The Other Darrin/Anime and Manga

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of The Other Darrin in Anime and Manga include:

Replacements in the original Japanese


Replacements in the dubs

  • The English dub for Angel Beats!! had a few minor characters that shifted actors:
    • Illich Guardiola played Takamatsu from episodes 8-13 and Kalob Martinez played Takamatus for the first seven episodes.
    • Elizabeth Bunch played Hisako in episodes 3-4 and Yusa in episodes 10 and 14. Jessica Boone played Hisako in 5-6, 12 and 14 while Serena Varghese played Yusa in the first nine episodes.
  • In the English dub of Bleach Kim Strauss as Sajin Komamura was replaced by J.B. Blanc due to Strauss retiring.
    • The late Tomoko Kawakami as Soifon was replaced by Houko Kuwashima in 2008.
      • She also replaced her as Fuyuki in the Japanese version of Sgt. Frog.
    • Starting with episode 244 of the English dub, Kenpachi is voiced by Patrick Seitz instead of David Lodge.
      • Just after everyone got used to the fact that Doug Erholtz replaced Michael Lindsay as Urahara. In a subversion, the original VA was absent for a while and will be returning to his role post-filler.
  • Li's voice actor in Cardcaptors was replaced around the Star Card arc as the original actor's voice broke.
  • When Disney went on to dub the "remaining" (at the time) movies of Digimon years after the series' runs, they couldn't get hold of all the voice actors, so replacements happened:
    • In the second Adventure 02 movie, Jason Spisak replaced Joshua Seth as Tai, Bridget Hoffman replaced Laura Summer as Patamon (which coincided with another Patamon voiced by Hoffman in the Disney-dubbed Frontier) and Jeff Nimoy (Tentomon's voice actor) replaced Kirk Thornton and Neil Kaplan as (respectively) Gabumon and Hawkmon.
    • In the Tamers movies, Philece Sampler replaced Bridget Hoffman as Jeri, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn replaced Michelle Ruff as Lopmon and Yuri Lowenthal replaced Brian Donovan as Kai (Takato's cousin).
    • In the Frontier movie, Dave Wittenberg replaced Michael Reisz as Takuya; in Frontier itself, Wittenberg also took over as Takuya whenever he became EmperorGreymon because Reisz refused to go through with the amount of yelling involved at that point. Ironically, there was actually a comparitively small amount of shouting involved during EmperorGreymon's scenes.
    • In the Adventure series proper, Michael Lindsay (Joe's voice actor) voiced Agumon for the first couple of episodes before Tom Fahn took over for the rest of the series (and had a different voice actor for all of his forms), Koromon had three different actors, Steven Blum replaced Jeff Nimoy as the young Gennai when 02 came around, Doug Erholtz (quite understandably) replaced Wendee Lee as TK in 02, and Jeff Nimoy replaced Joshua Seth as Tentomon from the second episode onward, only to be replaced by Robert Martin Klein near the end of 02.
    • The two Digimon Rumble Arena games, the only voiced game appearances of anime characters, saw several substitutions. Mary Elizabeth McGlynn replaced both Brian Beacock and Edie Mirman as Takato and Gatomon, respectively; the former (a man voicing a boy replaced by a woman voicing a boy) was particularly jarring. In the second, Robert Martin Klein did Veemon instead of Derek Stephen Prince, Melodee Spevack did Angewomon instead of Edie Mirman, and Tom Fahn and Dan Lorge did Takuya's evolutions instead of Reisz or Wittenberg.
    • Similarly, in the Latin-American dubs five Digidestined changed their VAs from the first season to the second: Taichi (Gerry Meza -> Enzo Fortuny), Yamato (Uraz Huerta -> Jose Gilberto Vilchis), Koushirou (Monica Estrada -> Alfredo Leal), Takeru ( ? -> Irwin Daayan), and Hikari (Cristina Hernandez -> Martha Ceceña - as well as Tailmon).
    • The entire voice cast of the Finnish Adventure dub changed around the middle of the season when negative feedback they got pretty much forced the original dubbing company, Agapio Racing Team, to give up the series. The dubbing was then taken over by the much more Tuotantotalo Werne.
  • Every dubbed season of Duel Masters replaced the entire voice cast, apart from one or two returning actors. Being the kind of show that it was, later seasons made jokes about this.
  • In the American dub of Excel Saga, after Jessica Calvello strained her voice doing Excel for the first 13 episodes, Larissa Wolcott took over the role for the rest of the series.
    • Interestingly, Wolcott even re-dubbed bits during the Pedro flashback episode (such as Excel giving Pedro a pep talk at the construction site) so that her voice was heard instead of Calvello's. This is good for consistency, I suppose, but it also means you have two different voices for the same scene.
  • Shamisen, the cat briefly given the ability to speak in Haruhi Suzumiya, was voiced by Steve Kramer in the English dub of Season 1, and Michael McConnohie in the more expanded appearance in Season 2.
  • Initial D had a dub cast change for Third and Fourth Stage after Funimation acquired the rights from Tokyopop (including Joel McDonald, Brina Palencia, and J Michael Tatum), and they also redubbed the seasons Tokyopop did the "tricked out" dub on.
  • The Viz dub of Inuyasha has the following:
    • Sota Higurashi/Eri: Saffron Henderson --> Rebecca Shoichet
    • Kohaku: Danny McKinnon --> Alex Doduk
    • and the Viz dub of Inuyasha: The Final Act has:
      • Kagome Higurashi: Moneca Stori --> Kira Tozer
      • Sesshomaru: David Kaye --> Michael Daingerfield
  • Kenichi the Mightiest Disciple expirienced this when the actor for Hermit (Jason Liebrecht) was replaced with Eric Vale for Season 2 following Jason's motorcycle accident.
  • Through the various movies, recuts, and compilations of Neon Genesis Evangelion that have been made in the last 15 years, several of the English cast have changed. For example, Gendo has had two separate VAs, Touji has had three, and Kaworu has had a different voice actor for the series, movies, and director's cut. It's become something of an in-joke in Eva fandom that the cast has a habit of vanishing off the face of the earth.
    • In the Rebuild of Evangelion movies, only Shinji's, Asuka's, and Misato's voice actors reprised their roles (though Gendo's voice actor from the Director's Cut episodes also reprised his role).
    • Only Shinji (Victor Ugarte) and Gendo (Humberto Solorzano) kept their original voice actors from the first Latin American dub. I.e., Rei is voiced by Victor Ugarte's sister Gaby in the second dub, which becomes Hilarious in Hindsight when you recall that Rei, as a clone of Shinji's mother Yui, is essentially his half-sister.
    • One that really ticked some people off was the English dub of Rebuild replacing Amanda Winn-Lee with Brina Palencia as Rei. The official reason was Lee taking time off to look after her ailing son, though it would be a bit naive not to suspect it had something to do with her (not undeserved) reputation for alcoholism and general bad behavior.
      • Maya is probably the worst. She's had a different VA in every installment of the series (Series, End of Eva, Directors cut, and Rebuild). While all of them fit her character, most of them sound totally different from one another.
  • The dub voice of Eiko Magami from Project A-ko was Stacey Gregg in the original movie. Gregg was replaced by Teryl Rothery for the remainder of the OVA series.
  • Ranma ½
    • Between seasons three and four (episodes 64 and 65), the North-American dub voice for Ranma abruptly changed from Sarah Strange, a woman playing a boy's voice, to Richard Ian Cox—a man playing a boy's voice after the former wanted to move on with her career. After the first six episodes Ranma's female voice actor also changed from Brigetta Dau (who also voiced the character in the first two OVA episodes) to Venus Terzo, but the change was arguably more subtle since it was fairly early on in the series, and the voices were similar.
    • When Angela Costain, the English voice of Nabiki Tendô, wanted to attend flight school, her sister Elaina Wotten-Costain took over the character for Season 6. (Unlike many vocal Darrins, the difference between the two performances was virtually nil—many viewers never noticed the change). Angela returned for Season 7 after getting her pilot's license.
    • Kodachi Kuno was voiced by Teryl Rotherly for the first four seasons before the character was recast with Erin Fitzgerald for Season 5. Ironically, she was recast AGAIN for Seasons 6-7 with Sylvia Zaradic taking over the role (who actually sounded much closer to Teryl than Erin).
    • Both the Jusenkyo Guide and Dr. Tofu were recast beginning in Season 6 with new voice actors (Michael Donovan and Kirby Morrow respectively) when their original voice actor, Ian James Corlett, left the show.
    • Cologne also had multiple voice actors at different points in the series: Kathleen Barr, Elan Ross Gibson, and Lynda Boyd.
  • Saber Marionette J, Saber Marionette J Again and Saber Marionette J To X, while all licensed by Bandai in North America, were each dubbed into English at different studios. The entire cast changed between each series (although Saber Marionette R did share some cast with J). This means Otaru changed from Light Yagami to Ascot to Betterman. Lime was Bulma, a Tachikoma, and Meifon Li. Etc.
  • The English Sailor Moon adaptation practically had a revolving door of actors for various reasons, mainly because the dub's production was stopped and restarted several times for unusually long gaps, leaving plenty of time for actors to leave or have scheduling conflicts when it was time to produce more dubbing. While fans often blame the switchover of the rights from DiC to Cloverway, the same dubbing studio, Optimum, handled the entire series and made the casting choices.
    • The most notable changes came to Sailor Moon herself, who was originally voiced by Tracey Moore and then switched over to Terri Hawkes gradually (the earlier episodes might have been dubbed out of order) and then permanently for the remainder of the DiC run (Tracey's very last episode was Jupiter's debut episode). During the S production, Terri Hawkes was on maternity leave during the recording period and was replaced with Linda Ballantyne for all of the S and SuperS seasons (which were recorded fairly close together), who tried to mimic Hawkes at first, but developed her own take on the character. Though her overall performance is sometimes regarded as an exaggerated imitation of Hawkes' voice.
    • Tuxedo Mask also had three actors. Rino Romano voiced him in the Tracey Moore episodes before both Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon were recast. After Tux's second voice actor, Toby Proctor, left the show over pay concerns toward the end of the second season (after the first major hiatus), he was replaced for the rest of the series by Vince Corraza, who had also voiced the alien Alan. Vince was also instructed to mimic Proctor's voice. Proctor and Vince were, of course, The Other Darien.
    • Of the other scouts, Mercury was voiced by the very British-sounding Karen Bernstein for the first two seasons and movies, and the not-so British Liza Balkan in later episodes. Liza was handpicked by Bernstein herself, and was instructed to mimic her voice as best she could. Mars was voiced by Katie Griffin for pretty much the whole series, however Emilie Claire Barlow filled in for the last 17 episodes of the second season while Griffin was away filming a movie. Venus was originally voiced by Stephanie Morgenstern and Rini by Tracy Hoyt, but for the S and SuperS seasons they were replaced with Emilie Claire Barlow (who had previously stood in for Mars) and Stephanie Beard respectively. Sailor Pluto was voiced by Sabrina Grdevich (Ann's voice) originally, and Susan Aceron in the S season, though her first appearance actually used Luna's voice as a placeholder. In this crop of voice swapping, the characters apparently were not told to mimic the old actors and their voices are more distinct.
    • One of the villains went through this during the DiC years - Katzy of the Weird Sisters was originally voiced by Alice Poon and had a bizarre recasting with Molly's voice actor, Mary Long. All of sudden, Katzy was putting on a previously-absent Brooklyn accent and chain smoker growl.
    • Sailor Jupiter was thankfully exempt from this. She was the only one of the original five scouts to not change her VA for any reason, being voiced by Susan Roman for all four seasons and the movies.
    • The dubbers for the Italian version had a curious roundabout. Rei was dubbed for season 1 by Alessandra Karpoff, and from season 2 onward by Giusy DiMartino. Karpoff went on to dub Michiru in season 3, and funnily enough she replaced Donatella Fanfani as Makoto's voice in season 4 and 5. Michiru then ended up being voiced by Patrizia Scianca, who had dubbed a major enemy, Kaolinite, in season 3. Also, dubber Lara Parmiani voiced enemy Eudial in season 3 and Princess Kakyuu in season 5.
    • While the Latin-American dub for kept 90% of the cast through the season, Mamoru's first voice actor, Genaro Vasquez, was replaced mid R season by Gerardo Reyero. This was jarring because of the huge voice difference: Vasquez was a tenor, Reyero was a bass.
      • Luna's Latin American voice actress was also briefly recast for a few episodes with Hotaru's while her main voice actress was unavailable.
    • The French dub pulled this when attempting to cover up the relationship between Haruka and Michiru. "Frédérique" originally had a female actress full time. A few episodes into S, they cast a male voice actor for her civilian identity and explained that Frédérique was trying to hide her identity as Uranus and Mylene (Michiru) helped by pretending to be "his" girlfriend.
    • Even the original Japanese production had this happen - during the recording of the final episodes of the first series (44-46) and the early portions of R(47-50), Kotono Mitsuishi (Usagi) had her appendix removed and Kae Araki took over for her. Amusingly, this includes episode 46, which ends with the insert song "You Are Just My Love", a duet between Mitsuishi and Tohru Furuya (Mamoru). Araki returned to do the role of Chibiusa ten episodes after her stint as Sailor Moon.
    • The Brazilian dub also suffered uncancelling, with the R (and subsequent) season airing much later than the first season. The entire cast of the first season was replaced, although the new recordings happened in the same State as the first (that is, the dubbers didn't even look for the old voice actors). Curiously, the Amazon Quartet in SuperS was voiced by almost all of the scouts' old voice actresses; probably a way to acknowledge the fans' reaction to the recast.
  • In the first English adaptation of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman known as Battle of the Planets, fans generally associate the voice actors Ronnie Schell and Alan Dinehart Jr. with their respective characters of Jason and Tiny. But in the first episode dubbed by Sandy Frank, Jason had a much different and lower voice provided by an unknown actor while Tiny was voiced by Schell and had a gruffer, raspier voice than the slow "big guy" one that Dinehart would make him famous for. To this day, it remains unknown who was the original Jason, though it is suggested that it was either Alan Oppenheimer or David Joliffe, two other veteran actors that had worked on that particular episode.
    • In the case of the second English adaptation G-Force: Guardians of Space, the characters of Hooty, Dr.Brighthead, and Computor were alternatively voiced by Jan Rabson or Gregg Berger, depending on the episode. As this dub lacked credits for the cast, it's become a chore for fans to pick out which episodes are "Berger" ones and which ones were done by Rabson.
  • The third season of Star Blazers had a completely different dub cast from the first two seasons, since the dubbing was taken over by Peter Fernandez and his Speed Racer voice team.
  • While almost every other character kept the same voice actor after the Time Skip in the dub Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (except Simon and Rossiu in the Distant Finale) Nia went from being voiced by Hynden Walch to Bridget Hoffman (though the fact that happens over the Time Skip makes it less noticeable as characters frequently change actors over such periods) It was later explained in a press release that Hynden had to drop out of the show for personal reasons.
  • The Italian (and faithful to the original) version of Tokyo Mew Mew replaced Deep Blue's voice actor in the last ten episodes without any reason. The Blue Knight also had two different voice actors that alternated in order to help keep his identity hidden.
    • The entire Portuguese cast of Tokyo Mew Mew was replaced for the second half of the series since the first half was based off the 4Kids English dub, and the company doing the second half completely ignored everything that was done for the first half. Not only has the entire voice cast different, but the character names and attack names were changed as well.
  • The Trigun movie had a completely different English voice cast from the series since it was licensed and dubbed by FUNimation, wheres the series was licensed by Geneon, and dubbed by Animaze. The only voice actor that returned to reprise their role in the movie was Johnny Yong Bosch as Vash.
  • Yu Yu Hakusho experienced this when Funimation licensed the series after Central Park Media and Media Blasters had each dubbed a movie (the short first movie had been dubbed in Los Angeles by Media Blasters/Animaze, and the main second movie had been dubbed in New York by Central Park Media/Taj Productions). Two different casts were used for them alone, and when Funimation dubbed the series, their own Dallas talent was used instead, essentially a third cast that ended up becoming the officially known English voices (due to their dominance in the TV series). FUNimation is also re-dubbing the movie that Media Blasters had previously dubbed in Los Angeles with Animaze. A fourth English cast from Hong Kong was used for the Animax dub of the TV series for South-East Asian broadcast.
    • The Philippine dub of Yu Yu Hakusho had this due to a change in TV stations. It was particularly glaring since the change in voice happened after a Heroic Sacrifice with Genkai's spirit speaking through another character. Viewers took a while to realize that this was the new voice for Genkai. (Yusuke's change in voice-actors was less obvious but disconcerting for a while.)

Aversions

  • Averted with Full Metal Panic the Second Raid. Like the incident with Komugi and Soul Taker, the original Full Metal Panic! and its sequel, Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, were dubbed by ADV, where Funimation got ahold of The Second Raid. Since most, if not all, of the series' mains were also being used by Funi (both companies were based in Texas so shared a common talent pool), they were able to just rehire them to reprise their roles.
  • Averted with Nurse Witch Komugi. The anime is a Spin-Off / Self-Parody of The Soultaker. ADV got the rights to dub Nurse Witch Komugi, but didn't dub its predecessor (the Ocean Group handled that job). Instead of using new actors, ADV got the original Soultaker dub cast to reprise their roles, and thus ensuring consistency


Replacements in both

  • Ah! My Goddess went through many dubbing crews for the English version, and thus, the series went through many talent pools (North Carolina for the OVA, Los Angeles for the movie and Mini-Goddess, and New York for the TV series). However, the Japanese version stayed pretty consistent, though Kikuko Inoue was briefly replaced by Akemi Okamura in the Mini Goddesses series due to Inoue being on maternal leave. Major Playing Against Type moment, as Okamura often plays Action Girls and not Yamato Nadeshikos.
  • Detective Conan experienced this with Mouri Kogoro in October 2009, when Akira Kamiya left the show to become a seiyuu trainer instead. He had been the voice of Mouri Kogoro since the show first started in 1996, and the new voice (Rikiya Koyama) is distinctly different.
    • The English dub of Case Closed had a couple of casting changes. The most notable was "George" who was originally voiced by Dameon Clarke for the first 3 seasons and part of the fourth. He also voiced George in the first movie. Because of his move to more live-action media, Mike McFarland has taken over the role of George beginning partway through the fourth season and into the fifth. He also voiced the role in all the remaining dubbed movies.
      • The English voice for Booker Kudo (Randy Tallman) died shortly after finishing production on the series, and several of his movie appearances. John Swasey filled in for Booker's remaining English movie (The Phantom of Baker Street).
  • The American dub of Dragon Ball Z returned from being Uncanceled with the third season having an entirely new cast. (Behind the scenes FUNimation eliminated their partnership with Saban, which also voided their ability to afford the expensive Vancouver actors of the first two seasons). For most of the new actors, this was their first voice acting role (DBZ was the first Dallas-based English dub), and it was obvious. Some had only minor differences in sound, but the performances varied heavily. Christopher Sabat alone replaced some six or seven of the major characters (although a couple were later reverted to new actors later on). After a few seasons, they had effectively created their own interpretations.
    • Before the full-cast switchover, Goku and Master Roshi had to be recast when Ian Corlett left over a combination of pay concerns and frustration with the production schedule. Peter Kelamis replaced him as Goku in both roles.
      • Even after the entire cast changed, and the show was being dubbed by Funimation in Dallas, there were some cast changes. Mark Britten left the series to go on a comedy tour in 2001, and many of his voices were recast. Burter and Korin were recast with Christopher R. Sabat, Mustard and the other world tournament announcer were recast with Brandon Potter, and the Ox King was recast with Kyle Hebert. In addition, Dale D. Kelly, the Funimation narrator and Captain Ginyu, left the series in 2000, and was replaced with Kyle Hebert for the Narrator, and Brice Armstrong for Captain Ginyu. John Burgmeier replaced Chris Cason as Tien, Christopher R. Sabat replaced Chris Cason as Mr. Popo, Bill Townsley replaced Dylan Thompson as Guldo, Leah Clark replaced Daphne Gere as Maron, J. Michael Tatum replaced Bart Myer as Spice, Markus Lloyd replaced Kyle Hebert as Blueberry, Douglas Burkes replaced Chris Cason as Rasberry, Stephanie Nadolny replaced Ceyli Delgadillo as Young Goku, Tiffany Vollmer replaced Leslie Alexander as Bulma (Leslie only played the role in DB Movie 2), and finaly, Meridith McCoy replaced the team of Christine Marten and Monika Antonelli as Launch (who only voiced the role in DB Movie 2).
      • FUNimation's dub later expanded to the original Dragon Ball, GT, movies, specials, video games, and pretty much all other DB media. FUNimation later redubbed everything from the first 2 seasons with their new cast, since the original versions of Seasons 1-2 were edited. FUNimation also partially redubbed themselves for the remastered release (mostly at the season 2-3 gap) since a few voices had changed since then (such as Captain Ginyu, Tien, Dende, Burter, Guldo, Oolong, Mr. Popo, and a few others), and were different for the seasons 1-2 redub, and needed to be revoiced in later episodes for consistency. Several consistent actors also redubbed themselves, since they sounded vastly different earlier, and the transition would've been very jarring.
      • The Japanese version of the franchise also had recasts. Chi Chi was voiced by Mayumi Shou in seasons 1-2. She was replaced by Naoko Watanabe for the rest of the franchise. Master Roshi's voice changed several times after Kohei Miyauchi's death in the middle of Season 9. Other casting changes in Dragon Ball Kai include Gregory's voice (Yuji Mitsuya), Dende's voice (to Aya Hirano in Kai), and the entire Ginyu Force.
      • Junpei Takiguchi originally voiced Uranai Baba, the Grand Elder, and Polunga, but left the show for unexplained reasons (although he did reprise the Elder in Kai). His roles were taken over by Mayumi Tanaka, Masaharu Satou, and Daisuke Gouri respectively.
      • And of course, Dragon Ball Z Kai has Monica Rial as Bulma, Colleen Clinkenbeard as Gohan, Chris Ayres as Frieza, John Swasey as Dodoria, J Michael Tatum as Zarbon and several other changes, including most of the Ginyu Force, with Greg Ayres as Guldo, Vic Mignogna as Burter, Jason Liebrecht as Jeice and R Bruce Elliot as Captain Ginyu, among others.
      • The Latin American voice of Bulma switched from Rocio Garcel after the "Cell Games" saga to Monica Manjarrez in the Majin Buu saga (with Laura Ayala in a few episodes), to Isabel Martinon in "Path to Power". Garcel returned to voice Bulma in the Latin version of Kai.
      • Speaking of the Latin version of Kai, Goku and Gohan were notably recast with new voice actors (despite their originals showing an interest in returning). The same happened in the French version with Goku.
      • The European Spanish dub also had this, with Goku and Gohan changing voices for a while after they left the Room of Spirit and Time. Amusingly, the first time they appear Piccolo says "You look changed, Goku!", which sounds like an accidental Lampshade Hanging.
      • The Portuguese Dub had Vegeta changing voices three times. This was lampshaded when a line of dialog was added after the second change, in which Vegeta explains that he "is getting so angry that it is making [his] voice change again".
      • Dragonball Z Abridged got into the act as well, replacing Lanipator with Vegita3986 as the voice of Raditz, and Lanipator (again) with Little Kuriboh as the voice of Frisza. The Raditz issue was handled mid episode in a very funny, off-camera fight. The latter occured mid-episode as well, but was simply handled by Lanipator coughing, and then Little Kuriboh taking over. Lanipator isn't gone, though; he still plays Krillin.
  • The second Fullmetal Alchemist gets this in force, as the only main cast members reprising their roles from the first series are Romi Paku (Edward), Rie Kugimiya (Alphonse), Kenji Utsumi (Armstrong), Keiji Fujiwara (Hughes), Hidekatsu Shibata (Bradley), and Shoko Tsuda (Izumi). Some of the new arrivals include Shinichiro Miki as Mustang, Fumiko Orikasa as Hawkeye, Kikuko Inoue as Lust, and Kenta Miyake as Scar.
    • The dub has much less of this, but still happened with Al (Aaron Dismuke to Maxey Whitehead, justified since Aaron grew up), Scar (Dameon Clarke to J Michael Tatum), Marcoh (Brice Armstrong to Jerry Russell), and Hohenheim (Scott McNeil to John Swasey). Note that the now teenage Aaron still has a role -- young Hohenheim.
    • Chris Patton returned to reprise his role as Greed in the first half of the dub. For the second half, he was replaced by Troy Baker. It's kind of justified, considering it happens when Greed gets a new body, and they still use Patton's voice for flashbacks of his original body, even though Greed was portrayed by Yuuichi Nakamura for the whole series.
  • After Gundam SEED ended, Mami Matsui retired and Romi Paku took over her character Nicol Amalfi for the Compilation Movies and subsequent video game appearances.
  • Lupin III's English cast has never been consistent with several media being dubbed and redubbed multiple times, due to several failed attempts to market the franchise in America. One movie (The Mystery of Mamo) has 4 dubs produced from 1979-2003. However at least 7 different English "Lupin" casts are known to exist.
    • The Japanese cast for Lupin III also had some changes that began with the entire cast changing after the pilot film, and the entire cast temporarily changing again to cheaper actors for the Fuma Conspiracy film. Lupin's main Japanese voice actor, Yasuo Yamada, died in 1995, which led to part being handed to Kanichi Kurita (a friend of Yamada's) for all future media.
      • Fujiko, Goemon and Zenigata have been permanently replaced from the 2011 TV special onwards. This leaves Jigen as the only character of the main cast whose seiyuu has remained consistent for the longest time since the 1969 pilot short film (not counting The Fuma Conspiracy).
  • In the Naruto English dub, Shino was voiced by Sam Riegel in his first appearance, but was replaced by Derek Stephen Prince later on. Itachi received this treatment as well, going from Skip Stellrecht to Crispin Freeman.
    • Zetsu, Deidara, and Pain are yet more case where the dub voice for the character was someone completely different on their first (cameo) appearance at the end of Part I: Zetsu went from Brian Beacock and Michael Sorich (each one voicing a different of Zetsu's halves) to Travis Willingham, while Pain went from Dave Wittenberg to Troy Baker, and Deidara went from Quinton Flynn to Roger Craig Smith.
      • Interestingly, several cases of Talking to Himself were avoided later on, as Zaku (done by Sam Riegel) would face Shino in the Chuunin Exams, and Guy (Skip Stellrecht) would face Itachi after the Sand/Sound Invasion Arc.
    • Saffron Henderson voiced Kurenai for her single line in the third episode (the one where the red and white on her outfit are switched), but Mary Elizabeth McGlynn voiced her in subsequent appearances. Katsuyu (the slug Tsunade summons) switches from Mari Devon in Episode 96 to McGlynn in 161.
    • And in the video games (except the Clash of Ninja series), Tsunade is also voiced by McGlynn instead of Debi Mae West. Revolution 2 partly avoids this; because it uses old voice clips of the regular actress, and new ones. Odd, considering that her voice in the anime has remained the same.
    • On her original appearance, Anko was voiced by Julianne Buescher, then by Laura Bailey is here appearance in some Filler episodes and some games, and then Kari Wahlgren in some other games. In fact, this generally happens a lot with secondary characters in the video games. One particularly bizarre example is Jamieson Price playing the First Hokage in the series, but not in the video game—where he does play the Second Hokage.
    • Nobutoshi Canna replaces regular seiyuu Showtaro Morikubo as Shikamaru in episode 141. Canna (who usually voices Kabuto) sounds almost exactly like him if he wants to. Listen here, skip to 1:50.
    • The first Hungarian dub (that aired on Jetix) had a habit of switching around everyone's voices, except for the main trio's. Listing all the examples would be difficult. The second dub, which used the original, uncut Japanese version as a basis managed to stay consistent, and most of the first dub's cast returned to reprise their roles. Though after episode 52, there was a noticeable change: Sakura's voice actress moved to abroad, which resulted in her sounding about 15 years older, until the new actress warmed up to the role. Tenten's voice change was barely noticeable, on the other hand.
      • Two other changes, however, were especially jarring. Around episode 100 of the original series, Kakashi's voice actor quit (his reason being he simply didn't have time anymore to continue the dub), and episode 169 changed Orochimaru's voice as well. Neither of their new actors sound like the originals.
    • On the Japanese side, Akiko Koike took over for Konohamaru at the beginning of Shippuden, when Ikue Ohtani was on pregnancy leave. Since this was after a Time Skip, it actually wasn't jarring...but Ohtani eventually took over the role again anyway.
  • The entire American voice cast of Pokémon was replaced midway through the Advanced arc (specifically, for the anniversary special and ninth season), due to Nintendo reacquiring the rights to dub the anime from 4Kids, and the then-current ADR studio, Taj Productions, being concerned about paying the original voice actors' unusually high salaries, and opted not to even CONTACT the original voice actors about future episodes. Thanks for all the years of hard work!
    • Fortunately, when Taj went out of business, Du-Art and Video took over the ADR Production with Season 11, and began using members of the original voice cast to play additional characters. Some even got their original roles back, such as the voice for Giovanni and Tracey.
    • Not to mention James' original voice changed drastically nine episodes in, and Meowth's voice changed after episode twenty-nine.
    • Also, the new voice actors were cast not on their own acting ability but rather on who could do the best impressions of the previous voice actors. This may have been to lessen the change from one voice actor to the next.
      • Incidentally, in the ninth episode of the first season of dubbed Pokémon, The School Of Hard Knocks, Pikachu's voice is dubbed by an American actor, as can be seen in this clip- skip to 2:02 in. It returns to normal the episode after. In every other episode, before and after, the audio from the Japanese version is used in the dub for Pikachu's voice. (Not to mention the amazing Photoshop work on that cup 53 seconds in, guys.)
      • Apparently Pikachu is redubbed when they couldn't salvage the original track for some reason (eg. someone talking over Pikachu - see 4:41-5:01 in that video). It's dubbed by Rachael Lillis (in basically the same voice she does for Jigglypuff).
    • The entire Dutch cast were also replaced with attempted sound-alikes.
    • In Japan, Akiko Hiramatsu temporarily replaced Megumi Hayashibara as the voice of Musashi while Hayashibara went on maternity leave.
      • Giovanni's seiyuu was replaced with Donphan's seiyuu after his original seiyuu died before the end of Battle Frontier.
    • Mewtwo was voiced by Phillip Bartlett in the original movie, but in Mewtwo Returns he was voiced by Dan Green.
    • In Latin America, Gabriel Gama voiced Brock until the beginning of Diamond, then Alan Prieto took over. Similarly, May's first LA-VA was Anna Lobo, then Mariana Ortiz followed. In the case of Brock, Gabriel Gama returned for the season 13 dub after the change of studio dub from AF: The Dubbing House to SDI Media Group.
      • Ash was darrin'd by Irwin Daayán by the last chapters of the Season 11 and later their original voice actor (Gabriel Ramos) returned for the Season 12, although eventually replaced by Miguel Ángel Leal since Season 13, because he's right now in Argentina.
      • Dawn's voice in Season 12 was changed from Gaby Ugarte to Leyla Rangel, due to a change of the dub studio, from Candiani to AF: The Dubbing House, but in season 13, after another change of studio, Gaby Ugarte returned to voice Dawn.
      • The same happened with Paul, who was voiced by Gerardo García, but it had to be changed for Season 12. The first time that he appeared in that season, the voice was made by Gabriel Ortiz, and in the latest appearances his voice is Miguel Angel Ruiz, then, in Season 13, Gerardo García returned to voice Paul after the aforementioned change of studio.
      • Other situations of temporary voice changes happened with Jessie and James. In various chapters during Season 4-5, the Jessie's voice was replaced by Elena Ramirez, and in middle of the Season 8, the voice of James was changed to Gerardo García. The voice change was Lampshaded by Meowth in the dub, when José Antonio Macías returned for the voice of James, saying that he missed their ratitas kuki or something like that.
      • In the movies 4 and 5, some voices were changed because the studio which dubbed these movies was different from the studio which dubbed the series in that time, and in the movies 6 and 7, the Mexican dub was replaced with an Argentinian dub when these movies were transmitted in Latin America. The Mexican cast returned for the movies 8 until now.
    • In Brazil, the voice cast was rarely changed (Tracey and Prof. Oak being the most glaring exceptions). The movies are usually dubbed in another city—Rio de Janeiro instead of São Paulo—but the actors are flown there to dub (though a few ended up changed, such as Meowth).
    • The European Portuguese dub is really bad about this. Ash has gone through nine different voice actresses, and that's just an example.
  • Revolutionary Girl Utena's dub stayed pretty consistent except for the role of Akio, who was played by Crispin Freeman (Touga's voice actor) for episode 13, and by Josh Mosby for everything else. Also, Sharon Becker plays the third Shadow Girl player during the Black Rose Arc, but after that, Lisa Ortiz plays the third girl while Becker keeps on playing the second.
    • The Japanese version of Utena replaced the Actor for Akio for the movie. The reason for that was probably that Akio is a very different character in the movie, far from the sexy Magnificent Bastard that he is in the series.
  • Saint Seiya had the same seiyuu cast from almost 20 years, including the original TV series as well as the movies. Then came the Hades Saga and several actors were replaced (i.e.: the dead Kaneto Shiozawa was replaced by Takumi Yamazaki as Mu, the also deceased Kazuyuki Sogabe was followed by both Ryotaro Okiayu and Akio Nojima as the twins Saga and Kanon, Toshihiko Seki as as Milo instead of Shuichi Ikeda, Takeshi Kusao as Shura and not Koji Totani, etc.)
    • Then came the Tenkai-hen movie, after which practically everyone (including Tohru Furuya aka Seiya, replaced by Masakazu Morita) was changed.
      • In the Latin American dub, the Hades Saga had two parallel dubs. The original cast led by Jesus Barrero only returned for the DVD dub, but the TV version included a whole cast change led by Irwin Daayan as Seiya.
      • Although just recently it was announced that Tohru Furuya is reprising his role as Seiya in Saint Seiya Omega
  • Slayers
    • The English version had several cases of this. Halfway through the first season, Central Park Media took a break from dubbing the series for about a year to evaluate video sales, and during that time period, lost contact with several of the voice actors. The most notable replacements are Crispin Freeman replacing Daniel Cronin as the voice of Zelgadis (making this his first anime role), and Veronica Taylor replacing Joani Baker as the voice of Amelia. With them are Zangulus (Ted Lewis replacing Liam O'Malley), and Prince Phillionel. This was consistent for the first three seasons.
    • In addition to this, ADV Films handled all the Movies and OVAs and used their Houston-based talent pool instead of the original New York cast for the series. They tried to get Lisa Ortiz back as Lina, but they were unable to, so Cynthia Martinez notably replaced Ortiz as Lina in the movies and OVA series, and in Slayers Premium, Chris Patton filled in for Eric Stuart as Gourry, Luci Christian filled in for Veronica Taylor as Amelia, and Kurt Stoll filled in for David Moo as Xellos; however, Crispin Freeman returned to play Zelgadis.
    • When FUNimation and NYAV Post dubbed Slayers Revolution and Evolution-R, Ortiz, Stuart, Taylor, and Freeman all returned to play the four leads; however, everyone else was replaced: Michael Sinterniklaas replaced David Moo as Xellos, Stephanie Sheh replaced Stacia Crawford as Sylphiel, Liam O'Brien replaced Peter Davis as Rezo, David Brimmer replacing Jimmy Zoppi as Philionel, and Marc Thompson replacing Roger Kay as Shabranigdo.
    • The Japanese cast has stuck through for the most part; however, Minoru Inaba would become Prince Phil's second Japanese voice in the third season after his first, Masahiro Anzai, because of the latter's severe case of diabetes.
  • Tenchi Muyo! has a number of Other Darrin moments:
    • Wendee Lee took over the voice of Kiyone Makibi despite the fact that her original VA, Sherry Lynn, was still active as Sasami and Tsunami! Ironically, she does voice a Kiyone in the OVAs—Kiyone Masaki, Tenchi's mom.
    • When Funimation was set to record episode 18 of Tenchi Muyo! GXP, which reintroduced the original OVA cast, none of the original cast members could return and thus everyone got new voices (one could say Mihoshi was the only one to return, but she was already an Other Darrin, as she was the voice of Mihoshi from Tenchi in Tokyo).
    • Staying with Funi and Tenchi, when they got ahold of the third OVA series, they were able to get most of the voices back. However, Ryoko's voice actress had retired, so they ended up using her GXP VA to reprise her role. To their credit, though, they tried to make her sound like the original.
    • When Sasami: Magical Girls Club was being made, the decision was made not to use Chisa Yokoyama, Sasami's seiyuu since the Tenchi franchise began, in favor of an actual child. Likewise, Funimation didn't rehire Sherry Lynn to reprise her role for the English dub, either.
  • Vampire Princess Miyu - Miyu went from being voiced by Kimberly J. Brown to Dorothy Elias-Fahn after 7 episodes. In addition, Pamela Wielder had earlier voiced the role in the OVA.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!
    • The American voice actor for Tristan changed after episode 9 of the first season, replacing his original, perpetually cold-ridden nasally voice (Sam Riegel) for one less annoying and much more fitting (Greg Abbey AKA Frank Frankson). Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series naturally spent an entire episode on it, and it stuck... until the next episode, where the voice actor and writer of The Abridged Series changed the voice back, as he said it was easier to write jokes about it.

Tristan: My voice gives me super strength!

    • Honda's Japanese voice changed too—from Takayuki Kondou to Hidehiro Kikuchi.
    • Mai's voice has changed during the series. She was originally voiced by Megan Hollingshead for the first three seasons, and by Bella Hudson for the fourth season. She was voiced by Caren Manuel for the short-lived Uncut DVDs.
    • Mokuba was recast for his last few appearances in Season 5 with Caroline Lawson when his original voice actress, Tara Jayne, had moved to California, and quit all of her roles in New York. Lawson also voiced Mokuba in the short-lived uncut DVDs.
    • Rex Raptor was originally voiced by Sam Riegel for the first 3 seasons of the series before the role was recast with Sebastian Arcelus for season 4 (and the uncut DVDs). Anthony Salerno filled in as Rex for his few season 5 appearances.
    • On the Japanese side, Rica Matsumoto took over as Bakura for You Inoue, who was diagnosed with lung cancer and shortly after, passed away. Notably, this is a case where the other Darrin had a completely different approach—whereas Inoue's Dark Bakura was quiet, calm and sinister, Matsumoto's Bakura had barely any lines where he wasn't shouting, laughing, and in general, tearing the scenery to shreds.
    • German Bakura underwent a similar change of character (from a calm and collected villain to a loud, rude and completely insane maniac), but at a different time. In this version, the change occured when Peter Reinhardt took over the role from David Nathan with the beginning of season 5.
    • The "dedication" segment in the Abridged Series also lampshaded the other two characters who had their voices eventually changed sometime during the course of the dub. Mokuba wasn't that bad, but Mai's voice was actually changed mid-episode.
      • 4Kids switched the voice mid-episode to make the cast change less noticeable. They did the same for James in Pokemon.
    • When Cassandra Morris moved away from 4Kids, Yubel received a new voice for the 10th movie as well as the twins from 5Ds from episode 65 onward.
    • Carly's Japanese VA (Satomi Toyohara, artistic name Li Mei Chang) was replaced on episode 130 onward (by Aki Kanada) due to unrelated issues with the VA that caused her to resign.


Unclear from the information provided

  • According to an employee at Nelvana, some characters in the first Bakugan series had this. Naga in particular was bad about this, going through three different actors during the run.
  • Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro had 4 different voice actresses playing him over the course of 5 TV series. The movie Japan Explodes, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the anime, opened with a unique scene which brought together all incarnations of Kitaro (and his co-stars) with each of them voiced by the original voice actress.
  • In the second episode of Ronin Warriors the show experienced very noticeable differences in the cast only to have the actors from the first episode to return for the remainder of the season. The reason for this was that many of the actors had gotten sick. With limited time, some of the hired actors were required to fill in for multiple roles while other characters were voiced by office employees. The episode was not redubbed with the correct actors for the DVD sales.
    • The Ronin Warriors actors switched again when the OVAs were dubbed years later.
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