“What? I don’t believe it!” Actors from Naruto came to SacAnime! This past weekend, heroes and a villain from the hit anime Naruto came together for a panel during SacAnime’s Spring convention in Roseville, California. Cast on the panel included:
- Michael Yurchak, Silly Tobi / Obito Uchiha
- Tony Oliver, Minato Namikaze
- Steve Staley, Neji Hyuga
- Dave Wittenberg, Kakashi Hatake
Naruto Cast at SacAnime Spring
The Naruto cast at SacAnime kicked off their panel discussing how amazing it has been to be on a series running this long. Yurchak recounted how the Internet was just starting out and anime hadn’t landed in the U.S. yet. Thanks to streaming services launching Naruto and COVID, anime’s popularity skyrocketed. It was an unexpected fun gift to anime voice actors that they could have never dreamed about before.
Wittenberg added that the audience feeling emotion was one of the greatest success indicators.
“If our work has in any way touched any of your lives, made you happy, made you sad, made you cry, made you feel, then we’ve done our jobs,” Wittenberg said.
Audience Q&A
The panel opened it up to the audience for their burning Naruto questions. One fan asked what the cast’s favorite funny moments were. Oliver talked about his struggle with fitting 12 words in ¾ of a second and how the engineers eventually slowed down the audio enough so he could be successful. Staley thought back to the Rock Lee spinoff series.
“Neji doesn’t have too many funny moments, but I do think of the series Rock Lee & His Ninja Pals,” Staley said. “The whole thing was funny in my opinion. Just me going off on Rock Lee with all of Neji’s bad attitudes. It wasn’t funny for Neji, but it was funny for everybody else.”
Another fan asked Oliver how he felt about the way the villains treated Naruto, his character’s son who was hated at first. Oliver felt that the teasing ultimately led to Naruto’s success as a character.
“Well, I wasn’t there for a lot of it!” Oliver joked. “It’s part of the arc of him learning to deal with everything. The ill treatment, the distrust, the various things he had to go through was important for him to get to a point where he could accept who he was.”
Furthermore, the cast shared their love for the series with fans throughout the panel, talking about music relating to Naruto, funny and sad core moments, and so much more. Naruto has had such a lasting impact on fans that it was the number one anime on Netflix in 2024, and even referenced in mainstream media. Yurchak threw out a fun piece of trivia toward the end of the panel that wowed the audience.
“You all know who Michael B. Jordan is? He’s an actor, directed Creed 3, and is a big anime fan, specifically Naruto fan,” Yurchak said. “The final fight sequence in Creed 3 is almost frame-for-frame Kakashi and Obito.”
The Naruto cast has a lot of love for the anime. Getting to share their excitement for the series with fans is something they could only dream about many years ago. Thanks to the fans and the rise of anime’s popularity in recent years, that dream has become their reality.
About the Series
Naruto follows Naruto Uzumaki, a young ninja who dreams of becoming the Hokage, or the leader of his village. He learns how to become a ninja on Team 7 alongside Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno under experienced ninja Kakashi Hatake.
Naruto is available to watch on most streaming services.
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