Forum - View topicNEWS: Persona 4 Revival Game Announces New English Voice Cast
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Somer-_-
 Posts: 1072 Location: Canada |
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So lame...
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Greed1914
 Posts: 5357 |
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Still no idea why Sega/Atlus/whoever made the call insists on these total recasts when they have actors that want to do it, are still active in the industry, and is an easy way to make some points with the sizable portion of the audience for this game that played the prior game(s).
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LinkTSwordmaster
 Posts: 816 Location: PA / USA |
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So far as I'm aware, most the P3R cast was their original JP actors. It even hits home harder when they get brought onto streams to talk about playing the same character for decades..... and then the localised version just kinda gets treated like garbage. It looked at the time like they just straight up didn't want to deal with any ongoing strikes or Union standards/pay while bringing P3R over, but for P4R even moreso, a lot of the Persona 4 cast have probably become some of the more famous/expensive to hire in the industry as time has gone on.
I'm pretty sure that Persona 4 was one of those games too around the time, where Matt Mercer has said he hit a point in his career where companies would bring him in as "discount Troy Baker", and he had to start specifically standing up for both of their careers or they were always going to cast the cheaper, less-famous actor every single time. So it's not to pull the ladder up & gate-keep the roles for the rest of eternity, it's just that I really wonder - would the JP players call it a massive scandal if the entire cast got wiped, because they're clearly respected enough to not only be re-hired, they continue to do live appearances with ATLUS staff on the regular. We'll probably get the JP original P4 cast back for Persona 5X's inevitable cross into Inaba once P4R is out, so at this point there's not really any reason to riot over it - this behaviour has been clear for decades, it's best to acclimate to subtitles or wait for a mod that dubs the original cast back in, because the international audience is never as important as the domestic one. If they gave a crap about preservation, P3R wouldn't have needed a mod to play as Kotone either. |
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An Unchosen One
 Posts: 206 |
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My initial assumption for P3R was that much of the original's cast just wasn't active anymore, on top of the obvious can of worms keeping a certain someone would open up, but seeing some very familiar names (seriously, how bad was the voice direction that the original dub turned out so poorly with a cast like that?) has me now thinking there's more credence to the theory that Sega of America simply doesn't want to pay union fees.
As for the JP casts not changing, it does seem to be the case that either Japanese fans or companies place more value on keeping the original cast (aside from certain exceptions like Agrias in Final Fantasy Tactics being recast due to her first VA being on maternity leave during recording for the FFXIV crossover, which carried over to The Ivalice Chronicles), the only examples I can think of where most or all of the cast were replaced being the Slam Dunk movie and the Trails remakes. Last edited by An Unchosen One on Wed Jun 17, 2026 7:17 am; edited 1 time in total |
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residentgrigo
 Posts: 2767 Location: Germany |
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The only way to get a fully new Japanese cast without a revolt in Japan is a full reboot. Then a new cast is fully expected. 90s Dr. Slump, 00s FMA Brotherhood, 2010s GitS Arise, etc. Sakura Taisen retired a character when the actress retired herself! The recasting of Priss in Bubblegum Crisis/Crash is a famous example of a fan revolt. P4R is a direct remake, so you get all active actors back. Who will have an easier time selling the endless merch if not the original cast? One day, America might learn that. The PS2 US dub was good for its time, I will say that, but I would not have used it if I had the chance.
Last edited by residentgrigo on Tue Jun 16, 2026 7:06 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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FireballDragon
 Posts: 743 |
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Erin Fitzgerald really, really enjoyed voicing Chie, to the point where she ended up making a send-off post on Bluesky/Blacksky in the wake of her replacement for Revival.
https://blacksky.community/profile/did:plc:ww224eri4xcmzrjaoc3ijje4/post/3mnsbuxgljk2j I wonder if Tracey Rooney felt the same way. Regardless, I wish every iteration of the cast the best. |
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residentgrigo
Posts: 2767 Location: Germany |
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I looked it up. Naoto will be on her 4th US actress in this dub if a new person comes in. That's Capcom levels of nonsense.
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lufia2rocks
Posts: 69 |
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I would have said they were recast to have Asian people voice Asian characters but only one actor is Asian. KPop Demon Hunters this is not. Guess it's just money after all.
It seems kind of awkward for her to bring this up when she replaced the original Chie VA. Persona 4 has a lot of recasts over the years. Yu, Yosuke and Yukiko are the only investigation team members who can claim to have always had the same VA from day 1 up until now. People keep bringing up the JP cast being the same but it seems like for all the complaining people do for EN recasts nobody actually does anything about it. Expecting gamers to boycott a game is out of the question because they never do that so there's no reason for companies to not just cut corners or recast when they feel like it since there's no consequence. I am not saying people should boycott this but the culture surrounding voice acting is clearly different so you can't expect companies to treat JP and EN voice acting the same when the fans have different levels of conviction and expectations. |
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Kingofagafi
Posts: 10 |
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Here are my two cents. I don't have a problem with the new cast. My favorite casting choices here are Paul Castro Jr. as Yosuke and Brianna Knickerbocker as Yukiko. One thing I would like to ask to everyone here is to please be nice to the new cast members. I get that they aren't the original ones you all remembered, but I would like you all to please give them a chance. I mean, the new VAs for Persona 3 Reload were really great (Especially Zeno Robinson as Junpei and Alejandro Saab as Akihiko) and maybe Persona 4 Revival will provide great acting for the new voices.
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AliceTheHare
 Posts: 87 Location: Los Angeles |
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To my knowledge all of Atlus's dubs since P5 Royal have been union dubs, this is not a money issue it's just a contentious creative choice. |
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JustMonika
Posts: 1571 |
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The most infamous example is having a new cast for New Panty and Stocking. The original cast and dub is what made the first season so legendary. It's not truly Panty and Stocking without Monica Rial and Jamie Marchi. I'm hoping once it inevitably comes to Crunchyroll that it gets a redub. |
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egozi14
Posts: 147 |
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It may give me one hell of a backlash xD
But as someone who played the original P4 on PS2 with the Eng Dub, and can say this game definitely was a big part of my childhood, Once you move to JP voice and know to tell the (very) vast differences between the two in terms of acting quality as well as what feel more right for the culture and language without feeling awkward (looking at dubtitles as well), All you can ask yourself is: "Why should I care about the Eng dub at this point?" But yeah, I'm aware I'm not telling anyone here the location of America on the map or that everyone will agree with it (nor do I really expect an answer, so there's no need to start saying how Eng Dub helped beginners get into the JP culture or was better for people who don't want to read... spoiler[Wait a sec how can you play Persona then when your MC is basically muted and mainly talk via text?]). It's just my way to pull some rant while saying I don't care even as an OG fan who did like the Eng dub because as a kid I didn't know any better and now have enough backbone to be honest with things fairly while putting my nostalgic bias out of the way. |
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Tamer Sakura
Posts: 47 |
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People complained about the Persona 3 Reload recasts and that lasted for maybe a month then died off. Now see people saying the new Persona 3 cast is better than the old ones and it was an objective improvement. I'd say by April or May of next year we'll hear how the new Persona 4 english voices are better than the old ones as well either because of new fans who this will be their first experience or because people will just gravitate towards the newer = better mindset which always happens with these things.
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Hagaren Viper
 Posts: 836 |
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I don't think we know why Chie's original VA didn't reprise, but there's a huge difference between a VA choosing not to reprise a role/being unavailable to record at the time vs recasting an entire game just for funsies. Characters like Margaret and Rise were recast due to scheduling conflicts from what I remember, which is unfortunate but is what it is. The current recast is just nonsense, especially considering Yosuke, Chie and Yukiko's voice actors absolutely adore these characters and wanted to reprise. I'm a huge dub fan but it's getting really hard to get invested dubs lately knowing how disposable their actors are considered by their own industry. |
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StarDango
Posts: 125 |
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Count me in as one of the EN VA fans who is disappointed that this happened. Again.
I am still a bit bothered by the recasts for P3R. Not that it keeps me up at night or makes me enraged. It just soured my experience a bit. Still, given certain circumstances of certain members of the cast, I tried to understand. This just feels...Way worse to me. The P4 Golden EN cast are still alive and working as VAs. I know a few of them have publicly expressed how much they enjoyed voicing these characters (in a deleted tweet, Yuri Lowenthal stated that he really tried to negotiate so he could reprise Yosuke, but was ultimately denied.) Of course, the reality is that this was likely done for some business reason, with no malicious intent. Unless whoever was in charge if the EN cast explains their decision, I can only accept that this will be the P3/P4 cast from now on. And I'll admit so far the new cast IS good. I have enjoyed their performances in other dubs and I wish them all the best. With that said...There's a high chance I'm not going to buy this when it comes out. VA recasts aside, there were other things in P3R that didn't appeal to me. I worry it's just going to be the same experience with P4R. I'll wait and see, of course- but this is definitely not an instant purchase for me. I won't deny the possibility that my rationale is being clouded by nostalgia. I have played every game the P4 cast has appeared in so far, so I am very much used to their EN VAs and have grown attached to their performances (especially from Golden onward.) So these recasts just hit me a little harder than most ^^;; |
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