Trivia / Ojarumaru

• Acting for Two: It eventually happens if you consider it's a long-running series and there are loads of characters, forcing the voice actors to play multiple roles. For example, Komachi sometimes interacts with Ojarumaru, and ever since the 4th series, both are voiced by Chinami Nishimura.
• Completely Different Title: The series is officially titled Prince Mackaroo in a number of languages besides Japanese, including English.
• Cross-Dressing Voices:
  • Ojarumaru, Kazuma, and Denbo have been voiced by women in several of the series' international dubs. Aobee and Kisuke are voiced by women in the Hindi dub.
  • Kazuma is portrayed by Yuriko Fuchizaki.
  • Denbo was originally voiced by Rie Iwatsubo, and later by Narumi Satou.
  • Kin-chan has been voiced by women: Harumi Ikoma and Rika Komatsu.
  • Kentaro is voiced by Akemi Okamura.
  • Hoshino is currently voiced by Yuko Sanpei.
  • Tamae is voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro.
• Fandom Life Cycle:
  • In Japan, it's stage 4, being below the popularity of certain other long-running anime but still popular enough to produce well over 1,000 episodes.
  • It's always been level 1 at most in the West; due to a lack of English localizations, the show has barely any organized Western fanbase.
• Kids' Meal Toy: It had a run of eight toys in McDonald's Happy Meals in Japan in 2005. The set primarily consists of wind-up toys of Ojarumaru and some other characters, but also includes a stamp of Ojarumaru that makes noise when you have it on the right setting.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Of the many, many episodes, only a small amount have ever been released on home media. NHK E-Tele does rerun episodes during the show's summer and winter hiatuses, but nowadays only from the 10th series onwards.
• Milestone Celebration: The series celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2012 by having a 3rd special air on March 20. A character event was hosted at the NHK Studio Park Event Hall from August 21 to September 17. Episode 1334 had a Shout-Out to Nintama Rantarou. In addition, NHK E-Tele aired the top 10 episodes of Ojarumaru in a different attire ^note  This was part of an event called "Cosplay Ojarumaru 50" in which people in Japan from September 3 to December 7 could vote on the best episodes of Ojarumaru in a different attire, which would later air on NHK E-Tele in late December. 10 episodes were then selected by NHK based on the most popular votes, half of which were older episodes. from December 24, 2012 to January 10, 2013.
• No Export for You:
  • While Enoki Films manages the worldwide master rights of the series under Prince Mackaroo as its title^note (some countries did release the anime under this same title as well, such as Spain and Philippines) they had never made it available for the U.S.
  • None of the video games ever saw the light of day outside of Japan.
  • According to WowMax Next's official website and the voice acting credits of Finnigan Morris on Talent Status, there was an English dub of Ojarumaru Special: Hinata of the Forgotten Woods produced by the former and Elastic Media Corp. The dub is not known to have been released anywhere in the world.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Chinami Nishimura succeeded Hiroko Konishi as Ojarumaru from the 4th series onwards due to the latter's departure from the show after production of the 3rd series ended. Later in June 2018, Konishi publicly explained that she left the show due to industry disagreements over her role, such recordings of her performance that were used on various merchandise without her consent.
  • Narumi Satou replaced Rie Iwatsubo^note She supposedly "retired" from voice acting in 2004 as Denbo since the 8th series.
  • Rika Komatsu temporarily replaced Harumi Ikoma as Kin-chan in the 3rd series.
  • Yuka Imai succeeded Yuri Amano as Otome-sensei since the 3rd series, but due to a hiatus (and retirement a year later), Imai herself was replaced by Otome-sensei's current voice actress, Atsumi Tanezaki in the 20th series.
  • Yuko Sanpei is actually the second voice of Hoshino. He was originally voiced by Ikusaburo Yamazaki, in the 1st through 3rd series. Yamazaki would later return during production of the 26th series to perform its ending theme "Sennen Traveler" and voices Hoshino Seventeen (a 17-year-old version of Hoshino from the future) in episode 31.
  • Kotono Mitsuishi was the first voice for Hoshino's Mama, then she got replaced by Chinami Nishimura... and then, she was succeeded by Haruhi Terada.
  • Daisuke Yamazaki replaced Masaaki Tsukaka as the voice of Kobayashi Cha in the 16th series.
  • Motoi Koyanagi replaced Toshiya Ueda as the voice of Tommy in the 25th series due to Ueda's death in February 2022.
• Outlived Its Creator: Rin Inumaru died in 2006^note (Little is known about her original manga run, but it's probable it ended way before her death; she later worked as an advisor for the anime in 2002), but the anime has been going stronger ever since 1998.
• Real-Life Relative: Yuji Ueda and Omi Minami (they play Okorinbou & Nikorinbou, respectively) are married.
• Recursive Adaptation: There was a manga adaptation of the anime that ran in Shueisha's Saikyo Jump magazine from 2012-2014, written and illustrated by Tatsuma Ejiri (author of P2! -let's Play Pingpong!-).
• Stunt Casting: In the 19th series premiere, Ojaru 17 (a 17-year-old version of Ojarumaru) is voiced by Kensho Ono.
• Three Shorts: The Spanish, Cantonese, and Thai dubs pair three episodes together in order to fit into a half-hour time slot for TV airings.

---