Ask John: Do Seiyuu Get Replaced Often?

Question:
I recently heard that since voice actors are so important in Japan, if a voice actor has to leave an anime for one reason or another, their character will actually be written out of the show rather than being replaced as they would in English animation and dubbed anime. Supposedly, this was why the character Shigeru/Gary in the Pokemon anime stopped appearing in the series save for one episode before the Diamond/Pearl series. Is there any truth behind this, or are actors replaced just as they are in the US?

Answer:
The way Japan’s anime industry honors the roles of anime voice actors varies by situation. While there have been roles which have not been recast in respect to the work of the original voice actor, new actors are selected to take over roles just as frequently.

The Mobile Suit Gundam franchise is particularly well known for respecting the contributions of its voice actors. In the early 1980s, when You Inoue was on vacation in Africa and unavailable to record dialogue for the 1985 Mobile Suit Z Gundam television series, her character, Sayla Mass, had only non-speaking appearances in the Z Gundam series. Similarly, after Inoue passed away in 2003, the 2004 to 2006 Z Gundam movies used existing recordings of Inoue’s dialogue instead of casting a new actor to play Sayla’s character.

Likewise, Hirotaka Suzuoki, the voice of Gundam character Bright Noa, passed away in 2006. His character’s appearances since then have used existing recordings of his spoken dialogue rather than new recordings from a different actor.

On the other hand, it made headlines in 1995 when Kurita Kanichi was selected to take over Yamada Yasuo’s iconic role of Lupin the Third shortly after Yamada passed away.

Hirotaka Suzuoki, the original voice of St. Seiya’s Shiryu, passed away in 2006 and his role was passed on to Takahiro Sakurai. However, in this case all of the primary original St. Seiya voice actors were replaced in 2005, so Shiryu’s new voice actor was already decided prior to Suzuoki’s death.

The treatment of roles not involving the death of an original voice actor is likewise handled differently in different circumstances. For example, when Yuriko Yamaguchi took maternity leave in 2007, her role as Nico Robin in One Piece was temporarily played by Yuko Kobayashi, and her role as Joy in Pocket Monster was temporarily played by Kikuko Inoue. In fact, Yamaguchi was the second voice actress to play Pokemon’s Joy-san. Yamaguchi took over the role when original voice actress Ayako Shiraishi retired in 2002.

I have read that the Pocket Monster character Shigeru was largely written out of the program because his voice actor, Yuko Kobayashi, wished to leave the role. I don’t know if this is true, but it is certain that Kobayashi has semi-retired from anime voice acting in recent years.