Mike McFarland, Master Roshi Voice Actor and Fullmetal Alchemist Dub Director, Dies at 56

Mike McFarland, the voice of Master Roshi in Dragon Ball and the ADR director behind the Fullmetal Alchemist dub, has passed away at the age of 56. I woke up in the middle of the night to grab a glass of water, checked my texts, and saw messages saying Mike was gone. There are a lot of Mikes that I know, so I was wondering which one, and then it hit me: Mike McFarland.

One of the unfortunate things about covering Dragon Ball is when something like this happens. It was already tough last week when Peter Cullen passed away. He was a very big part of a lot of people's memories of Dragon Ball on Toonami, and that means a lot to many fans. Tim Curry, Dolly Parton and a performer from AEW have also passed. It has been a crazy past couple of weeks.

Mike McFarland voiced Master Roshi, Buggy the Clown and Jean Kirstein

Mike was an ADR director, and he was one of the people responsible for the Fullmetal Alchemist dub. If you love that dub, he is someone you have to thank, because he put it together. He was a great director. On top of that, he voiced Master Roshi across all the different Dragon Ball shows, and for a time he also voiced Yajirobe.

His roles went far beyond Dragon Ball. He voiced Buggy the Clown, Mashirao Ojiro in My Hero Academia, Jean Kirstein in Attack on Titan and Kotaro Amon in Tokyo Ghoul. Fifty six is way too young. Peter Cullen passed away at 85, and even though that hurt, he got to live a very long life. A lot of folks do not get that privilege, and Mike did not.

A GoFundMe and surgery could not stop Mike McFarland's glioblastoma

Mike had been sick for a while. A GoFundMe was set up, and a lot of people in the industry promoted it. They all did what they could, and I believe they did manage to meet the goal at one point. Some content creators, myself included, tried to push it and help as much as we could.

He had to get emergency surgery, and doctors found a brain tumor and removed it. While I think the surgery was successful, he had a long and tough recovery process. A lot of people thought all's well that ends well. But no. As I remember it, the person who first made it public was J. Michael Tatum, another voice actor from the Funimation crew, or now Crunchyroll. He revealed that the cancer was glioblastoma, a really aggressive and dangerous form of brain cancer.

I want to say that was about a year ago. It was not that long ago, last year, around this time of year. Unfortunately, that is what got him in the end: cancer.

Cancer hits close to home for me

This is something that is personal for me. A lot of people know, because I have talked about it in the past, that I lost my mother to bone cancer in 2006. I was 22 years old. That was literally 20 years ago, so this year marks the 20th anniversary. Her birthday was September 6th, just four days before I sat down to write this.

Cancer is horrible. It is one of the worst things imaginable. Maybe not the single worst, but one of the worst. I had not spoken to Mike that much in recent years, and I did not get as close to him as I did to another voice actor I knew.

Mike McFarland was a professional and a true vocal chameleon

I interviewed Mike many years ago. He was maybe the third or fourth actor from the Dragon Ball cast that I had the privilege of interviewing, and I was very happy with how it turned out. He was also kind enough to do a short Master Roshi bumper for me. When I asked, he was not sure at first, because some actors are funny about that, but he did it for me anyway. That was really cool.

Mike was always a very professional person. Very, very professional. He was one of the most tenured and experienced directors Crunchyroll had, and I think he had been working there since around 1999. When he first started, like a lot of the ADR writers and directors, he had to voice a lot of characters. So beyond Master Roshi and Yajirobe, he voiced Pui Pui, Mez from Goz and Mez, and Android 8. He also voiced a couple of Bardock's men in the original Bardock special.

He went on to voice characters in YuYu Hakusho, Fruits Basket, Fullmetal Alchemist, Gantz, Baki the Grappler, My Hero Academia, Overlord and Tokyo Ghoul. The list goes on. What made him so talented was his range. Sometimes you listen to voice actors who are so iconic you recognize them instantly, but their voices sound very similar in all of their roles. Not Mike. "Mike was a chameleon. Mike could voice a gazillion different voices and make it work."

I asked KamehaCon to give Mike McFarland a standing ovation for Fullmetal Alchemist

At the first KamehaCon in 2018, when Mike was up there during the opening ceremony, I told people that if they were fans of Fullmetal Alchemist, they should give him a big standing ovation, because he was the one who did the ADR work on both of those dubs. Some people consider those the greatest English dubs in all of anime.

He was very well loved and well respected, and a lot of people really went to bat for him when he got sick. That was touching. People really wanted him to come back from this, and these things just hit.

Mike McFarland's fight reminds me of another voice actor who passed

This reminds me of the voice actor I mentioned above, the one I was closer to. For a while, we did something very similar for him: he had a GoFundMe, we got it funded, and he was able to get his surgery. Then he had a long road to recovery. When he got that surgery, people breathed a sigh of relief, but that did not mean he was 100 percent healed, and eventually he passed away as well. It is very similar here. The scary part is that when you get hit with something, even if you think you beat it, it can come back and get you.

That is why, when I sign off by saying take care of yourself and each other, it is not just a cool thing to say or something you would hear on daytime TV. It is something you have to remember. If we spent more time taking care of ourselves and each other than complaining about minuscule things that do not mean anything, bickering about things that do not matter, or fighting and name calling, the world would be a better place.

Unfortunately, it is human nature to behave the way we behave, sometimes like animals. I think we can do better, and I think we can come together and be better. When everyone rallied for Mike, it was an example of that. Any revenue I get from my interview with Mike will go to research related to cancer, something I have donated to in the past since my mother's passing. It has always meant something to me. Rest in peace, Mike McFarland. Once again, take care of yourself and each other.

Do you agree that Mike McFarland's Fullmetal Alchemist work ranks among the greatest English dubs in anime?