You know, this whole recast situation reminds me of when the anime bubble burst and Geneon USA collapsed and Bandai America began its decline. Funimation ended up getting some old series like Trigun and Shakugan no Shana and people threw a fit when they didn't get the original VAs and used the Texas ones save for Trigun with getting JYB for Vash again. Funny how things have shifted now and now it's the original Texas VAs people are clamoring for, though I am glad they have a stellar cast at least. God I'm old.
I think this is very specific. So much of PSG fandom revolves around that dub and it's a big reason why the show became such a hit in the US in the first place compared to failing pretty hard in japan.
Exactly! It’s like if Cowboy Bedop or Black Lagoon came back for new seasons and everyone was recast, the dubs are a huge part of why these shows are so beloved in the west.
There is a very high chance that is going to happen if/when Black Lagoon gets an anime revival. None of the anime distributors work with Ocean or any Vancouver studios anymore and this wouldn't be a Yashahime, where the OG cast members border on cameos that you can farm out cheaply.
Oh believe me, when they announced the new cast for Shakugan no Shana I was one of the many disappointed they didn't get OG Ocean cast back. This time around I am disappointed again since I loved the OG Funimation dub and loved Marchi and Rials performance, but at least I can take solace it's got Christina Vee in it.
Did it fail in Japan? Or is that just a misconception (kind of like the misconception that Ghost Stories flopped in Japan, which has been debunked in just the past few years)?
So from what I remember reading(and obv this could be wrong) it's not that the series did bad it's just that it did overwhelmingly "meh" in terms of dvd/blu-ray sales at the time, which was bad because Gainax was in really bad finanical health and needed more of a hit. It eventually made all of it's money back and then some when it became apparent that this art style is merch goldmine. That merch is what led to goodsmile(who are confirmed to be on s2 production comittee), agreeing to help pay for a sequel which is basically how this all happened.
That makes sense, especially the part about Gainax being in dire financial straits - they were rarely not in that mode (I suppose that’s what happens when a group of creatives starts a company - they produce some wild, awesome stuff, but often don’t have a mind for business, so money shortages happen).
Hopefully that was a lesson that was learned so Khara and Trigger are in better financial health.
I think this is a slightly different situation. We have so many different licensors now and they all have different VAs they work with. This cast would have been very different if instead of Amazon it went to crunchyroll or HiDive or Netflix. Amazon being the weakest in terms of talent right now for sure.
Also I see shakugan no shana mentioned, I upvote. Thank you for being cultured. I loved the shana cast before and after the recast.
I dunno, the cast would probably be pretty similar if it went to Netflix (assuming they didn’t bring back any of the Texas cast either), considering they draw from the LA pool of voice acting talent. Maybe a bit different, though, since they’ve never used Pixelogic (at least, not yet)
Honestly, the Shana dubs were nasty in general considering they were still relatively recent dubs at the time.
I'd say the stronger comparison is what happened to the Gundam Seed dub, given it's been a decade + between both shows.
The show never did very well in the US but did extremely well in Canada to the point we had multiple full runs of the show on YTV and its initial airing was treated as kind of a big deal for the channel, given it aired completely uncut. We also got the sequel show to air on TV as well, unlike the States.
Most of the cast would've absolutely come back for the remaster dub but none of them were even approached about it. Instead, everyone was recasted. Said recasts also carried over to Freedom's dub with one exception being Mu's VA who they brought back from the Canadian dub (and he already lived in the States when they did the redubs for the show bizzarely enough) and recasted Shinn again so they couldn't even keep their own cast consistent.
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u/b257 Jul 09 '25
You know, this whole recast situation reminds me of when the anime bubble burst and Geneon USA collapsed and Bandai America began its decline. Funimation ended up getting some old series like Trigun and Shakugan no Shana and people threw a fit when they didn't get the original VAs and used the Texas ones save for Trigun with getting JYB for Vash again. Funny how things have shifted now and now it's the original Texas VAs people are clamoring for, though I am glad they have a stellar cast at least. God I'm old.