Naruto’s English Voice Actor: Maile Flanagan and the Full English Cast
Maile Flanagan voices Naruto in the English dub, and has done so since the dub began in 2005, carrying the role across the original series, Shippuden, and into Boruto.
The English cast
| Character | Actor | Also known for |
|---|---|---|
| Naruto Uzumaki | Maile Flanagan | Piggley Winks in Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks (Emmy winner); voice work in Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs |
| Sasuke Uchiha | Yuri Lowenthal | Peter Parker in Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man games |
| Sakura Haruno | Kate Higgins | |
| Kakashi Hatake | Dave Wittenberg | |
| Jiraiya | David Lodge | |
| Tsunade | Debi Mae West | |
| Orochimaru | Steve Blum | Spike Spiegel in Cowboy Bebop |
| Itachi Uchiha | Crispin Freeman | |
| Gaara | Liam O’Brien | |
| Hinata Hyuga | Stephanie Sheh | |
| Kurenai Yuhi | Mary Elizabeth McGlynn | Also voices Mei Terumi, Katsuyu, and Koharu Utatane |
One thing worth noting when you compare cast lists across sites: several actors carry more than one role in this dub. Mary Elizabeth McGlynn alone voices Kurenai, Mei Terumi, Katsuyu, and Koharu Utatane, which is normal practice for a production with a cast this size, and it is a common source of confusion in fan-maintained credit lists.
Steve Blum’s presence is worth flagging for the same reason. He voices Orochimaru here, and he is probably better known to the same audience as Spike Spiegel in Cowboy Bebop, which means a lot of viewers recognize the voice long before they place where from.
How the two leads compare
The most interesting thing about Naruto’s dub casting only becomes clear when you set it beside the Japanese original. Junko Takeuchi voices Naruto in Japanese. Maile Flanagan voices him in English. Both productions, working separately and with no obligation to match each other, independently cast an adult woman as a twelve-year-old boy and kept her for two decades.
That convergence is not a coincidence. A boy actor’s voice breaks within a couple of years, which is unworkable for a role that has to sound continuous across hundreds of episodes recorded over twenty years. Casting an adult woman solves the continuity problem outright, which is why the practice is standard in Japanese anime production and why the English side arrived at the same answer without copying it.
The practical result is that Naruto sounds like the same person at twelve and at thirty-two in both languages, which is rarer than it sounds for a franchise that ran this long.
How the dub came together
The English dub followed the original Japanese broadcast by a considerable margin, which is exactly why a lot of Western fans’ own memory of “when Naruto started” is actually years later than when the manga and Japanese anime actually began. The gap between the original Japanese broadcast and the English dub is wide enough that the two timelines rarely line up in fans’ memories.
Worth knowing honestly, since it comes up often: the early English dub made a number of edits for television broadcast standards. This is a real and commonly discussed part of its history, and it’s worth treating as a factual note about broadcast-era localization practices rather than as some kind of scandal.
What makes Maile Flanagan’s casting unusual
Something a lot of newer fans do not realize: Naruto is voiced by a woman throughout the entire English dub, across every stage of his life shown in the franchise. This isn’t unusual within Japanese voice acting, where adult women frequently voice young male characters and even teenage boys, but it stands out more within English-language dubbing conventions, where that kind of casting choice is comparatively rare. Flanagan’s performance is often singled out specifically for how convincingly it carries Naruto’s voice from a loud, brash twelve-year-old through to an adult Hokage without the character ever sounding like a mismatch for his own age.
Longevity across a two-decade production
Twenty years on the same character, across hundreds of episodes and multiple series, is a genuinely unusual achievement in dubbing, where cast turnover between seasons or franchises is common for all kinds of scheduling and contractual reasons. The consistency of Naruto’s core English cast across that entire stretch is part of why the dub is generally well regarded even among fans who otherwise prefer subtitled original audio, since a large ensemble staying together for two decades gives the whole cast a level of chemistry that’s hard to replicate with rotating actors.
One more practical note for anyone trying to match a voice to a season: the dub was recorded years behind the Japanese broadcast, and the English cast list you find on fan wikis often merges credits from the original series, Shippuden, Boruto, and the games into one table. If an actor attribution looks surprising, check which production it came from before treating it as settled.
Sub or dub?
Genuinely, there’s no correct answer here, and this is one of the most tribal debates in anime fandom, so it’s worth laying out fairly rather than picking a side.
The English dub is well regarded, and remarkably so for a long-running shonen series: the core cast has stayed consistent across two decades of production, which is rare and worth real credit on its own. The Japanese original, watched with subtitles, preserves the original performances along with Japanese naming conventions and honorifics that don’t always translate cleanly into English.
Neither is objectively correct. Try both if you’re unsure, and stick with whichever one keeps you watching, since the version you finish is always going to matter more than the version you argue is technically superior.
If you are deciding between the dub and the original before starting, the complete watch order covers which platforms carry which version and where the films fit.
Common questions
Who voices Naruto in English?
Maile Flanagan, who has held the role since the dub began in 2005 and has carried it across the original series, Shippuden, and Boruto. She is also an Emmy winner for her work as Piggley Winks in Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks.
Is Naruto voiced by a woman?
Yes, in both languages. Maile Flanagan voices him in English and Junko Takeuchi voices him in Japanese. Both productions independently cast an adult woman, largely because a boy actor’s voice breaks within a couple of years, which is unworkable for a role recorded across two decades.
Who voices Sasuke and Sakura in English?
Yuri Lowenthal voices Sasuke, and is probably better known now as Peter Parker in Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man games. Kate Higgins voices Sakura.
Should I watch subbed or dubbed?
There is no correct answer. The English dub is well regarded and unusually consistent, keeping its core cast across twenty years of production. The Japanese original preserves the source performances and honorifics that do not always translate cleanly. Try both and stay with whichever keeps you watching.
