Another sad piece of news to share: Voice actress TARAKO, who has played the lead role in Chibi Maruko-chan for 35 years, has passed away at the age of 63. Based on the popular shoujo manga of the same name, the series has run in Japan since 1990. Just this year, Crunchyroll had started to stream the series in North America, after several years of the series being made available internationally on Youtube in multiple languages, including the original Japanese.
TARAKO also did multiple theme songs for Chibi Maruko-chan, and you might have heard her in other series like Chill in Xabungle, Taruruto in Magical Taruruto-kun, Toto in They Were 11, and Kirara in Inuyasha. More recently, she had roles in the reboot of Urusei Yatsura as The Wishing Star, and was Zazie the Beast in Trigun Stampede.
While she may not be as well known in the US, she brought many families so much joy over the years in Chibi Maruko-chan, and for that she will be dearly missed. Rest in peace, TARAKO-san.
News - Crunchyroll has announced that they will be streaming Chibi Maruko-chan starting January 14, 2024. An English version of the long-running shoujo anime series has been available officially on the Chibi Maruko-chan Youtube Channel since 2017 (in fact, this trailer seems to be just Crunchyroll re-uploading their old '17 trailer to their channel for the announcement), but this will be the first time an English streaming platform has picked it up, as far as I know. Sadly, this title seems to be limited to only Crunchyroll's North American line-up, though the official Youtube channel will probably still continue to stream episodes in multiple languages.