Masaru Ikeda was a Japanese actor and voice actor born in Tokyo on September 27, 1942. A graduate of the Tokyo Metro Fifth Commerce Senior High School, he was affiliated with the Tokyo Actor's Consumer's Cooperative Society for much of his career. He passed away on January 31, 2026 due to heart failure.

Ikeda's career spanned over six decades, beginning in 1963. He was known for his baritone voice, which lent itself to a wide range of authoritative, paternal, and villainous characters in anime, as well as numerous roles in video games and foreign film dubs. He was particularly renowned as the regular Japanese dubbing voice for actors such as Morgan Freeman, Danny Glover, and Samuel L. Jackson.

In anime, his extensive filmography included some of the most iconic series in the medium. He voiced numerous mechanical characters in the 1977 series Yatterman, including the dog robot Yatterwan. He held roles in the Gundam franchise, such as General Revil in the original Mobile Suit Gundam and Jamitov Hymem in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. Other notable anime roles include Huang in Darker than Black, Koreyoshi Kitamura in Death Note, Alexander in The Jungle Book: Shōnen Mowgli, Rick Boyd in Fang of the Sun Dougram, Ross Igor in Dancougar - Super Beast Machine God, and Bernard O'Toole in Tekkaman Blade. He also voiced the character Nekomamushi in One Piece from 2016 to 2021. Later in his career, he continued to take on roles in series such as Knights & Magic in 2017.

Ikeda's voice work extended to original video animations and theatrical films. He was the voice of Ikki Yoneda in the Sakura Wars series, spanning both the television anime, video games, and movies. He also appeared in films such as Metropolis as President Boone and provided the voice of Clarinet in the 2013 Eiga Dokidoki! Precure Mana Kekkon!!? Mirai ni Tsunagu Kibō no Dress. In the realm of video games, he was well-known to international audiences as the Japanese voice of Doctor Nefarious Tropy in the Crash Bandicoot series, a role he played from Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped in 1998 to Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time in 2020. He also voiced Helmer in the Xenosaga trilogy and Gorou Matayoshi in the Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth games.

Beyond animation and games, Ikeda was a prolific figure in the world of live-action dubbing. His voice became synonymous with several major Hollywood stars in Japan. He dubbed Morgan Freeman in numerous films including The Shawshank Redemption, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and Angel Has Fallen. He was also the regular Japanese voice for Danny Glover in the Lethal Weapon film series and the Saw films, and for Samuel L. Jackson in movies like Die Hard with a Vengeance and Deep Blue Sea. His other dubbing credits included providing voices for Robert De Niro, Kris Kristofferson in Blade, and Anthony Hopkins in Bram Stoker's Dracula.