Aya Hirano Joins Dragonball Kai Cast

Idol and occasional seiyuu Aya Hirano will be playing the role of デンデ / Dende, a young Namekian, in upcoming episodes of the newly remastered Dragonball Kai.

As the original seiyuu who played Dende, 鈴木富子 / Tomiko Suzuki, regrettably passed away in 2003 due to a heart attack, a new seiyuu was obviously required to perform in the show’s new vocal recordings.

While Hirano’s fame amongst otaku seems reason enough for her selection in the cast, it still has come off as quite a surprise online, especially as Hirano has mostly not done the typical young-boy roles female seiyuu so typically perform.

In any case, this image provided by 2ch is at least tangentially related to Hirano’s latest role:

A translation is available here.