Dub Voice Actor Guesses/Discussion - The Next Generation

[Poke Trey]

Oh yeah, the cast looking interesting. Looks like we are really going full-on union casting with this dub.

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

Apparently Damen Mills is in the dub. Not a fan.

I think he’s the current Frieza in Crunchyroll LLC’s Dragonball. Not a big fan of his outside that role (Chris Ayres was my favorite, RIP, I think Daman was his understudy) either, I’ve heard some stories…but here’s hoping he does well here.

 

[Nichole the Otter]

Oh yeah, the cast looking interesting. Looks like we are really going full-on union casting with this dub.

Definitely seems like a lot of series newcomers voicing the main cast as it looks. Alejandra Reynoso (Liko) and Anjali Kunapaneni (Roy) are new to Pokémon as a whole, but have had previous experience in English dubbing for other foreign-produced animated series.

Crispin Freeman finally being promoted to a major voice acting role 25 years after his previous series involvement as a script editor definitely has come full circle.

And what a coincidence we literally have Sarah Natochenny (Sprigatito) and Zeno Robinson (Fuecoco) voicing the main partner Pokémon of the series, coming just off of the series where they voiced the main human protagonists themselves. Surely that was an intentional nod to their lead roles in Journeys…

Given that so far we have no characters involved with the Ash saga known, it’s going to be such a wild guess as to who the voices will be. And hopefully we’ll hear Lisa Ortiz reprising her Oshawott voice with Ann’s Oshawott like she did for Ash’s in BW.

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

Definitely seems like a lot of series newcomers voicing the main cast as it looks. Alejandra Reynoso (Liko) and Anjali Kunapaneni (Roy) are new to Pokémon as a whole, but have had previous experience in English dubbing for other foreign-produced animated series.

Crispin Freeman finally being promoted to a major voice acting role 25 years after his previous series involvement as a script editor definitely has come full circle.

And what a coincidence we literally have Sarah Natochenny (Sprigatito) and Zeno Robinson (Fuecoco) voicing the main partner Pokémon of the series, coming just off of the series where they voiced the main human protagonists themselves. Surely that was an intentional nod to their lead roles in Journeys…

Given that so far we have no characters involved with the Ash saga known, it’s going to be such a wild guess as to who the voices will be.

Anjali Kunapaneni was in Yu-Gi-Oh Sevens from 4KMedia/Konami Cross NY, I'm familiar with her from that (aka 4Kids' former production studio, they basically handle Yu-Gi-Oh, Frogger & Bomberman these days but were the production studio that did the original Pokémon English dub: they've had Sarah Natochenny, Alyson Rosenfeld & Mike Liscio in major roles since Arc V as well believe it or not). I'll say this, though, her Roy...needs some work, IMO, hopefully she'll do so!

Supposedly, they still have JCC on a blacklist though, re: the controversy when what happened occurred back when they went by PUSA & that's why he didn't reprise his former role as Weevil in Duel Links: Kayzie Rogers also got punished for the defection back then, IIRC, but that duo were the only ones even given a chance to jump ship back to TAJ back then. Nowadays, Kayzie has retired permanently since 2017 (she's in Zanzibar now, oddly), while JCC is more or less departing Pokémon after Ash's Series ends, ironically enough, due to severe illness in his case so it's a lot sadder as it's life-threatening stuff (IMO).

Similarly, the same occurred and was done to Veronica Taylor etc. on TPCi's end back then: not sure if either side will ever let the grudges go and hatred on this (it also has divided the fandom into three sects and a generally broken base: basically you have those who swear by the Japanese Version, then those by 4Kids' dub, and then those by TPCi's dub, there's some overlap between the three in different respects but nasty arguments have resulted over the years from it all-- Broken Base - TV Tropes).

It would be nice for the original English main 3 to be given a chance to return in the new Series in some capacity, along with Michael Haigney though, the English dub's original VO director, can dream they try to bury the hatchet since they let so many other 4Kids VAs reprise minor roles or let so many others come back to other roles.

Mrs. Reynoso is pretty impressive for a newcomer: I've really disliked TPCi's vocal direction over the years but she's thus far, putting out a really solid performance in spite of the likes of literally Steven J. Blum faltering thus far here as the Narrator, who is a well-renowned veteran VA in the field.

(I like Natochenny's Sprigatito if that's her, go figure, they have it listed as Hayashibara's voice on BTVA still so IDK if the dub kept it or redubbed it over: but IF it's her, pretty good, she likes cats so I like her rendition of it)

 

[BulbaTCG]

Voice actors currently confirmed via a tweet from Lisa Ortiz/Sarah Natochenny:

Alejandra Reynoso
Zeno Robinson
Sarah Natochenny
Kira Buckland
Crispin Freeman
Daman Mills
Faye Mata
Anjali Kunapaneni
Steve Blum
Lisa Ortiz (reprising Oshawott in the sneak peek)
Marc Thompson
Billy Bob Thompson
Xanthe Huynh

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

Voice actors currently confirmed via a tweet from Lisa Ortiz/Sarah Natochenny:

Alejandra Reynoso
Zeno Robinson
Sarah Natochenny
Kira Buckland
Crispin Freeman
Daman Mills
Faye Mata
Anjali Kunapaneni
Steve Blum
Lisa Ortiz (reprising Oshawott in the sneak peek)
Marc Thompson
Billy Bob Thompson
Xanthe Huynh

Mills is Amethio supposedly, is that right?

Freeman is the last person I pegged returning to the franchise after a substantial gap, from one of 4Kids’ head script writers in the early OS days to TPCi’s Friede as a VA: interesting stuff, he’s been all over the place.

 

[Charmander4]

That Charmander sounded awful.

 

[HylianBelmont]

Marc Thompson
Billy Bob Thompson

Unironically the best news out of this entire list, for me.

But yeah, I do also agree Freeman is a fine addition too.

 

[Nichole the Otter]

Voice actors currently confirmed via a tweet from Lisa Ortiz/Sarah Natochenny:

Alejandra Reynoso
Zeno Robinson
Sarah Natochenny
Kira Buckland
Crispin Freeman
Daman Mills
Faye Mata
Anjali Kunapaneni
Steve Blum
Lisa Ortiz (reprising Oshawott in the sneak peek)
Marc Thompson
Billy Bob Thompson
Xanthe Huynh

Daman Mills I guess is possibly voicing Amethio. And nice to see Lisa is doing one of her best voices again in Oshawott!

 

[BigDocFan]

 

[snowmint]

I will always be confused on the union thing cause aren't alot of them working on non union Crunchyroll dubs currently?

 

[ehh123]

Zeno Robinson as the Rotom Phone.

Horray! Hunter spouting out Pokemon facts! Just like I wanted!

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

So Faye Mata is Nidothing? Interesting. Gurumin was a better name, personally, but I do follow the logic of the dub on this one given its appearance.

 

[snowmint]

I wonder if Netflix has a bigger hand in the dubs production since the dub is now fully union?

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

I wonder if Netflix has a bigger hand in the dubs production since the dub is now fully union?

It's a good question. I hope whoever did the script writing in the trailer does well in the actual dub, have hated the dub's writing post-AB with only a handful of exceptions, and this is the most impressed I've been in 17 years in that area.

 

[snowmint]

I think he’s the current Frieza in Crunchyroll LLC’s Dragonball. Not a big fan of his outside that role (Chris Ayres was my favorite, RIP, I think Daman was his understudy) either, I’ve heard some stories…but here’s hoping he does well here.

They just seemed "overused" in dubs... IMO.

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

They just seemed "overused" in dubs... IMO.

Fair enough, IMO. I'm glad (save Sarah N., Billy Bob T. & Marc T. as the only ones really returning from the prior Series' dub) the main cast is largely otherwise pretty much newcomers and not stereotypical picks as well (Freeman is such a better choice than Saab for the role: good job Mrs. Ortiz & I see what she did there bringing back her Slayers counterpart as well).

I was expecting so much worse, but hopefully, TPCi get off to a better start with this Series than they did with the prior one (the only tradition that carries on, and needs to be gone, is the dub music in the trailer so far- I expect censorship will as well eventually, but for now, I'll take it).

That Charmander sounded awful.

I agree with this though, as it did sound rather infantile and squeaky on the down side, Haigney's rendition remains unmatched to this day in the English run (ironic given how he came up with it, much as Dogasu criticized him for that harshly-- I too thought it was a fantastic take).

Espeon sounds like it's doing opera as well: I literally laughed hearing it, but that's not what I had in mind there: the Pokémon voices do need some work.

Liko's classmates sound way too old and woman-esque on the bus, but Ann sounded pretty good and I liked her dub voice, so there's that.

 

[BigDocFan]

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

She's excellent as Ann, congrats to her: that's exactly what I thought she should sound like in English, tbh!

So far, my entirely subjective ranking of the human's dub VAs with what's been revealed in the Trailer:

Ann, X. Huynh (Excellent) > Liko, A. Reynoso (Very good, but does need to go a little bit higher, I feel- still, I have a better first impression of this lead VA than I did with both of TPCi's renditions of Ash Ketchum in MoMP, which I hated & neither portrayal ever felt very fitting to me, despite Natochenny having been afforded the opportunity to voice him the longest in English) > Amethio, D. Mills (Average fare, not a bad start though) > Friede, C. Freeman (Needs to go a bit higher, but not a bad choice at all, okay-ish) > Roy, A. Kunanpaneni (Below average, but shows some promise in softer scenes) > Narrator, S. Blum (Bad: worse than Parsons or Pollock was in his rendition so far, underwhelming, not often I think YouTubers use their brains rather than mouths before speaking tbh but in this case, I feel it's indeed that)

Zeno Robinson's PokeDex is much better than either Rob Morrison's Rotom Dex or Lisa Ortiz's take on it to me, I thought both were pretty terrible in SM & JN (Rob started out fine, but it quickly turned into something extraordinarily high pitched, autotuned, and screechy by the end; Lisa Ortiz's take on it, atrocious, no offense ma'am but my God...), but I think he's better here than he was as Goh as well. It's average enough IMO, so far, I can tolerate it but at the same time I'm not "wow'ed" I suppose?

My subjective ranking of the Pokémon's dub VAs Pokémon voices:

Rattata (Good) > Espeon (Bad, is it doing opera or attacking the Machoke?) > Charmander (Miscast, yikes, way too infantile and obnoxious-sounding to me)

Lisa Ortiz's direction of Horizons >>>> Her Direction of XY S18-JN, just my two cents.

I don't know what role Natochenny has landed here, they claim on BTVA Sprigatito keeps its Japanese voice from Hayashibara, so I can't tell you my first impression of her role yet

 

[Poke Trey]

So good to see more confirmation! I really am going to like this cast a lot!