Veteran 'One Piece' and 'Dragon Ball Z' Actor Dead at 56

Image via Toei Animation Published Sep 10, 2026, 3:39 PM EDT Hannah has been writing about horror, sci-fi, and all things nerdy since 2021. At Collider, she covers news and conducts interviews, along with contributing features that dive deep into genre storytelling and why it works. If there’s something lurking in the shadows, she’s probably already writing about it if she's not too busy watching a tape from her VHS collection. Sign in to your Collider account For nearly three decades, Mike McFarland helped shape how English-speaking audiences experienced some of anime’s most important series. His unmistakable performances can be heard throughout Dragon Ball, One Piece, Attack on Titan, and Fullmetal Alchemist, while his work behind the microphone influenced an entire generation of English dubs. To millions of fans, however, he will always be the voice of Master Roshi. McFarland began voicing the legendary Dragon Ball character in the late 1990s and continued playing him across television series, movies, and video games. He also brought Buggy the Clown to life in the English dub of One Piece, long before the pirate became one of the franchise’s most unexpectedly important characters. Those two roles alone made McFarland one of the most recognizable voices in anime. McFarland has died at the age of 56 following a battle with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. He reportedly died Wednesday at a Dallas care facility, surrounded by friends and family. McFarland was diagnosed with glioblastoma in August 2025 after undergoing surgeries for a brain tumor earlier that year. Mike McFarland Helped Define an Entire Era of Anime Credits - Instagram/Mike McFarland (@mikemcfarlandva) McFarland’s career extended far beyond Master Roshi and Buggy. He voiced Jean Havoc in both Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Jean Kirstein in Attack on Titan, Mashirao Ojiro in My Hero Academia, and Koutarou Amon in Tokyo Ghoul. His additional credits included Fruits Basket, Odd Taxi, Psycho-Pass, Trigun Stampede, and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime. His impact behind the scenes was just as significant as the characters he played. McFarland worked as an ADR director, scriptwriter, and producer on English-language versions of numerous anime projects, including Attack on Titan, Fullmetal Alchemist, Dragon Ball, and the Rebuild of Evangelion movies. His direction helped establish performances that became inseparable from these shows for English-speaking audiences. McFarland’s legacy can be heard across decades of beloved anime. He could turn Master Roshi’s shameless comedy into genuine warmth, give Buggy all the ridiculous confidence of a pirate convinced of his own greatness, and bring emotional weight to characters such as Jean Kirstein. That range made his performances memorable, but his generosity and leadership behind the scenes made his influence even greater. Few performers become part of so many different worlds while also helping guide the voices around them. McFarland gave anime fans characters they grew up with, returned to, and continued discovering across generations. He leaves behind a body of work that will remain an essential part of anime’s English-language history. Release Date October 20, 1999 Network Fuji TV Directors Hiroaki Miyamoto, Konosuke Uda, Junji Shimizu, Satoshi Itō, Munehisa Sakai, Katsumi Tokoro, Yutaka Nakajima, Yoshihiro Ueda, Kenichi Takeshita, Yoko Ikeda, Ryota Nakamura, Hiroyuki Kakudou, Takahiro Imamura, Toshihiro Maeya, Yûji Endô, Nozomu Shishido, Hidehiko Kadota, Sumio Watanabe, Harume Kosaka, Yasuhiro Tanabe, Yukihiko Nakao, Keisuke Onishi, Junichi Fujise, Hiroyuki Satou Cast Mayumi Tanaka Monkey D. Luffy (voice) Kazuya Nakai Roronoa Zoro (voice) Writers Jin Tanaka, Akiko Inoue, Junki Takegami, Shinzo Fujita, Shouji Yonemura, Yoshiyuki Suga, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hirohiko Uesaka, Michiru Shimada, Isao Murayama, Takuya Masumoto, Yoichi Takahashi, Momoka Toyoda Franchise(s) One Piece Creator(s) Eiichiro Oda