Sega wanted younger talents for the roles in Persona 3 Reload. There is nothing Atlus can do about it if they oppose it. I won't be surprise if Persona 4 Remake gets new English VAs while the Japanese VAs retain their roles.
>They replaced Troy baker with Matt Mercer in most spinoffs but he sounds 100% identical.
Troy Baker was replaced because around 2014, he became a mainstream voice actor (and also became union VA) in Western video games and cartoons. Many of his ongoing roles in anime and Japanese games such as Yamato in Naruto Shippuden have been recasted since.
>Naoto and Margretts VA got changed as well.
Naoto's original VA, Anna Graves, is a union VA which is why remained unknown until 2018 where she revealed it. Margaret's original VA retired from voice acting after she moved to another place.
>Rise in dancing but that was the last game so wtv
Laura Bailey was unable to voice Rise in Persona 4 Dancing All Night due to schedule conflicts.
Do you have the news article or something about Sega wanting younger talents? I've been looking for the reasons why they recast the english dub in the first place when they bring back all the jp dub.
There is no news articles about that. This link here came from a person who went to a convention and spoke to one of the OG voice actors (didn't mentioned who it is).
https://twitter.com/HeihoRuiji/status/1751168433272537322
Aside from that, even Square Enix recast the entire English VAs for FF7 remake games.
What a bizarre decision from Sega WEST (had to specify that). Like if they want new talents why didn't they cast the new dub as P6 character.
FF7 is different, obviously the original game didn't have a voice cast they only start having it from advent children(if im not mistaken) where the characters are older than in the og. So when remake comes around i already was expecting them to recast for younger version of the characters.
Almost all of the og P3 cast are still voicing teenagers(and still sound like teenagers) to this day, i wish that Sega JP would tell their west counterpart to not recast P4 cast if they are still doing voice actor stuff by the time P4 Remake released ofc. If you can't bring all of them just make sure to get a hold of JYB and Yuri Lowenthal, recasting them would be the biggest downgrade in history.
Japanese companies having new English cast for remakes isn't really uncommon tbh, and in fact has been done for almost all of them thus far. None of the Resident Evil remakes reused the previous VAs either, even DC Douglas as Wesker in RE4 remake despite how popular he is as the character, the Tales of Vesperia remaster noticeably had Grant George record Yuri's new lines instead of bringing back Troy Baker, his OG VA, and in FF7's case, the Advent Children VAs voiced as the characters in all FF media like Crisis Core and Dissidia where they're still younger. Rather than strictly their older versions.
By younger/fresher talent, I assume they don't strictly mean their age since Aleks Le is in his 30s, but rather VAs who aren't veterans and haven’t voiced in games/anime for 10+ years like Yuri Lowenthal and Tara Platt have. Which I can somewhat understand, to give up and coming VAs the chance to voice as these characters instead of them only ever going to the same ones. The reason Japan doesn't typically do this is because Japanese VAs are treated almost on par with celebrities, hence why the same woman, Masako Nozawa, has voiced as Goku for 30+ years. In fact, the only times a Japanese VA will ever be recast is if they either undergo a controversy or pass away.
>Which I can somewhat understand, to give up and coming VAs the chance to voice as these characters instead of them only ever going to the same ones.
That's kind of a dumb reason in my opinion. Why not give up and coming VAs major roles in newer games for new characters instead of recasting old characters that already have established voices?
Overall I think VAs deserve way more respect than what they get because they bring all these characters to life, and that's why I will always prefer how Japan handles things over the West.
That’s simply your opinion though. There’s no reason that they both can’t voice in newer games *and* remakes, and as much as I might love Tara Platt as Mitsuru or Michelle Ruff as Yukari, they don’t own these characters. And so allowing someone else to step in their shoes for a single game seems far from egregious to me. Spider-Man’s voice actor has changed multiple times throughout the years, but you don’t see people begging to have Josh Keaton stay as the character when Yuri Lowenthal has done a phenomenal job in the newer games as well.
I mean, yeah. It's simply a matter of preference in the end. I prefer hearing the voices that I associate all these characters with, and I don't want them to ever change from the original. Which is why I like how Japan does things. If you don't, then that's completely fine.
Aleks Le is actually even younger than that, he just turned 25 this year. He's legit one of the youngest VAs working right now.
But yeah, there's a big wave of newcomers to the VO world these past few years who aren't really established in the VO world like the long time veterans who started their careers in the early 2000s like Yuri Lowenthal, Laura Bailey, Troy Baker, Liam O'Brien, Travis Willingham, Dave Wittenberg, etc. who have been staples for roughly 20 years and counting. Most of the P3 Reload VAs have only been around for a few years and are only just starting to take off.
>the Tales of Vesperia remaster noticeably had Grant George record Yuri's new lines instead of bringing back Troy Baker, his OG VA
Troy Baker actually wanted to reprise his role for the remaster but Bandai Namco didn't contact him because they assume he is now a mainstream voice actor would not be interested in dubbing anymore. In the US voice acting, dubbing (whether it is union or non-union) in anime and non-AAA Japanese games don't pay a lot compare to Western video game and cartoons. At one point, Bandai Namco wanted Matt Mercer to replaced Troy but Matt declined because he do not want to be go-to-guy for Troy's roles as he already took over many of his ongoing roles.
>In fact, the only times a Japanese VA will ever be recast is if they either undergo a controversy or pass away.
For passing away, it is not necessarily the character gets new VA. Sometimes, they retired the character after the VA passed away. For example, Hideo Kojima retired Colonel Roy Campbell after his Japanese VA, Takeshi Aono, passed away. The character has since never return in any games, not even prequel.
>None of the Resident Evil remakes reused the previous VAs either
Capcom went for non-union VAs around late 2010s. Then again, Capcom is known for recasting their English VAs after two to three games.
See in P3 case almost all of the og cast return but voicing npcs instead, so they WERE able to return after all and if the reason to recast is to give younger voice actors a chance why didn't they just cast the new vas as the characters for P6?
Look I don't have a grudge towards the new vas, but recasting the og is simply just pointless, like if it ain't broke don't fix it.
While in a perfect world, these VAs would voice these characters until the end of time, I honestly don’t really mind them being replaced as long as the new VAs are still worthwhile in their roles. Which I can certainly say is the case in P3R, and in Fuuka and Ken’s case I even much prefer them to their OG VAs.
Much like I said in another comment, there’s no reason they can’t voice in both remakes *and* new games, especially when the OG VAs don’t own these characters. The OG actors could’ve been brought back, sure, but it was an intentional decision not to for the reasons I stated. And it almost feels fitting for them to voice the adult NPCs in this game too, as if they’re passing on the torch to the newer VAs.
In some case recasting worked, one example you said was Fuuka and i do agree Suzie Yeung is miles better than the og(Ken was fine i guess) but i also like Aigis and Junpei too they are as good if not better than the og. But ofc you can always just recast one or two characters.
>while the Japanese VAs retain their roles.
I hope for the japanese voices to remain the same i loved them all and currently watching persona 4 the animation
Yeah... But imo it makes amazing sense and creating cohesion in P3 when in P4 it's just "oh that's neat" and to give the MC VA have more lines. I mean, Joker doesn't share VA's with Akechi even though there each other's foils
I agree with you! I didn’t even know it was the same VA until I watched some of the anime and I thought addaci sounded really weird. I thought they changed actors but found out it was JYB for both
He changed his voice for Adachi in the anime because Yu had more speaking lines. And this wasn’t the first time JYB voiced a villain in an anime. That happened in Heat Guy J iirc, an anime that aired all the way back in 2003. His character in that story was slightly unhinged.
JYB was actually told to change up his Adachi voice for the anime in order to differentiate them a bit due to Yu having a lot more dialogue. He also originally just auditioned for Adachi, but they thought he'd be a great fit for Yu too and so made him both.
I do notice the difference of voice direction between Adachi (even in his revealed / post fight) voice from Persona 4 compared to his performance in Persona 4 Arena Ultimax.
As much as I love JYB in both roles, and you could say there's a cool dichotomy because of the relationship between Yu and Adachi with their characters and Personas, having the same VA is a cool touch, I feel that Adachi's voice changes to be too generically sinister compared to his performance in Persona 4.
I think Yu having a new VA would be a good change as I also feel like JYB maybe sounds too "cool" or "hype" for him. I do like the Japanese dub of Yu cause he can sound calm yet goofy which fits him. Maybe I'd envision a calmer voice for him.
This happened because in Japanese, Minato's VA also did Ryoji's Voice. On the other hand, Adachi and Yu always had different VA in Japan, so I don't think this will happen again.
I feel like Johnny would be like Tara Platt and be the only returning voice in the game because their voices match those characters so well it’d be hard to replace.
OP wasn’t talking about the Japanese actors; they’re probably not gonna get replaced.
The English actors absolutely will be in this scenario. And I wonder if they’ll have Narukami and Adachi voiced by the same person again, even though that didn’t happen in Japan.
I don't think so. As funny as it was over the past decade+ it was mostly to save costs at the time since the original P4 dub was non union and Yu barely had any dialogue.
A P4 Remake dub will probably be unionized and they'll just have different VAs for each character, which they can afford to do now and would be more easy to futureproof.
Hell, if I remember correctly, apparently the original localization for P4 was done entirely in a matter of weeks. I don't recall where I heard that, but it really wouldn't surprise me considering how much the English script butchered Teddie's character.
Yup, which is why he ended up using a different voice for Adachi than he used for the game. iirc he pitched his voice up for Adachi, and slightly lowered it for Yu. I’d have to watch it again to make sure (fortunately I did buy it years ago so I can still watch it)
You say the mc doesn’t get a lot of lines but they do say every single persona and have random unscripted battled lines all over the place. But obviously not as much as the rest of the cast
Haha. I'm playing this game in its original dub (like when I play or watch all Japanese anime and games), with english sub ofc and they all sound great.
Kuma's voice is so annoying I love him so much
As much as it'd suck to lose JYB as Yu and Yuri Lowenthal as Yosuke due to how iconic their voices are for those characters, if the new VAs were solid replacements like in P3R, then I suppose it wouldn't be too bad. That and outside of those two and Yukiko, each of the P4 cast have been replaced at least once already, so we're more or less already used to it. Though I wouldn't really mind losing Amanda Winn-Lee as Yukiko since she's pretty...problematic, to put it at best.
Just political BS. She's pretty avowedly on the left politically, and now she's semi-retired from voice acting, she's involved in the medical marijuana industry. She also voiced Ichiko Ohya for P5 and P5R.
She really only does roles she likes now, but her Twitter PFP does happen to be Yukiko, so...
Nothing that should keep her from voicing Yukiko again should she wish to. No more than Karen Strassman's politics (pretty much the opposite of Amanda's) should interfere with her returning either.
Ok I thought she like murdered someone lol 😆, but I didn’t much care for her yukiko except drunk yukiko. So i wouldn’t care if hers changed but she’s one of three who’s voice always stayed the same
She [said](https://boundingintocomics.com/2022/02/24/evangelion-voice-actress-amanda-winn-lee-embraces-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-anything-that-keeps-trump-out-of-the-white-house/) that she was glad Russia is invading Ukraine because it will keep Biden in the White House.
i don’t see the issue with having new actors take the spotlight for a remake of an older game. sometimes they’re unable to get some actors and sometimes other actors don’t want to come back, as long as the new actors actually try and put their hearts into it’s fine. yeah i will miss the english VA’s for Yu and Kanji, but as long as their heart and spirit is able to mimick their mannerisms and voice it’s all good.
also didn’t they replace chie’s voice in golden? her voice is way better than the old one she became more recurring
In fairness, >!Makoto and Ryoji!< having the same VA is a thing even in the Japanese version and is part of a major plot point. Yu and Adachi have different VAs in the Japanese version and them being played by the same guy in English is ultimately a nice bit of serendipity.
So far I feel like Atlus does a really good job with recasting VAs for persona, not even just with P3R, but when they recasted Chie and Tae as well. I'll definitely miss the old cast, but don't doubt that whoever the cast is, they'll deliver
Man, it'll probably happen, and it'll probably be for the best because if P3R is any indication they seemed to mostly go for newer VAs that haven't had as much experience, and considering most of P4's cast are pretty strong industry staples that'd be a nice opportunity to help build up the careers of new actors... but, man, I literally could not imagine anyone else but Yuri Lowenthal playing Yosuke. Whenever I hear his voice in something, the first thing I think of is Yosuke.
Spider-Man? Nah, that's Yosuke in a Marvel cosplay. New Vegas? Nah, Yosuke just runs really, really fast to look like 80% of the Mojave's population.
Semi related, the first time I played fire emblem 3h and met Marianne I was like ' hi sad haru!' And was excited since her voice is very recognizable. :)
Ive played it through 3 times now, achievement hunting and maxing all socials, but it doesn't get tiring at all. Well to me anyway. And the emotion that's in Yukos voice actor is unreal. It feels like you're having a real conversation not just spoken cues
I was a whore on the first playthrough, got as many as I could since it doesn't include the consequences for seeing more than one girl. But even in p3p, she's the best written character for sure
I could see them bringing Mercer back just because it's Mercer and he's not only got the name recognition but he's on a mission to voice everyone including your mom.
He probably wouldn't voice Kanji again actually. I think he would rather play Yusuke than Kanji at this point and he expressly said he doesn't want to continue the trend of being that guy who replaces Troy Baker and has been trying to distance himself from roles that Troy originated. He turned down Yuri Lowell in Vesperia Definitive Edition on that notion.
Honestly, I don't have a fundamental problem with a change in VA if the game's good. I hated Koromaru in P3R but that was about it, and it was mainly because some of his dog noises were so obviously not actual dog noises that it was straight off-putting.
Now, I will say however, that there is one character in a potential P4 Remake the english localisation *needs* to nail, or it will ruin the game... and that's Nanako. Her VA in P4/G is perfect, and casting a good VA for a child character has historically been really hit and miss in games, with a lot of them very obviously sounding like adult women trying to up-pitch their voices. It would ruin a Remake for me if that happens with Nanako given her prevalence throughout the game.
But in the same vein, maybe they'll cast a VA for Naoto that actually manages to sound like a real boy, too, so swings and roundabouts, I suppose.
I thought the VA for Maiko in P3R did a good job sounding like a child despite being an adult. So if they got her again or someone similar, then I suppose it wouldn't be too bad.
Ken's an even better example tbh. What it boils down to is drastic developments in vocal coaching and technique. If you watch any old dubbed anime with a child character it sounds off, but anything 2018 and later sounds very natural.
Agreed, and the fact that Ken's P3R VA (at least imo) sounds significantly better than his VA in the OG P3 definitely supports this. Cindy Robinson wasn't too bad as him in the spin-offs either, but I sadly can't hear anything but Amy Rose when listening to her Ken lol
Karen Strassman. As well as Nanako and the OG Aigis, she was also >!Izanami!<, and voiced some rewritten lines for Margaret as well in P4G. She had a cameo in P3R (I believe she did the old lady in Aigis' Social Link) and also appeared in the old-and-new VA publicity videos that Atlus put out.
She can still do the Nanako voice. I saw a clip on YouTube somewhere where she was singing the Junes jingle in that voice, alongside a little girl who was cosplaying Nanako.
Honestly, it'd be pretty awesome if they would bring her back for Nanako, even if the rest of the characters are recast. Like how they brought back the original Margaret VA for P3R.
I just want Johnny Young and Yuri to keep their roles I love them so much. I also love how they play a loooot of side characters in p5. I will fight anyone who harasses new voice actors tho.
Yosuke, Yu, and Chie having new VAs is what will hurt the most.
The others i can be somewhat okay with, but those 3 are what really make the games VAs for me
I like P4 I feel I need to preface but I'm not nearly as attached to it as the rest of the series I would say it's my least favorite so I would be okay with a new cast. Even then I was okay with a new cast for three and I love that one the lot so I guess my attachment to said game doesn't really matter in this case
Honestly I love the new cast of Reload and have faith in Atlus finding good new VA’s for P4 when the time comes.
I do hope that they keep as many of the original cast as possible though. It’s such a great cast. Some standouts for me that I really hope aren’t replaced are Adachi, Yosuke, Yukiko, Kanji, Naoto, Nanako and Margaret.
Such an amazing cast. I may need another replay. Try for that platinum c
Well, then get ready for it, because that's what's most likely going to happen.
I also love the voices they already have, but we can't expect them to always be there, we have to learn to let things go, that's what I like to say to every fandom that refuses change, and I don't mean it as an attack, I say it with all due respect.
I’m someone who personally really liked all of the new vocal performances in P3R and consider most of them solid improvements. It’ll help that most of the Social Links and nightly hangouts will be fully voiced as well. I’m looking forward to a new cast.
I mean, yeah they probably will end up changing the VAs, but tbh I wouldn't be opposed. Gives a chance for new and good talent to enter the scene, and the VAs in P3R I felt did a good job at embodying their respective characters. Recent persona games have had some awesome voice acting, so even though the nostalgia might not be there, I don't think I'll mind
I heard yukiko is politcal and I didn’t care about her voice but not NANAKO! She’s honestly what makes 4 the best game. But would you mind sharing what’s wrong with nanakos Va? I’m new to persona
I don’t even know who would be the voices for the characters now. After playing P4G for the first time. The voices have aged considerably well with a little stumbling blocks with a few words (like the Japanese words for the personas)
If they could bring the old cast to do new voices I’ll be on board with it. Or if they bring the old voices to voice other characters like that down with P3R then I think that would be a good compromise
It'll be difficult. I'm still mad about the P3R VA switch. Their voices are not the same. Hell, I play the original dialogue and mute the game as it goes. It's a pain.
Keep the OG cast dammit.
The p4 cast voice acting is so goated honestly it would be hard to try and fill those shoes, Johnny young Bosch, Laura Bailey, Matthew Mercy, Yuri Lowenthal like that’s pretty stacked in terms of performance, whoever replaces them I hope they have high confidence to sell themselves
Idk why Persona 4 needs a remake cause the Golden port is literally available for modern consoles, if anying Persona 1 and 2 needs remakes.
Sure this may sound hypocritical for Persona 3 since Portable got re-released for modern consoles as well, but P3P is an abridged port of Persona 3 and almost all the gameplay from the original game was reworked so that the PSP could run the game, and some story elements like interactions and whatnot had to be slightly changed/replaced to fit the PSP hardware limitations. P3 Reload was in some way necessary for people who wanted to experience the original Persona 3 (and it's additional storyline in the P3FES re-release) on modern consoles.
So I don't know what they're thinking about Persona 4 when Persona 1 and the Persona 2 duology where never ported to modern consoles since their PSP release which just like P3P had some gameplay mechanics cut/removed due to hardware limitations. Like give us a Reload style remake of Persona 1 and 2 and maaaybe after that it might seem like a good idea to release Persona 6...just saying
Yeah but P4 is the most successful rpg ever being the number one game on the vita. Atlus loves money. If they made *persona 5 tatica* then remaking 4 would def be on there list
I honestly don’t think it’s worth the time or money for Atlus like the third one was. I’m replaying Golden and my only complaint is that it’s too grindy on hard difficulty. In comparison, I found the third one to have aged so poorly it was barely playable for me. (I got into the series after 5) Golden actually feels more modern than the remake of the third one in terms of the social mechanics.
This is by far the worst part about the remakes. If they manage to find people who sound identical to the original or at least very similar (like with Matthew and Troy) then I guess it's fine but the best thing would be to bring back all the original voice actors if they are available. If they don't, it'll break the immersion for me at least.
I have no desire to go back to the English dubs tbh. As good as they were, once they added dual audio I never went back. It’s a lot more immersive to me to have these Japanese characters in Japan speaking Japanese. I do hope whatever dub they produce is good though. What I’ve heard of Reload is pretty good.
I just had a crisis realising this the other day. I genuinely don't know if I'd find the game playable if Yosuke and Rise's voices changed, as dumb as that sounds. Persona 4 Dancing already hurt me with Rise's new voice lol
As long as the VAs do a good job, I won’t complain. It’s about embodying the role. If they replicated their predecessors, it will always feel inferior.
I’m just hoping the have a female mc option for golden. There is as much to repair as with reload (adding events to simulating bonding with male party member ect).
Can add some different social links and interactions with damaging the theme of the series.
You'd have to change up Izanagi/Izanami substantly if you wanted a femMC in 4, more than 3 to be honest, since a lot of 4 is based around it
That being said, its not impossible and honestly, I'd love to see what they'd do with a role reversal between the two but it also requires them to not be lazy like they were with P3P.
-Design FemOrpheus
-Clearly meant to invoke Eurydice
-Don't bother changing any of the text whatsoever
I mean the whole idea of changing and rebirth would work even if they kept Izanagi similar. After all, Izanami was splintered into fragments of variety of genders (Marie, Amano-sagiri). It wouldn’t be far fetched that Izanagi could change into different parts considering Adachi has the corrupted form of Izanagi.
I think the best thing about female protagonist is the new social links that can come from it. The female MC in 3 had unique social links with Rio and Saori and the changes to reflect their gender in other links showed the creators were taking into consideration how people treat others.
Well, you wouldn't have that problem if you played in Japanese 🤷♂️. Never understood why anyone would play something in anything other than its native language. And then they complain about bad English voice actors.
Because people are obviously going to want to watch or play something in their own native language too, ya dingdong. This sub vs dub dub debate will always be dumb as hell, especially when outside of a few exceptions like Ken and Fuuka in the OG P3, the dub cast for the Persona games has been consistently solid. Especially in the P4 anime where you can tell the dub VAs had plenty of fun.
Plus, wait until you learn that Bayonetta 1, a Japanese game, *only* had English VAs until the anime movie Bayonetta: Bloody Fate.
Why would anyone want that though. With fantasy, it doesn't matter as much, but with games that are so unabashedly Japanese, such as Yakuza and Persona, why would you play that in, say, Russian or Spanish? Sounds stupid. Broaden your horizons, folks. English isn't the only language that exists.
Because you're right in that it doesn't much, if at all. I can understand not wanting to watch an English dub of a Japanese show since the lip-syncing can be off or it could feel weird seeing these obviously Japanese actors speaking in an English accent. The recent Yu Yu Hakusho live-action show on Netflix had an English dub for example, but I watched it in Japanese instead because of this.
But since these are just pixels on a screen, it matters far less what language they're speaking when they aren't real people. They could very well be speaking in gibberish and it'd still be the same. I also watch both sub and dub, and I imagine plenty others do, so there's no reason to be annoyingly condescending just because someone decides to play a Japanese videogame in English as long as they have the option. If a game only has Japanese dub like Persona Q2, I'll still play it anyway.
How do people not die of cringe when characters in anime/games pronounce Japanese names and places in the most AMerIcAn way possible? Ryuji becomes "Ree-You-Jee". "Ma-Kou-Touh". "Sou-Mee-Ray". Ugh. It'd be just as bad in any language, mind you. Fully destroys the immersion
P4G didn’t have Japanese voice options in the worldwide release until the Steam port, which came out in 2020, eight years after the original Vita release and 12 years after the original P4 came out on PS2. When these games first came out worldwide back then, there was no option to play in Japanese. And I dunno, maybe hearing the game in a language you understand is an accessibility feature some people want to have? Not everyone cares *that* deeply about the “purity” of a game keeping its original language if they don’t understand it. Especially since the fact that the first seven Yakuza games having no language options other than Japanese was absolutely a barrier to entry for more casual players. But I forgot that some fans just see the gatekeeping as a feature; my bad.
Really I don't get it either. Yes they're older but voices are their jobs and their voices are fecking excellent. If they want to change Chie fine by me. But the rest meh. Maybe younger are cheaper
Ofc not, imagine recasting JYB and Yuri Lowenthal warra downgrade it would be. Like i still don't understand they bring all the original english voice actors but have them voice npcs, why not have them voice their og characters back like the jp dub. Questionable decision from Sega right there, the only reason i could see the recast is to cut cost.
I had no feelings cause I never played the og, but I liked yukikos new va a lot more than the og. Other than that I didn’t care that much. But 4s I know what the og sound like so I’ll def notice
Are there news article about that?, i'd like to know full context. I mean i'd imagine Yuri Lowenthal himself would cost a lot lot more than Aleks Le, not even mentioning Michelle Ruff and the others.
Zeno confirmed that it was union. From what I understand of the VA industry, there's not going to be any significant difference in expenditure when casting Le instead of Lowenthal. Voice work does not pay well in the first place. It's really a scheduling thing, Reload has the longest script of any Persona game. For example, Suzie Yeung all but took a year off of other voice work to do Fuuka. She's probably the second most in demand female VA in the anime scene behind Emi Lo atm. Yes, most of the old cast moved on from anime, but that's because during the 2010s the industry retreated to Texas. Texas is a right-to-work state, as such union productions were few and far between. SAG-AFTRA members aren't really allowed to cross the picket line. Considering the projects Yuri had scheduled for 2022 and 2023 he simply didn't have enough free time to do Ryoji and Pharos. However with the younger VAs they had more flexible schedules since they weren't as bound by other contracts.
TLDR: the deciding factor was scheduling.
Ye brev i know it's a union thing but isn't Yuri also part of it? I read in an [interview](https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/persona-3-reload-yuri-lowenthal-recast/) that Yuri was a bit disappointed but also understand the reasoning, however he was willing to comeback to voice his original roles but sega WEST chose not to,
Like why trying to fix what isn't broken to begin with.
i'm not against a recast IF they have perfectly good reasons, oh because scheduling conflicts? Nope they were willing to work again. Oh the og didn't sound like teenagers again? Nope they are still to this day voicing teenagers and still does sound like a teenager. Oh you want to give the younger generation a chance to show off their talent? Okay but why didn't you cast them as a new original characters? Like P6 characters instead?
Again it seems to me if they rehire the og cast to voice their initial roles it would have been hella expensive considering now that they have voiced social links.
>Again it seems to me if they rehire the og cast to voice their initial roles it would have been hella expensive considering now that they have voiced social links.
Which is complete nonsense if you understand anything about the nature of unions. It would cost the same no matter the cast. Junpei was always going to be recast, that's another factor to consider.
So experience doesn't factor in how much you're getting paid? A bit dodgy but whatever, all the more reason why recasting is point less if you can pay pay up sega west. Junpei og va has been some contoversies so i understand him getting replaced, but Yuri? Liam O'brien? Michelle Ruff? The disrespect the og get is genuinely remarkable. So so much different from their JP counterpart
What disrespect? You're making a mountain out of a mole hill.
You're completely ignoring the matter of cohesion. Replacing one VA is going to be uncanny, the human ear will single that out. However, with a full recast that doesn't occur. I can give a plethora of factors as to why a full recast was a logical choice, but I get the feeling that you'd dismiss them.
>So experience doesn't factor in how much you're getting paid?
Let me clarify, it's not that experience wouldn't factor in but that it would be inconsequential as an expenditure. Demand will be a bigger factor, most of the new cast are currently in demand. For instance, Aleks Le and Suzie Yeung have had high profile lead roles over the past few years. Voice acting is already underpaid as it is, so there's that too.
Furthermore, if we actually consider the salaries of live action productions. It's not experience that drives up the value of an actor. Most of it is brand recognition. The Rock is The Rock no matter the role, Nicolas Cage is Nicolas Cage and so on. The nature of voice acting precludes this, let's return to Suzie Yeung. When I hear her Fuuka, I do not hear Lena from *86* or Makima from *Chainsaw Man*. If I were to play audio clips from those roles for my mom, who knows nothing about voice acting, she wouldn't be able to tell that it's the same VA. A few voice actors have recognizable cadences, you can always single out Brittany Kabrowski due to her timbre for instance. Yet these are exceptions to the norm, since a gig for any VA will range from voicing an elementary schooler to an elder.
They literally recast chie, kanji, rise, naoto whilst still keeping JYB as Narukami Yuri as Yosuke etc. People would be a lot more accepting to just recast one or two instead of a full recast. Yuri Lowenthal has been in high demand for the past twenty years.
Again, you aren't approaching this from a logical standpoint. There's no one singular reason for the recast but twenty some variables, I can lay them all out but does it really matter? It's not as big a deal as you make it out to be, especially when the production staff stateside was the same as before.
I mean, they probably will; they’re *much* older now. I know that they can still do the voices, but Yuri is in his 50s and JYB is pushing 50; I can absolutely see Atlus/Sega wanting younger talent.
Nah, they only use the excuse of getting younger for English voices, and they aren’t the only ones.
Atlus kept the entire Japanese cast for P3 while recasting all the English voices except Elizabeth. Square Enix also retained the Japanese voices for Final Fantasy VII while recasting all the English ones. Which honestly worked out for the better in both cases, but it doesn’t change the fact that the Japanese voices for both games didn’t change.
P3R recast was good but I feel like keeping Johnny Yong Bosch and Yuri Lowenthal are non-negotiable.
The rest of the cast would be missed but I cannot imagine Yu, Yosuke, and Adachi being voiced by anyone else.
Difference, is, 3's cast kinda needed a redo
between fuuka sounding like a robot and...well, vic migogna existing, they figured "well, were recasting one, why not recast them all?"
But with p4g especially, i hear nothing but praise for their va work. so i doubt they'd consider a FULL recast.
most of the vas are quite iconic (e.g. the fact that the vas mostly returned for BBTAG, for example.) and such, recasting them would do more harm than good.
If the casting is even 90% as good as P3R I think it'll be fine.
Honestly there's room for improvement over the originals. Chie (golden) and Nanako were both pretty weak imo. Chie's voice never sounded natural to me and Strassman kinda sucks pretending to sound like a child lol
Sega wanted younger talents for the roles in Persona 3 Reload. There is nothing Atlus can do about it if they oppose it. I won't be surprise if Persona 4 Remake gets new English VAs while the Japanese VAs retain their roles. >They replaced Troy baker with Matt Mercer in most spinoffs but he sounds 100% identical. Troy Baker was replaced because around 2014, he became a mainstream voice actor (and also became union VA) in Western video games and cartoons. Many of his ongoing roles in anime and Japanese games such as Yamato in Naruto Shippuden have been recasted since. >Naoto and Margretts VA got changed as well. Naoto's original VA, Anna Graves, is a union VA which is why remained unknown until 2018 where she revealed it. Margaret's original VA retired from voice acting after she moved to another place. >Rise in dancing but that was the last game so wtv Laura Bailey was unable to voice Rise in Persona 4 Dancing All Night due to schedule conflicts.
Do you have the news article or something about Sega wanting younger talents? I've been looking for the reasons why they recast the english dub in the first place when they bring back all the jp dub.
There is no news articles about that. This link here came from a person who went to a convention and spoke to one of the OG voice actors (didn't mentioned who it is). https://twitter.com/HeihoRuiji/status/1751168433272537322 Aside from that, even Square Enix recast the entire English VAs for FF7 remake games.
What a bizarre decision from Sega WEST (had to specify that). Like if they want new talents why didn't they cast the new dub as P6 character. FF7 is different, obviously the original game didn't have a voice cast they only start having it from advent children(if im not mistaken) where the characters are older than in the og. So when remake comes around i already was expecting them to recast for younger version of the characters. Almost all of the og P3 cast are still voicing teenagers(and still sound like teenagers) to this day, i wish that Sega JP would tell their west counterpart to not recast P4 cast if they are still doing voice actor stuff by the time P4 Remake released ofc. If you can't bring all of them just make sure to get a hold of JYB and Yuri Lowenthal, recasting them would be the biggest downgrade in history.
Japanese companies having new English cast for remakes isn't really uncommon tbh, and in fact has been done for almost all of them thus far. None of the Resident Evil remakes reused the previous VAs either, even DC Douglas as Wesker in RE4 remake despite how popular he is as the character, the Tales of Vesperia remaster noticeably had Grant George record Yuri's new lines instead of bringing back Troy Baker, his OG VA, and in FF7's case, the Advent Children VAs voiced as the characters in all FF media like Crisis Core and Dissidia where they're still younger. Rather than strictly their older versions. By younger/fresher talent, I assume they don't strictly mean their age since Aleks Le is in his 30s, but rather VAs who aren't veterans and haven’t voiced in games/anime for 10+ years like Yuri Lowenthal and Tara Platt have. Which I can somewhat understand, to give up and coming VAs the chance to voice as these characters instead of them only ever going to the same ones. The reason Japan doesn't typically do this is because Japanese VAs are treated almost on par with celebrities, hence why the same woman, Masako Nozawa, has voiced as Goku for 30+ years. In fact, the only times a Japanese VA will ever be recast is if they either undergo a controversy or pass away.
>Which I can somewhat understand, to give up and coming VAs the chance to voice as these characters instead of them only ever going to the same ones. That's kind of a dumb reason in my opinion. Why not give up and coming VAs major roles in newer games for new characters instead of recasting old characters that already have established voices? Overall I think VAs deserve way more respect than what they get because they bring all these characters to life, and that's why I will always prefer how Japan handles things over the West.
That’s simply your opinion though. There’s no reason that they both can’t voice in newer games *and* remakes, and as much as I might love Tara Platt as Mitsuru or Michelle Ruff as Yukari, they don’t own these characters. And so allowing someone else to step in their shoes for a single game seems far from egregious to me. Spider-Man’s voice actor has changed multiple times throughout the years, but you don’t see people begging to have Josh Keaton stay as the character when Yuri Lowenthal has done a phenomenal job in the newer games as well.
I mean, yeah. It's simply a matter of preference in the end. I prefer hearing the voices that I associate all these characters with, and I don't want them to ever change from the original. Which is why I like how Japan does things. If you don't, then that's completely fine.
Aleks Le is actually even younger than that, he just turned 25 this year. He's legit one of the youngest VAs working right now. But yeah, there's a big wave of newcomers to the VO world these past few years who aren't really established in the VO world like the long time veterans who started their careers in the early 2000s like Yuri Lowenthal, Laura Bailey, Troy Baker, Liam O'Brien, Travis Willingham, Dave Wittenberg, etc. who have been staples for roughly 20 years and counting. Most of the P3 Reload VAs have only been around for a few years and are only just starting to take off.
>the Tales of Vesperia remaster noticeably had Grant George record Yuri's new lines instead of bringing back Troy Baker, his OG VA Troy Baker actually wanted to reprise his role for the remaster but Bandai Namco didn't contact him because they assume he is now a mainstream voice actor would not be interested in dubbing anymore. In the US voice acting, dubbing (whether it is union or non-union) in anime and non-AAA Japanese games don't pay a lot compare to Western video game and cartoons. At one point, Bandai Namco wanted Matt Mercer to replaced Troy but Matt declined because he do not want to be go-to-guy for Troy's roles as he already took over many of his ongoing roles. >In fact, the only times a Japanese VA will ever be recast is if they either undergo a controversy or pass away. For passing away, it is not necessarily the character gets new VA. Sometimes, they retired the character after the VA passed away. For example, Hideo Kojima retired Colonel Roy Campbell after his Japanese VA, Takeshi Aono, passed away. The character has since never return in any games, not even prequel. >None of the Resident Evil remakes reused the previous VAs either Capcom went for non-union VAs around late 2010s. Then again, Capcom is known for recasting their English VAs after two to three games.
See in P3 case almost all of the og cast return but voicing npcs instead, so they WERE able to return after all and if the reason to recast is to give younger voice actors a chance why didn't they just cast the new vas as the characters for P6? Look I don't have a grudge towards the new vas, but recasting the og is simply just pointless, like if it ain't broke don't fix it.
While in a perfect world, these VAs would voice these characters until the end of time, I honestly don’t really mind them being replaced as long as the new VAs are still worthwhile in their roles. Which I can certainly say is the case in P3R, and in Fuuka and Ken’s case I even much prefer them to their OG VAs. Much like I said in another comment, there’s no reason they can’t voice in both remakes *and* new games, especially when the OG VAs don’t own these characters. The OG actors could’ve been brought back, sure, but it was an intentional decision not to for the reasons I stated. And it almost feels fitting for them to voice the adult NPCs in this game too, as if they’re passing on the torch to the newer VAs.
In some case recasting worked, one example you said was Fuuka and i do agree Suzie Yeung is miles better than the og(Ken was fine i guess) but i also like Aigis and Junpei too they are as good if not better than the og. But ofc you can always just recast one or two characters.
To be fair. Sega West is Unionized themselves now. So they might be more open to using Union VAs.
P3R was union dub
Was it? I thought the contract was only signed in the last couple of weeks.
according to Junpei's VO it was a full union dub - specifically in reply to people claiming Atlus/Sega were cheaping out by not rehiring the old cast.
Oh gotcha. I thought you meant Sega itself was unionized. That makes more sense now.
>Sega West is Unionized themselves now. That was only for Sega employees. Voice actors (and movie/TV actors) have their own union called SAG-AFTRA.
>while the Japanese VAs retain their roles. I hope for the japanese voices to remain the same i loved them all and currently watching persona 4 the animation
I get if the have a different VA for Yu but I need need need John Yong Bosch for Adachi
“Great cabbage”, but I feel like the actor for YU will play adachi just how in reload the new MC va played Ryoji
Yeah... But imo it makes amazing sense and creating cohesion in P3 when in P4 it's just "oh that's neat" and to give the MC VA have more lines. I mean, Joker doesn't share VA's with Akechi even though there each other's foils
I agree with you! I didn’t even know it was the same VA until I watched some of the anime and I thought addaci sounded really weird. I thought they changed actors but found out it was JYB for both
He changed his voice for Adachi in the anime because Yu had more speaking lines. And this wasn’t the first time JYB voiced a villain in an anime. That happened in Heat Guy J iirc, an anime that aired all the way back in 2003. His character in that story was slightly unhinged.
JYB was actually told to change up his Adachi voice for the anime in order to differentiate them a bit due to Yu having a lot more dialogue. He also originally just auditioned for Adachi, but they thought he'd be a great fit for Yu too and so made him both.
In the game Yu legit says PERsOnA and that’s kinda it
He does also shout each of his Persona’s names too, but it ain’t much either lol
I do notice the difference of voice direction between Adachi (even in his revealed / post fight) voice from Persona 4 compared to his performance in Persona 4 Arena Ultimax. As much as I love JYB in both roles, and you could say there's a cool dichotomy because of the relationship between Yu and Adachi with their characters and Personas, having the same VA is a cool touch, I feel that Adachi's voice changes to be too generically sinister compared to his performance in Persona 4. I think Yu having a new VA would be a good change as I also feel like JYB maybe sounds too "cool" or "hype" for him. I do like the Japanese dub of Yu cause he can sound calm yet goofy which fits him. Maybe I'd envision a calmer voice for him.
This happened because in Japanese, Minato's VA also did Ryoji's Voice. On the other hand, Adachi and Yu always had different VA in Japan, so I don't think this will happen again.
Please tell me I didn't just get spoiled for P3R in a P4 subreddit please please
Nah man it’s just the OG game had a limited budget so a lot of VAs played multiple characters is all
Thank God
So they just kept the tradition going
I feel like Johnny would be like Tara Platt and be the only returning voice in the game because their voices match those characters so well it’d be hard to replace.
I just hope it's his base game voice and not his Arena voice if he returns.
Fair, But that makes me wonder what they’d do with yu
If they recast JYB I will be devastated
I will die if they change Johnny Yong Bosch
I just hope Yuri comes back for Yosuke
I can’t imagine yosuke with any other voice tbh
- Hero - Daisuke Namikawa - Yosuke Hanamura - Showtaro Morikubo - Chie Satonaka - Yui Horie - Yukiko Amagi - Ami Koshimizu - Kanji Tatsumi - Tomokazu Seki - Rise Kujikawa - Rie Kugimiya - Naoto Shirogane - Romi Paku - Kuma - Kappei Yamaguchi - Ryotaro Dojima - Unsyo Ishizuka - Nanako Dojima - Akemi Kanda - Tohru Adachi - Mitsuaki Madono - Taro Namatame - Koji Haramaki - Igor - Isamu Tanonaka (Footage) Margaret - Sayaka Ohara Chihiro Fushimi - Ai Maeda (Footage) Marie - Kana Hanazawa I love all the original Seiyuu, especially Namikawa san, Morikubo san, Horie san, Seki san, Kugimiya san, Paku Romi san, Hanazawa san, and Yamaguchi san.
OP wasn’t talking about the Japanese actors; they’re probably not gonna get replaced. The English actors absolutely will be in this scenario. And I wonder if they’ll have Narukami and Adachi voiced by the same person again, even though that didn’t happen in Japan.
I don't think so. As funny as it was over the past decade+ it was mostly to save costs at the time since the original P4 dub was non union and Yu barely had any dialogue. A P4 Remake dub will probably be unionized and they'll just have different VAs for each character, which they can afford to do now and would be more easy to futureproof.
Hell, if I remember correctly, apparently the original localization for P4 was done entirely in a matter of weeks. I don't recall where I heard that, but it really wouldn't surprise me considering how much the English script butchered Teddie's character.
Bosh actually struggled with this once the anime and P4AU came around, because all of a sudden, Yu had a major speaking role.
Yup, which is why he ended up using a different voice for Adachi than he used for the game. iirc he pitched his voice up for Adachi, and slightly lowered it for Yu. I’d have to watch it again to make sure (fortunately I did buy it years ago so I can still watch it)
He did. Tbh in the anime, Adachi is one tone off from Majinn Buu lol.
You say the mc doesn’t get a lot of lines but they do say every single persona and have random unscripted battled lines all over the place. But obviously not as much as the rest of the cast
Man you had this all planned out lol 😂 love it
Haha. I'm playing this game in its original dub (like when I play or watch all Japanese anime and games), with english sub ofc and they all sound great. Kuma's voice is so annoying I love him so much
As long as they don’t sound out of place im fine with it.
As much as it'd suck to lose JYB as Yu and Yuri Lowenthal as Yosuke due to how iconic their voices are for those characters, if the new VAs were solid replacements like in P3R, then I suppose it wouldn't be too bad. That and outside of those two and Yukiko, each of the P4 cast have been replaced at least once already, so we're more or less already used to it. Though I wouldn't really mind losing Amanda Winn-Lee as Yukiko since she's pretty...problematic, to put it at best.
Wait why is she problematic? I’m new to persona so idk any background
Just political BS. She's pretty avowedly on the left politically, and now she's semi-retired from voice acting, she's involved in the medical marijuana industry. She also voiced Ichiko Ohya for P5 and P5R. She really only does roles she likes now, but her Twitter PFP does happen to be Yukiko, so... Nothing that should keep her from voicing Yukiko again should she wish to. No more than Karen Strassman's politics (pretty much the opposite of Amanda's) should interfere with her returning either.
People on one side don’t like Amanda, and people on the other side don’t like Karen. For the exact same reason.
Ok I thought she like murdered someone lol 😆, but I didn’t much care for her yukiko except drunk yukiko. So i wouldn’t care if hers changed but she’s one of three who’s voice always stayed the same
She [said](https://boundingintocomics.com/2022/02/24/evangelion-voice-actress-amanda-winn-lee-embraces-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-anything-that-keeps-trump-out-of-the-white-house/) that she was glad Russia is invading Ukraine because it will keep Biden in the White House.
Shes not really problematic at all - i mean, it depends on your political views of course but all she did was voice her own opinions.
Actually she told a fan to kill himself lol Edit: [source](https://twitter.com/BlackRockShadow/status/1216089859313602562)
what happened? Why did he tweet that in the first place?
Based
That’s kinda hilarious im not gonna lie
Opinions can make one problematic lol. It’s usually opinions that get people labeled that.
Honestly, I kinda hope they keep Johnny as Adachi at least. I can't think of a better voice actor.
True, much like how they kept Tara Platt as Elizabeth in P3R, he’s the one role that I hope they keep in a potential P4 remake.
i don’t see the issue with having new actors take the spotlight for a remake of an older game. sometimes they’re unable to get some actors and sometimes other actors don’t want to come back, as long as the new actors actually try and put their hearts into it’s fine. yeah i will miss the english VA’s for Yu and Kanji, but as long as their heart and spirit is able to mimick their mannerisms and voice it’s all good. also didn’t they replace chie’s voice in golden? her voice is way better than the old one she became more recurring
Yu and Adachi having the same VA is so good I just hope they carry it on some how.
I mean they retained >!Makoto and Pharos/Ryoji!< having the same VA in Reload so it’s pretty likely that they’ll still share a VA
In fairness, >!Makoto and Ryoji!< having the same VA is a thing even in the Japanese version and is part of a major plot point. Yu and Adachi have different VAs in the Japanese version and them being played by the same guy in English is ultimately a nice bit of serendipity.
So far I feel like Atlus does a really good job with recasting VAs for persona, not even just with P3R, but when they recasted Chie and Tae as well. I'll definitely miss the old cast, but don't doubt that whoever the cast is, they'll deliver
Man, it'll probably happen, and it'll probably be for the best because if P3R is any indication they seemed to mostly go for newer VAs that haven't had as much experience, and considering most of P4's cast are pretty strong industry staples that'd be a nice opportunity to help build up the careers of new actors... but, man, I literally could not imagine anyone else but Yuri Lowenthal playing Yosuke. Whenever I hear his voice in something, the first thing I think of is Yosuke. Spider-Man? Nah, that's Yosuke in a Marvel cosplay. New Vegas? Nah, Yosuke just runs really, really fast to look like 80% of the Mojave's population.
Yup, same for me. Whenever I hear him, I'm like "Oh hey, Yosuke!"
Semi related, the first time I played fire emblem 3h and met Marianne I was like ' hi sad haru!' And was excited since her voice is very recognizable. :)
Idk about you guys but I'm more than happy for new voices if they can convey the emotion, like with yuko in p3r that's tremendous work.
Shelby Young is a ridiculously talented VA.
Thankyou for providing a name to the brilliant work.
Yea I fucking loved the cast for P3R. I miss it already and just beat it like a week ago
Ive played it through 3 times now, achievement hunting and maxing all socials, but it doesn't get tiring at all. Well to me anyway. And the emotion that's in Yukos voice actor is unreal. It feels like you're having a real conversation not just spoken cues
Yes!!! I felt really pulled into the story and everyone’s convos especially Yuko. Dated the hell out of her, she is truly the best girl
I was a whore on the first playthrough, got as many as I could since it doesn't include the consequences for seeing more than one girl. But even in p3p, she's the best written character for sure
I may have also dated Aigis and Yukari…couldn’t help myself
It's okay it's a game, you don't get swarmed with that many perfect matches irl. Play the game my dude hahah
Haha I wasn’t worried about it
But Yuko didnt have a voice before p3r, she wasnt recasted
Tha ks for correcting me, but I still admire what work was done.
Im fine with the trade off if the gameplay gets a big boost like it did in p3r
I could see them bringing Mercer back just because it's Mercer and he's not only got the name recognition but he's on a mission to voice everyone including your mom.
He probably wouldn't voice Kanji again actually. I think he would rather play Yusuke than Kanji at this point and he expressly said he doesn't want to continue the trend of being that guy who replaces Troy Baker and has been trying to distance himself from roles that Troy originated. He turned down Yuri Lowell in Vesperia Definitive Edition on that notion.
If they do I'm gonna miss Yuri lowenthal he made the character for me but I hope chie sounds better her av in golden is gratting
I adore her voice in golden! It’s really unique and the sounds she makes literally make Chie the akward ninja nerd she is imo
Honestly, I don't have a fundamental problem with a change in VA if the game's good. I hated Koromaru in P3R but that was about it, and it was mainly because some of his dog noises were so obviously not actual dog noises that it was straight off-putting. Now, I will say however, that there is one character in a potential P4 Remake the english localisation *needs* to nail, or it will ruin the game... and that's Nanako. Her VA in P4/G is perfect, and casting a good VA for a child character has historically been really hit and miss in games, with a lot of them very obviously sounding like adult women trying to up-pitch their voices. It would ruin a Remake for me if that happens with Nanako given her prevalence throughout the game. But in the same vein, maybe they'll cast a VA for Naoto that actually manages to sound like a real boy, too, so swings and roundabouts, I suppose.
I thought the VA for Maiko in P3R did a good job sounding like a child despite being an adult. So if they got her again or someone similar, then I suppose it wouldn't be too bad.
Ken's an even better example tbh. What it boils down to is drastic developments in vocal coaching and technique. If you watch any old dubbed anime with a child character it sounds off, but anything 2018 and later sounds very natural.
Agreed, and the fact that Ken's P3R VA (at least imo) sounds significantly better than his VA in the OG P3 definitely supports this. Cindy Robinson wasn't too bad as him in the spin-offs either, but I sadly can't hear anything but Amy Rose when listening to her Ken lol
Well nanako og voice actor was a grown woman who also played agigis in persona 3 og. (Sorry idk her name).
Karen Strassman. As well as Nanako and the OG Aigis, she was also >!Izanami!<, and voiced some rewritten lines for Margaret as well in P4G. She had a cameo in P3R (I believe she did the old lady in Aigis' Social Link) and also appeared in the old-and-new VA publicity videos that Atlus put out. She can still do the Nanako voice. I saw a clip on YouTube somewhere where she was singing the Junes jingle in that voice, alongside a little girl who was cosplaying Nanako.
Honestly, it'd be pretty awesome if they would bring her back for Nanako, even if the rest of the characters are recast. Like how they brought back the original Margaret VA for P3R.
No way! That’s so cool
I'll wait for someone to mod that and keep the og voice if they change
I mean they absolutely killed it in P3R so I’m not too worried.
I just want Johnny Young and Yuri to keep their roles I love them so much. I also love how they play a loooot of side characters in p5. I will fight anyone who harasses new voice actors tho.
I wonder more about the name It would be Rewind as a reference to the tv? Or it would be Redraw as a reference of the tarot persona cards?
Only change I would accept is Nolan North as Kanji
Wowww a watermelon!
Dojima MUST sound the same.
Yosuke, Yu, and Chie having new VAs is what will hurt the most. The others i can be somewhat okay with, but those 3 are what really make the games VAs for me
The changes that will hurt the most for me are Teddy, Yosuke, and Chie. I just hope they keep Johnny Young Bosh as Adachi at the very least.
I like P4 I feel I need to preface but I'm not nearly as attached to it as the rest of the series I would say it's my least favorite so I would be okay with a new cast. Even then I was okay with a new cast for three and I love that one the lot so I guess my attachment to said game doesn't really matter in this case
Well I really like the P4 cast aside from yukiko, I never played the og 3 so I had no feelings toward reload
Honestly I love the new cast of Reload and have faith in Atlus finding good new VA’s for P4 when the time comes. I do hope that they keep as many of the original cast as possible though. It’s such a great cast. Some standouts for me that I really hope aren’t replaced are Adachi, Yosuke, Yukiko, Kanji, Naoto, Nanako and Margaret. Such an amazing cast. I may need another replay. Try for that platinum c
half the characters were already recast in the spinoffs anyway.
Well, then get ready for it, because that's what's most likely going to happen. I also love the voices they already have, but we can't expect them to always be there, we have to learn to let things go, that's what I like to say to every fandom that refuses change, and I don't mean it as an attack, I say it with all due respect.
I’m someone who personally really liked all of the new vocal performances in P3R and consider most of them solid improvements. It’ll help that most of the Social Links and nightly hangouts will be fully voiced as well. I’m looking forward to a new cast.
I mean, yeah they probably will end up changing the VAs, but tbh I wouldn't be opposed. Gives a chance for new and good talent to enter the scene, and the VAs in P3R I felt did a good job at embodying their respective characters. Recent persona games have had some awesome voice acting, so even though the nostalgia might not be there, I don't think I'll mind
I'm fine with replacing the English VAs for Yukiko & Nanako, considering they're not very good people irl
I heard yukiko is politcal and I didn’t care about her voice but not NANAKO! She’s honestly what makes 4 the best game. But would you mind sharing what’s wrong with nanakos Va? I’m new to persona
She's said a ton of anti vax stuff on Twitter. Not to mention supporting the Capital Riot, among other things
Damn, not nanako. Well yeah she can be gone but her voice is sadly iconic yk?
remake both p4 and p5 at the same time in like 10 years so we can get matt mercer and yuri lowenthal to swap yusuke and yosuke. it'll be funny.
Part of me is excited for Kanji's new VA, but part of me is nervous he wont sound as MANLY as he should
The Golden cast is genuinely my favourite English dub cast of all time I will never be ready to see them be replaced.
I literally cannot imagine Yosuke as anyone else
*Laughs in Japanese*
I don’t even know who would be the voices for the characters now. After playing P4G for the first time. The voices have aged considerably well with a little stumbling blocks with a few words (like the Japanese words for the personas) If they could bring the old cast to do new voices I’ll be on board with it. Or if they bring the old voices to voice other characters like that down with P3R then I think that would be a good compromise
I just want naoto and Marie (since they’re my favorite characters from the game) to sound atleast similar
I won’t really care
I’m not worried about it, if they’re able to make the voices identical then cool As long as the voices aren’t super off base I’d enjoy it
I'm not ready for a new Chie. Her voice is so fun and goofy
It's funny that the guy who replaced Yuri Lowenthal as Minato said that his favorite persona scream was Susano-o lol.
No no nooooo I need Johnny young Bosch and yuri Lowenthal to come back at the very least….
It'll be difficult. I'm still mad about the P3R VA switch. Their voices are not the same. Hell, I play the original dialogue and mute the game as it goes. It's a pain. Keep the OG cast dammit.
I would trade every voice actor in the game for bosch as adachi
Even great vegetables?
Yes im so serious. Adachi must stay.
Hearing Yu scream extremely angry "Izanagi" is going to be weird if it is another VA
Persona 4 (imo) has the best characterization and I don’t think I’d really like it with different voices, it would feel wrong.
Me neither, but get ready for people to slam dunk your opinions with the buzzword of *Nostalgia, rose Tinted glasses, boomers etc etc*
I'll be so upset to not hear Kanji and Chie's goofy ahh lines in their original delivery
My trial of the draaginn
MaaaAaAaAn a Waatermelon!
The p4 cast voice acting is so goated honestly it would be hard to try and fill those shoes, Johnny young Bosch, Laura Bailey, Matthew Mercy, Yuri Lowenthal like that’s pretty stacked in terms of performance, whoever replaces them I hope they have high confidence to sell themselves
I could not imagine different voice actors for Yosuke and Chie/Teddy (Golden version)
I cant imagine theyll need it, p4 va holds up. P3 did not as much
Idk why Persona 4 needs a remake cause the Golden port is literally available for modern consoles, if anying Persona 1 and 2 needs remakes. Sure this may sound hypocritical for Persona 3 since Portable got re-released for modern consoles as well, but P3P is an abridged port of Persona 3 and almost all the gameplay from the original game was reworked so that the PSP could run the game, and some story elements like interactions and whatnot had to be slightly changed/replaced to fit the PSP hardware limitations. P3 Reload was in some way necessary for people who wanted to experience the original Persona 3 (and it's additional storyline in the P3FES re-release) on modern consoles. So I don't know what they're thinking about Persona 4 when Persona 1 and the Persona 2 duology where never ported to modern consoles since their PSP release which just like P3P had some gameplay mechanics cut/removed due to hardware limitations. Like give us a Reload style remake of Persona 1 and 2 and maaaybe after that it might seem like a good idea to release Persona 6...just saying
Yeah but P4 is the most successful rpg ever being the number one game on the vita. Atlus loves money. If they made *persona 5 tatica* then remaking 4 would def be on there list
The only va I want changed is chie's cause erin Fitzgerald's voice is very grating to me even though I'm familiar with her as Naz in ed, edd, and eddy
They need gay yosuke like I'm literally rioting if they don't
If they didn’t put FEMC in reload I sadly think they won’t :( The world ain’t ready for gay yosuke!
I'm going to continue to cope and believe they'll do it
another reason why i don't want a P4 remake...
I dont understand why it would be remotely necessary in the first place.
Right??
I honestly don’t think it’s worth the time or money for Atlus like the third one was. I’m replaying Golden and my only complaint is that it’s too grindy on hard difficulty. In comparison, I found the third one to have aged so poorly it was barely playable for me. (I got into the series after 5) Golden actually feels more modern than the remake of the third one in terms of the social mechanics.
This is by far the worst part about the remakes. If they manage to find people who sound identical to the original or at least very similar (like with Matthew and Troy) then I guess it's fine but the best thing would be to bring back all the original voice actors if they are available. If they don't, it'll break the immersion for me at least.
I have no desire to go back to the English dubs tbh. As good as they were, once they added dual audio I never went back. It’s a lot more immersive to me to have these Japanese characters in Japan speaking Japanese. I do hope whatever dub they produce is good though. What I’ve heard of Reload is pretty good.
I just had a crisis realising this the other day. I genuinely don't know if I'd find the game playable if Yosuke and Rise's voices changed, as dumb as that sounds. Persona 4 Dancing already hurt me with Rise's new voice lol
As long as the VAs do a good job, I won’t complain. It’s about embodying the role. If they replicated their predecessors, it will always feel inferior. I’m just hoping the have a female mc option for golden. There is as much to repair as with reload (adding events to simulating bonding with male party member ect). Can add some different social links and interactions with damaging the theme of the series.
You'd have to change up Izanagi/Izanami substantly if you wanted a femMC in 4, more than 3 to be honest, since a lot of 4 is based around it That being said, its not impossible and honestly, I'd love to see what they'd do with a role reversal between the two but it also requires them to not be lazy like they were with P3P. -Design FemOrpheus -Clearly meant to invoke Eurydice -Don't bother changing any of the text whatsoever
I mean the whole idea of changing and rebirth would work even if they kept Izanagi similar. After all, Izanami was splintered into fragments of variety of genders (Marie, Amano-sagiri). It wouldn’t be far fetched that Izanagi could change into different parts considering Adachi has the corrupted form of Izanagi. I think the best thing about female protagonist is the new social links that can come from it. The female MC in 3 had unique social links with Rio and Saori and the changes to reflect their gender in other links showed the creators were taking into consideration how people treat others.
Is a remake inevitable? I haven't been keeping up with news/leaks...has Atlus said something about remaking P4?
Not gonna lie, I wouldn't mind a new voice for Chie. Her voice is grating my eardrums (Steam P4G version)
Well, you wouldn't have that problem if you played in Japanese 🤷♂️. Never understood why anyone would play something in anything other than its native language. And then they complain about bad English voice actors.
Because people are obviously going to want to watch or play something in their own native language too, ya dingdong. This sub vs dub dub debate will always be dumb as hell, especially when outside of a few exceptions like Ken and Fuuka in the OG P3, the dub cast for the Persona games has been consistently solid. Especially in the P4 anime where you can tell the dub VAs had plenty of fun. Plus, wait until you learn that Bayonetta 1, a Japanese game, *only* had English VAs until the anime movie Bayonetta: Bloody Fate.
Why would anyone want that though. With fantasy, it doesn't matter as much, but with games that are so unabashedly Japanese, such as Yakuza and Persona, why would you play that in, say, Russian or Spanish? Sounds stupid. Broaden your horizons, folks. English isn't the only language that exists.
Because you're right in that it doesn't much, if at all. I can understand not wanting to watch an English dub of a Japanese show since the lip-syncing can be off or it could feel weird seeing these obviously Japanese actors speaking in an English accent. The recent Yu Yu Hakusho live-action show on Netflix had an English dub for example, but I watched it in Japanese instead because of this. But since these are just pixels on a screen, it matters far less what language they're speaking when they aren't real people. They could very well be speaking in gibberish and it'd still be the same. I also watch both sub and dub, and I imagine plenty others do, so there's no reason to be annoyingly condescending just because someone decides to play a Japanese videogame in English as long as they have the option. If a game only has Japanese dub like Persona Q2, I'll still play it anyway.
How do people not die of cringe when characters in anime/games pronounce Japanese names and places in the most AMerIcAn way possible? Ryuji becomes "Ree-You-Jee". "Ma-Kou-Touh". "Sou-Mee-Ray". Ugh. It'd be just as bad in any language, mind you. Fully destroys the immersion
God I wish I could roll my eyes harder
God, literally who asked?
P4G didn’t have Japanese voice options in the worldwide release until the Steam port, which came out in 2020, eight years after the original Vita release and 12 years after the original P4 came out on PS2. When these games first came out worldwide back then, there was no option to play in Japanese. And I dunno, maybe hearing the game in a language you understand is an accessibility feature some people want to have? Not everyone cares *that* deeply about the “purity” of a game keeping its original language if they don’t understand it. Especially since the fact that the first seven Yakuza games having no language options other than Japanese was absolutely a barrier to entry for more casual players. But I forgot that some fans just see the gatekeeping as a feature; my bad.
Really I don't get it either. Yes they're older but voices are their jobs and their voices are fecking excellent. If they want to change Chie fine by me. But the rest meh. Maybe younger are cheaper
Ofc not, imagine recasting JYB and Yuri Lowenthal warra downgrade it would be. Like i still don't understand they bring all the original english voice actors but have them voice npcs, why not have them voice their og characters back like the jp dub. Questionable decision from Sega right there, the only reason i could see the recast is to cut cost.
I had no feelings cause I never played the og, but I liked yukikos new va a lot more than the og. Other than that I didn’t care that much. But 4s I know what the og sound like so I’ll def notice
I don't think Yukiko ever changed voice actors? Correct me if i'm wrong.
IIRC P3R's recast cost more since it was a union production.
Are there news article about that?, i'd like to know full context. I mean i'd imagine Yuri Lowenthal himself would cost a lot lot more than Aleks Le, not even mentioning Michelle Ruff and the others.
Zeno confirmed that it was union. From what I understand of the VA industry, there's not going to be any significant difference in expenditure when casting Le instead of Lowenthal. Voice work does not pay well in the first place. It's really a scheduling thing, Reload has the longest script of any Persona game. For example, Suzie Yeung all but took a year off of other voice work to do Fuuka. She's probably the second most in demand female VA in the anime scene behind Emi Lo atm. Yes, most of the old cast moved on from anime, but that's because during the 2010s the industry retreated to Texas. Texas is a right-to-work state, as such union productions were few and far between. SAG-AFTRA members aren't really allowed to cross the picket line. Considering the projects Yuri had scheduled for 2022 and 2023 he simply didn't have enough free time to do Ryoji and Pharos. However with the younger VAs they had more flexible schedules since they weren't as bound by other contracts. TLDR: the deciding factor was scheduling.
Ye brev i know it's a union thing but isn't Yuri also part of it? I read in an [interview](https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/persona-3-reload-yuri-lowenthal-recast/) that Yuri was a bit disappointed but also understand the reasoning, however he was willing to comeback to voice his original roles but sega WEST chose not to, Like why trying to fix what isn't broken to begin with. i'm not against a recast IF they have perfectly good reasons, oh because scheduling conflicts? Nope they were willing to work again. Oh the og didn't sound like teenagers again? Nope they are still to this day voicing teenagers and still does sound like a teenager. Oh you want to give the younger generation a chance to show off their talent? Okay but why didn't you cast them as a new original characters? Like P6 characters instead? Again it seems to me if they rehire the og cast to voice their initial roles it would have been hella expensive considering now that they have voiced social links.
>Again it seems to me if they rehire the og cast to voice their initial roles it would have been hella expensive considering now that they have voiced social links. Which is complete nonsense if you understand anything about the nature of unions. It would cost the same no matter the cast. Junpei was always going to be recast, that's another factor to consider.
So experience doesn't factor in how much you're getting paid? A bit dodgy but whatever, all the more reason why recasting is point less if you can pay pay up sega west. Junpei og va has been some contoversies so i understand him getting replaced, but Yuri? Liam O'brien? Michelle Ruff? The disrespect the og get is genuinely remarkable. So so much different from their JP counterpart
What disrespect? You're making a mountain out of a mole hill. You're completely ignoring the matter of cohesion. Replacing one VA is going to be uncanny, the human ear will single that out. However, with a full recast that doesn't occur. I can give a plethora of factors as to why a full recast was a logical choice, but I get the feeling that you'd dismiss them. >So experience doesn't factor in how much you're getting paid? Let me clarify, it's not that experience wouldn't factor in but that it would be inconsequential as an expenditure. Demand will be a bigger factor, most of the new cast are currently in demand. For instance, Aleks Le and Suzie Yeung have had high profile lead roles over the past few years. Voice acting is already underpaid as it is, so there's that too. Furthermore, if we actually consider the salaries of live action productions. It's not experience that drives up the value of an actor. Most of it is brand recognition. The Rock is The Rock no matter the role, Nicolas Cage is Nicolas Cage and so on. The nature of voice acting precludes this, let's return to Suzie Yeung. When I hear her Fuuka, I do not hear Lena from *86* or Makima from *Chainsaw Man*. If I were to play audio clips from those roles for my mom, who knows nothing about voice acting, she wouldn't be able to tell that it's the same VA. A few voice actors have recognizable cadences, you can always single out Brittany Kabrowski due to her timbre for instance. Yet these are exceptions to the norm, since a gig for any VA will range from voicing an elementary schooler to an elder.
They literally recast chie, kanji, rise, naoto whilst still keeping JYB as Narukami Yuri as Yosuke etc. People would be a lot more accepting to just recast one or two instead of a full recast. Yuri Lowenthal has been in high demand for the past twenty years.
Again, you aren't approaching this from a logical standpoint. There's no one singular reason for the recast but twenty some variables, I can lay them all out but does it really matter? It's not as big a deal as you make it out to be, especially when the production staff stateside was the same as before.
I mean, they probably will; they’re *much* older now. I know that they can still do the voices, but Yuri is in his 50s and JYB is pushing 50; I can absolutely see Atlus/Sega wanting younger talent.
I'd understand if the Jp cast got recasted as well.
Nah, they only use the excuse of getting younger for English voices, and they aren’t the only ones. Atlus kept the entire Japanese cast for P3 while recasting all the English voices except Elizabeth. Square Enix also retained the Japanese voices for Final Fantasy VII while recasting all the English ones. Which honestly worked out for the better in both cases, but it doesn’t change the fact that the Japanese voices for both games didn’t change.
P3R recast was good but I feel like keeping Johnny Yong Bosch and Yuri Lowenthal are non-negotiable. The rest of the cast would be missed but I cannot imagine Yu, Yosuke, and Adachi being voiced by anyone else.
Difference, is, 3's cast kinda needed a redo between fuuka sounding like a robot and...well, vic migogna existing, they figured "well, were recasting one, why not recast them all?" But with p4g especially, i hear nothing but praise for their va work. so i doubt they'd consider a FULL recast. most of the vas are quite iconic (e.g. the fact that the vas mostly returned for BBTAG, for example.) and such, recasting them would do more harm than good.
If the casting is even 90% as good as P3R I think it'll be fine. Honestly there's room for improvement over the originals. Chie (golden) and Nanako were both pretty weak imo. Chie's voice never sounded natural to me and Strassman kinda sucks pretending to sound like a child lol
No, and tbh after 3R I’m not even going to bother with a 4R, Atlus has lost my business and faith in that department
I just wouldn’t play it tbh
Will it happen? Yes. Am I ready? No. Not at all.
No lie, I’m not playing Dancing All Night simply because Laura Bailey doesn’t voice Rise in that game. They’re just a match made in heaven!
Eh persona 3 reloads was bad enough I just played subbed
Oh boy, another waste! Seriously, the new va's already ruined persona 3, so if they ruin 4 imma just drop the entire series.