Another day — another controversy, nothing new, huh?
Summary:
- Yoruichi voice actress recasting has got the fans upset.
- Due to this reaction, Wendee Lee gets her role back.
- The actress’s reaction makes fans angry.
Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War (Bleach: Sennen Kessen-hen) has become the topic of a rather heated debate due to its English voice acting choices. Viz Media, an American company, focusing on distribution and licensing of Japanese anime, cast Anairis Quiñones, an Afro-Latina voice actress, as Yoruichi, and the internet seemed to be not so excited by that. The actress announced this on her X page, and the news was met with mixed reactions.
Wendee Lee, the actress who played Yoruichi before, was truly loved by fans due to her work in Bleach, and they were not ready for this casting alteration. Things got ugly really quickly, and the internet brought up the issue of race to the table. They called the new actress a diversity hire and thought that she was chosen to voice Yoruichi just for the company to have that tick mark next to “hire a person of color”.
You are well aware of how loud the internet could get, so there’s no wonder that such a reaction led to consequences. Countless complaints brought Wendee Lee back to play the role of Yoruichi. But this is where things get even more heated.
Upon hearing about the news, fans started expressing their condolences to Anairis Quiñones and trying to console her. Wendee Lee could not stay out of this, and she seemed to have a questionable reaction, replying to dozens of comments just trying to support her fellow voice actress. She claims that she’s the one who established the character, and the company’s choice to bring her back is just the way of maintaining the iconic character.
Such a response from Wendee Lee got the fans disappointed. The thing is that the actress is just attacking Anairis Quiñones and the industry people trying to support her, when there’s no actual need for that. She’s got her role back, why be bitter about it?
The recasting choice leaves a lot of ambiguity among the fans. Why choose another actress in the first place if it was this easy to change her later on? It just all adds to the idea that Anairis Quiñones did get the role due to her race, indeed, and it’s infuriating. What’s even worse, they say, is that it seems like the original actress didn’t even know that Yoruichi would be voiced by someone else or at least didn’t agree to that, considering her overall reaction and the fact that the role went back to her without any problems.