Hisako Kyōda is a highly respected Japanese actress and voice actress born on February 22, 1935, in Tokyo, Japan. She is affiliated with the talent agency Tokyo Actor's Consumer's Cooperative Society, also known as Haikyō. Her career as a performer began at a very young age in 1944, and she eventually moved into voice acting, joining Haikyō in 1969.

Kyōda is renowned for her distinctive voice and has become a definitive presence in the industry for her portrayal of elderly female characters, a niche she has filled for decades. However, her vocal range also allowed her to take on rare male roles, most notably as Omusubiman in the long-running children's series Soreike! Anpanman, a part she voiced for 36 years until 2025. Her versatility is further demonstrated by her use of a unique falsetto to play younger female characters, such as Shibucha in Anmitsu Hime.

Her extensive portfolio includes some of the most iconic series in anime history. One of her most celebrated roles is the elderly martial arts master Genkai in Yu Yu Hakusho. She is also widely recognized as the wise and gentle Kaede, the village elder in Inuyasha, a role she reprised in the sequel series Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon. Other significant anime roles include Yukari Godai in Maison Ikkoku, Zirconia in Sailor Moon SuperS, Magno Vivan in Vandread, Tuskuru in Utawarerumono, and the narrator for Yo-kai Watch. Her film work includes voicing the village elder Obaba in Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Chiyoko's mother in Millennium Actress.

Beyond anime, Kyōda built an extensive career dubbing foreign films and television series into Japanese. She became the regular Japanese voice for several iconic characters in Disney films, including the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella, Fauna in Sleeping Beauty, Grandmother Willow in Pocahontas, and Yzma in The Emperor's New Groove. Her live-action dubbing work includes characters in series such as Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Despicable Me. She also contributed her voice to numerous video games, appearing in multiple titles of the Kingdom Hearts series as characters like Fauna and the Fairy Godmother.

Her contributions to the craft were formally recognized in 2019 when she received the Achievement Award at the 13th Seiyu Awards, a prestigious honor celebrating her lifetime of work and influence in the voice acting community.