| I think the reason Furuya returned into Omega was primarily because of how iconic his voice is, and Seiya was older, plus he was now a leading Gold Saint.
Beside him, only Koyama returned as Shaina, and Hori as Tatsumi, not sure for anyone else.
There can be multiple reasons why they were recasted once again the rest of original Bronzes, but, IMO, that's probably because Hiroshi Kamiya (Shun), Mamoru Miyano (Hyoga), and Tomokazu Sugita (Ikki) were probably at their most popular around the time Omega aired, especially Kamiya.
Even older, Shun still has rather feminine appearance, unlike Hattori from Detective Conan, so aged Ryo Horikawa once again voicing him probably wouldn't work, but who knows.
Koichi Hashimoto is both too old to reprise his role as Hyoga, and for a while now he was mostly only Kuro in One Piece.
Miyano being new Hyoga was a good choice, and his voice was popular enough for such famous old school anime hero.
Sugita was just amazing as Ikki (arguably the most popular Saint Seiya character), even though I do believe Katsuyuki Konishi could have voice him too.
Actually, maybe even his original seiyu Hideyuki Hori.
I still from time to time rewatch some parts of Omega with Ikki, and it's incredible how much he made him his own, he put so much passion into this role.
As for Ken Narita being Shiryu, if I'm not mistaken, Narita in general inherited some other roles from late Hirotaka Suzuoki, they have very similar voices.
The thing with original Bronzes in Omega was that despite they being quite older, their appearances were still pretty much same as when they were teenagers, so aside from Furuya who still manages to sound young, it would be hard for the rest of cast to do the same, except maybe Hori.
Narita is different, because he sounds very much like 80s/90s Suzuoki. |
