it off.
  • Abe no Masahiro of Shōnen Onmyōji is voiced by females in the Japanese and the English dub.
  • All the male characters in Simoun are played by women. (Although given the nature of the show, that shouldn't be a surprise.)
  • Slayers NEXT:
  • Sonic X:
    • Ella is voiced by Kujira in Japanese. The English dub plays this trope straight by casting Mike Pollock, who also plays Eggman, as Ella.
    • As is usually expected with pre-pubescent boy characters in anime, 12-year-old Chris is voiced by Sanae Kobayashi in Japanese, and Suzanne Goldish in the dub.
    • While Bokkun is voiced by a woman in the original, the dub averts this as he is voiced by Andrew Rannells.
  • Black Star in Soul Eater is voiced by a woman (Yumiko Kobayashi in Japanese and Brittney Karbowski in English). This is more evident in Black Star's character song "My Star."
  • Another early American voice actress in anime dubbing was Corrine Orr. She voiced Spritle in addition to voicing Trixie for Speed Racer.
  • In the dub version of Steamboy, 22-year-old Anna Paquin plays 13-year-old James Ray Steam. In the Japanese version, the role was played by 17-year-old Anne Suzuki.
  • In Summer Time Rendering, Ryuunosuke Minakata is voiced by female voice actress Yuko Sanpei. She even voices him in the final episode, where he's now a full grown adult rather than a fifteen year old boy.
  • Super Lovers has two examples:
  • The original Japanese dub of Suzy's Zoo: Daisuki! Witzy has an all-female VA cast, despite Witzy, Boof and Patches being male characters in the show (also, Patches is voiced by Mitsuki Saiga).
  • In both the Japanese and original English dub of Swan Lake had the male squirrel Hans voiced by a woman, averted in the second English dub where he is voiced by Robert Axelrod.
  • In Tears to Tiara, Rathty is voiced by male voice actor Greg Ayres in the Sentai English dub. Rathty's a girl. This casting choice was likely because Rathty is mistaken for a boy when she first appears.
  • Rimuru is voiced by Miho Okazaki in That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime.
  • To Love Ru has two examples:
    • No stranger to voicing male characters, Akeno Watanabe voices Rito Yuuki and his female form.
    • Fuyuka Ōura voices both forms of Run/Ren Elsie Jewelria.
  • Being an anime about elementary school boys, it's not too surprising that females provide the voices for the boy characters in Tomica Hyper Rescue Drive Head Mobile Emergency Police.
    • Natsumi Fujiwara as Gō Kurumada.
    • Sachi Kokuryu as Taiga Yagura
    • Kei Shindō as Jin Ishino
  • The English dub of Touken Ranbu - Hanamaru plays it straight by casting Anastasia Muñoz, Ryan Reynolds, Rachel Robinson, Jad Saxton, Alexis Tipton, Alison Viktorin and Morgan Berry as Imanotsurugi, Maeda Toshiro, Namazuo Toshiro, Akita Toshiro, Midare Toshiro, Nakigitsune and Sayo Samonji respectively, despite being averted in the original Japanese where they are voiced by Daiki Yamashita, Reona Irie, Soma Saito, Yoshitaka Yamaya, Kazutomi Yamamoto, Shintarō Asanuma and Ayumu Murase respectively.
  • While the English dub of Tsugumomo averts the trope, the Japanese version plays it straight:
    • Main character Kazuya Kagami is voiced by Yuko Sanpei in Japanese and Howard Wang in English.
    • Osamu Osanai is voiced by voice actress Shiho Sasaki in Japanese and Stephen Fu in English.
    • Shirou Shiramine is voiced by voice actress Sachi Kokuryu in Japanese and Kyle Igneczi in English.
  • Loran in ∀ Gundam. Another Romi Park voice. Then you add the fact that Loran crossdressed for a few episodes early in the series...
  • Tweeny Witches: Lennon, a teenage boy, is voiced by a woman named Brianne Siddall in the Media Blasters English dub.
  • Twin Princess of Wonder Planet: Of the six princes on the Wonder Planet, only two (Auler, Bright) are voiced by guys. Junko Minagawa is the voice of one of the others. In Season 2, one of the new princes is voiced by a girl, prompting a bit of gender confusion at first when he was originally listed as a princess (his hairstyle didn't help any).
  • Another Osamu Tezuka character is Unico the Baby Unicorn who was voiced by women in almost every animated apperance. In his animation debut Unico: Black Cloud and White Feather (1979) he was voiced Rocío Banquells in the 1980 Spanish dub compared to the Japanese version where he was voiced by Hiroya Oka who was a boy. For the 1981 and 1983 animated film The Fantastic Adventures of Unico, and Unico in the Island of Magic, Unico was voiced by Katsue Miwa in Japanese, Barbara Goodson for both English Dubs, and Verónica Castro for the Spanish Dubs for the films. In the 2000 animated short Saving Our Fragile Earth, Unico was voiced by Akiko Yajima in Japan and Aracely Arámbula in Spanish. In the 2005 animated short Dr. Pinoko's Forest Adventures, Rumiko Tezuka (Osamu Tezuka's daughter) was chosen to voice Unico for the short film.
  • In UQ Holder!, Touta Konoe is voiced by actress Yuka Takakura. In the German dub, Touta is voiced by a male voice actor Tom Raczko.
  • Urusei Yatsura:
    • This applies to Ten in pretty much every language the series has been dubbed into.
    • In Spain the series was dubbed in Castilian and Catalan. In the Catalan dub, male lead Ataru was dubbed by a woman, Carme Capdet. Animax did the same with its English dub by casting Candice Moore.
    • This was typically averted whenever one of the main male cast members like Ataru or Mendou appeared as a child, they usually had their adult voice actors speaking in higher pitched voices with child like speech patterns.
  • In the Violence Jack anime Mad Saulus' lover Blue is voiced by a man in both the English and Japanese dub, well it does make kind of sense because Blue is a transvestite.
  • In Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun, the English dub plays this straight by casting Laura Stahl as Iruma, despite being averted in the original Japanese version where he is voiced by Ayumu Murase.
  • Sheyenne Rainstorm in Wild AR Ms: Twilight Venom was played by Brianne Siddall, using the pseudonym Ian Hawk, for a double gender-bend. Siddall used this very same pseudonym during her role as Jim Hawking from Outlaw Star.
  • Wish Upon the Pleiades has some examples:
  • Yuma Kuga in World Trigger is voiced by females in both the Japanese and English.
  • Yo-kai Watch:
    • Played straight in the Japanese version, where Keita is voiced by Haruka Tomatsu. In the English dub Nate averts this by being played by Johnny Yong Bosch.
    • Jibanyan, Komasan, Komajiro, and Usapyon are voiced by women in both the English and Japanese version.
  • Yakitate!! Japan has two examples:
  • The English dub of Yona of the Dawn plays this straight by casting Lindsay Seidel as Min-su, despite being averted in the original Japanese version where he is voiced by Kazutomi Yamamoto.
  • Both Yami Bakura and Ryou Bakura from Yu-Gi-Oh! are voiced by a woman (Rica Matsumoto, to be specific). The strangest part about this is the fact that Yami Bakura is a psychotic murderous thief whose original form was a psychotic, murderous thief KING/grave robber with an eight-pack.
    • Originally, You Inoue voiced Bakura until the end of the Duelist Kingdom arc; when Inoue-san was diagnosed with lung cancer and retired (then passed away), Matsumoto took over.
    • Dartz, the antagonist of the Doma Arc, was voiced by Yuu Emaou, a former otokoyaku of the Takarazuka Revue.
    • Yugi (and the Other Yugi) were voiced by Megumi Ogata in the Toei series, while in the Duel Monsters series they averted the trope by having Dorama actor Shunsuke Kazama to do it. Mokuba, on the other hand, always followed the trope, being voiced by Katsue Miwa in the first series, and Junko Takeuchi in Duel Monsters.
    • In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Sho is voiced by Masami Suzuki and Johan is voiced by Kanako Irie. While this is understandable in Sho's case as he's short, looks young and has an innocent personality, nobody has any idea why the animators thought it would be better to give handsome, tall and muscular Johan a girly voice.
  • In Yuri!!! on Ice, the English dub plays this straight by casting Trina Nishimura as Kenjiro Minami, despite being averted in the original Japanese where he's voiced by Ayumu Murase.
  • Before taking on the role of Doraemon, Nobuyo Oyama voiced Kappei in Zambot 3.
  • The title character of Zatch Bell! is voiced by Ikue Otani (Japan) and Debi Derriberry (US).
  • Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Pete Reston is a Sex Shifter but was assigned male at birth. In the anime adaptation he's voiced by Riho Sugiyama in Japanese and Lexi Nieto in English.

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