News
Man Charged With Threatening Final Fantasy VII Remake's Tifa Voice Actress Ayumi Ito
posted on by Egan Loo
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police processed two suspects on November 8 for prosecution for allegedly sending online messages threatening actress Ayumi Itō. According to the police in Tokyo's Shinjuku ward, the female unemployed suspect in her 20s and the male suspect in his 30s asked Ito to pull out of a live-action show's preview screening and asked a game company to recast a character voiced by Ito, among other demands. The authorities report that the female suspect from Aichi Prefecture and the male suspect from Hokkaido — who did not know each other — admitted to separately making threats and forcible obstruction of business.
According to the investigation, the female suspect wrote, "I hate you so much that I want to kill you," and other threats in the comments section of the website for Ito's agency on June 8.
The male suspect allegedly wrote, "I want you to recast the game character voiced by Ito" and "I feel like I want to gouge eyeballs with a knife," among other threats, on the game company's online comment form on June 11.
Ito's agency and the game company contacted the police in Shinjuku in June, and Ito reportedly did pull out of the June 25 preview screening for a live-action show due to the threats.
The only major game role that Ito is currently playing is Tifa Lockhart in the Final Fantasy franchise (and by extension, the Kingdom Hearts games). Ito is reprising Tifa for the Final Fantasy VII Remake game, which will launch on PlayStation 4 on March 3, 2020. She also played Tifa in the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Last Order Final Fantasy VII, and On the Way to a Smile - Episode Denzel: Final Fantasy VII anime.
Sources: Kyodo News, Sankei News via Yaraon!
this article has been modified since it was originally posted; see change history