Toru Furuya

"I have acted Super Mario from 1986 to 1998. Last projects I work on were BS Super Mario Bros for Satellaview."

- Toru Furuya

Tōru Furuya (In Japanese: 古谷 徹) is a Japanese actor, voice actor, and narrator who voiced Mario in various Super Mario commercials, OVA's, games, and movies in Japan. He is best known for his starring role in the film Super Mario Bros.: Peach-hime Kyushutsu Dai Sakusen! as Mario in 1986. Toru Furuya remained the voice of Mario all the way up until 1998, a full three years after Charles Martinet was selected as the voice of Mario in other parts of the world. Furuya is still currently working as a voice actor and narrator in a number of other Japanese anime's such as Dragon Ball Z and One Piece.

Toru was 33 years old, when he was approached by Masami Hata to star as the voice of Mario in the 1986 anime film. He was then followed by Yū Mizushima as Luigi, Akiko Wada as Bowser, and famous Japanese pop singer, Mami Yamase as Princess Peach. Almost three years later, Furuya was asked to reprise his role as Mario for the upcoming Amada Anime Series: Super Mario Bros. alongside two educational Mario related videos. In a recent interview, he had also explained that there would not be any re-releases of any Japanese Mario Anime films.

Much later down the line, Furuya was then contacted by Nintendo themselves instead of animation companies. This time it was to work on the upcoming BS Super Mario Satellaview games. He also later then reunited with a few of the other voice actors which have worked along side Toru with other animated Mario projects.

Works credited

 * Super Mario Bros.: Peach-hime Kyushutsu Dai Sakusen! (1986)
 * ''Super Mario Furikake (1986-1987)
 * Amada Anime Series: Super Mario Bros. (1989)
 * Super Mario no Kōtsū Anzen (1989)
 * Super Mario no Shōbōtai (1989)
 * Super Mario World: Mario to Yoshi no B%C5%8Dken Land (1991)
 * ''BS Super Mario Collection
 * ''BS Super Mario USA Power Challenge
 * ''Excitebike: Bun Bun Mario Battle Stadium