Kiyoshi Kobayashi

Kiyoshi Kobayashi was a Japanese voice actor born in Tokyo in 1933, with a career spanning decades before his death in July 2022 at age 89. He was known for a gravelly, authoritative delivery that he used across many veteran and mentor-type roles.

Kobayashi voices Watari, the elderly caretaker and inventor who supports L throughout the investigation, providing equipment, funding, and quiet loyalty until his death partway through the story. The role called on Kobayashi's gravelly, authoritative delivery, a register he had spent decades perfecting in other veteran and mentor-type parts.

Kobayashi spent over fifty years voicing Daisuke Jigen across the Lupin the Third franchise, one of the longest-running roles in anime history. That longevity made him one of the medium's most recognizable veteran voice actors.

Yes, Kobayashi served as Japan's standard dub voice for actors James Coburn and Lee Marvin. This dubbing work ran alongside his long career voicing Japanese anime and cartoon characters.

Kobayashi also voiced Bem in Humanoid Monster Bem and the Wolf in the Japanese dub of the Droopy cartoons. Those roles added to a body of work built around distinctive, authoritative vocal performances.