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The Other Darrin/Anime and Manga

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  • In the American dub of Excel Saga, after Jessica Calvello strained her voice doing Excel for the first 13 episodes, Larissa Wolcott took over the role for the rest of the series.
    • Interestingly, Wolcott even re-dubbed bits during the Pedro flashback episode (such as Excel giving Pedro a pep talk at the construction site) so that her voice was heard instead of Calvello's. This is good for consistency, but it also means you have two different voices for the same scene.
  • Takemoto was voiced by Kenji Nojima in the final episode of the second season of Honey and Clover because the original voice actor, Hiroshi Kamiya, was hospitalized, Kamiya re-recorded the episode for the DVD version.
  • The entire American voice cast of Pokémon was replaced midway through the Advanced arc (specifically, for the anniversary special and ninth season), due to Nintendo reacquiring the rights to dub the anime from 4Kids, and the then-current ADR studio, Taj Productions, being concerned about paying the original voice actors' unusually high salaries, and opted not to even CONTACT the original voice actors about future episodes. Thanks for all the years of hard work!
    • Fortunately, when Taj went out of business, Du-Art and Video took over the ADR Production with Season 11, and began using members of the original voice cast to play additional characters. Some even got their original roles back, such as the voice for Giovanni and Tracey.
    • Not to mention James' original voice changed drastically nine episodes in, and Meowth's voice changed after episode twenty-nine.
    • Also, the new voice actors were cast not on their own acting ability but rather on who could do the best impressions of the previous voice actors. This may have been to lessen the change from one voice actor to the next.
      • Incidentally, in the ninth episode of the first season of dubbed Pokémon, The School Of Hard Knocks, Pikachu's voice is dubbed by an American actor, as can be seen in this clip- skip to 2:02 in. It returns to normal the episode after. In every other episode, before and after, the audio from the Japanese version is used in the dub for Pikachu's voice. (Not to mention the amazing Photoshop work on that cup 53 seconds in, guys.)
      • Apparently Pikachu is redubbed when they couldn't salvage the original track for some reason (eg. someone talking over Pikachu - see 4:41-5:01 in that video). It's dubbed by Rachael Lillis (in basically the same voice she does for Jigglypuff).
    • The entire Dutch cast were also replaced with attempted sound-alikes.
    • In Japan, Akiko Hiramatsu temporarily replaced Megumi Hayashibara as the voice of Musashi while Hayashibara went on maternity leave.
      • Giovanni's seiyuu (Hirotaka Suzuoki) was replaced with Donphan's seiyuu (Kenta Miyake) after Suzuoki died of cancer before the end of Battle Frontier.
    • Mewtwo was voiced by Phillip Bartlett in the original movie, but in Mewtwo Returns he was voiced by Dan Green.
    • In Latin America, Gabriel Gama voiced Brock until the beginning of Diamond, then Alan Prieto took over. Similarly, May's first LA-VA was Anna Lobo, then Mariana Ortiz followed. In the case of Brock, Gabriel Gama returned for the season 13 dub after the change of studio dub from AF: The Dubbing House to SDI Media Group.
      • Ash was darrin'd by Irwin Daayán by the last chapters of the Season 11 and later their original voice actor (Gabriel Ramos) returned for the Season 12, although eventually replaced by Miguel Ángel Leal since Season 13.
      • Dawn's voice in Season 12 was changed from Gaby Ugarte to Leyla Rangel, due to a change of the dub studio, from Candiani to AF: The Dubbing House, but in season 13, after another change of studio, Gaby Ugarte returned to voice Dawn.
      • The same happened with Paul, who was voiced by Gerardo García, but it had to be changed for Season 12. The first time that he appeared in that season, the voice was made by Gabriel Ortiz, and in the latest appearances his voice is Miguel Angel Ruiz, then, in Season 13, García returned to voice Paul after the aforementioned change of studio.
      • Other situations of temporal voice changes happened with Jessie and James. In various chapters during Season 4-5, the Jessie's voice was replaced by Elena Ramirez, and in middle of the Season 8, the voice of James was changed to Gerardo García. The voice change was Lampshaded by Meowth in the dub, when José Antonio Macías returned for the voice of James, saying that he missed their ratitas kuki or something like that.
      • After Jessie's Mexican VA Diana Pérez passed away of cancer, Rebeca Gómez took over.
      • In the movies 4 and 5, some voices were changed because the studio which dubbed these movies was different from the studio which dubbed the series in that time, and in the movies 6 and 7, the Mexican dub was replaced with an Argentinian dub when these movies were transmitted in Latin America. The Mexican cast returned for the movies 8 until now.
    • In Brazil, the voice cast was rarely changed (Tracey and Prof. Oak being the most glaring exceptions). The movies are usually dubbed in another city — Rio de Janeiro instead of São Paulo — but the actors are flown there to dub (though a few ended up changed, such as Meowth).
    • The European Portuguese dub is really bad about this. Ash has gone through nine different voice actresses, and that's just an example.
  • The first English Sailor Moon adaptation practically had a revolving door of actors for various reasons, mainly because the dub's production was stopped and restarted several times for unusually long gaps, leaving plenty of time for actors to leave or have scheduling conflicts when it was time to produce more dubbing. While fans often blame the switchover of the rights from DiC to Cloverway, the same dubbing studio, Optimum, handled the entire series and made the casting choices.
    • The most notable changes came to Sailor Moon herself, who was originally voiced by Tracey Moore and then switched over to Terri Hawkes gradually (the earlier episodes might have been dubbed out of order) and then permanently for the remainder of the DiC run (Tracey's very last episode was Jupiter's debut episode). During the S production, Terri Hawkes was on maternity leave during the recording period and was replaced with Linda Ballantyne for all of the S and Super S seasons (which were recorded fairly close together), who tried to mimic Hawkes at first, but developed her own take on the character. Though her overall performance is sometimes regarded as an exaggerated imitation of Hawkes' voice.
    • Tuxedo Mask also had three actors. Rino Romano voiced him in the Tracey Moore episodes before both Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon were recast. After Tux's second voice actor, Toby Proctor, left the show over pay concerns toward the end of the second season (after the first major hiatus), he was replaced for the rest of the series by Vince Corraza, who had also voiced the alien Alan. Vince was also instructed to mimic Proctor's voice. Proctor and Vince were, of course, The Other Darien.
    • Of the other scouts, Mercury was voiced by the very British-sounding Karen Bernstein for the first two seasons and movies, and the not-so British Liza Balkan in later episodes. Liza was handpicked by Bernstein herself, and was instructed to mimic her voice as best she could. Mars was voiced by Katie Griffin for pretty much the whole series, however Emilie Claire Barlow filled in for the last 17 episodes of the second season while Griffin was away filming a movie. Venus was originally voiced by Stephanie Morgenstern and Rini by Tracy Hoyt, but for the S and Super S seasons they were replaced with Emilie Claire Barlow (who had previously stood in for Mars) and Stephanie Beard respectively. Sailor Pluto was voiced by Sabrina Grdevich (Ann's voice) originally, and Susan Aceron in the S season, though her first appearance actually used Luna's voice as a placeholder. In this crop of voice swapping, the characters apparently were not told to mimic the old actors and their voices are more distinct.
    • One of the villains went through this during the DiC years - Katzy of the Weird Sisters was originally voiced by Alice Poon and had a bizarre recasting with Molly's voice actor, Mary Long. All of sudden, Katzy was putting on a previously-absent Brooklyn accent and chain smoker growl.
    • Sailor Jupiter was thankfully exempt from this. She was the only one of the original five scouts to not change her VA for any reason, being voiced by Susan Roman for all four seasons and the movies.
    • Aaaaand at the very end, the series got redubbed by VIZ with a whole new cast led by: Stephanie Sheh (Usagi), Robbie Daymond (Mamoru), Kate Higgins (Ami), Cristina Vee (Rei), Amanda Céline Miller (Makoto), Cherami Leigh (Minako), Michelle Ruff (Luna) and Johnny Yong-Bosch (Artemis).
    • The dubbers for the Italian version had a curious roundabout. Rei was dubbed for season 1 by Alessandra Karpoff, and from season 2 onward by Giusy DiMartino. Karpoff went on to dub Michiru in season 3, and funnily enough she replaced Donatella Fanfani as Makoto's voice in season 4 and 5. Michiru then ended up being voiced by Patrizia Scianca, who had dubbed a major enemy, Kaolinite, in season 3. Also, dubber Lara Parmiani voiced enemy Eudial in season 3 and Princess Kakyuu in season 5.
    • While the Latin-American dub for kept 90% of the cast through the seasons, Mamoru's first voice actor, Genaro Vasquez, was replaced mid R season by Gerardo Reyero after Vásquez moved to Canada. This was jarring at first because of the huge voice difference: Vasquez was a tenor, Reyero was a bass. However, Reyero eventually grew into the role (at first he sounded like a deep-voiced man forcing himself to sound younger, then as a young man who simply happened to have a deeper voice than other boys) and fans warmed up to him.
      • Luna's Latin American voice actress (Rocío Garcel) was also briefly recast for a few episodes with Hotaru's (Cristina Camargo) while her main voice actress was unavailable.
    • The French dub pulled this when attempting to cover up the relationship between Haruka and Michiru. "Frédérique" originally had a female actress full time. A few episodes into S, they cast a male voice actor for her civilian identity and explained that Frédérique was trying to hide her identity as Uranus and Mylene (Michiru) helped by pretending to be "his" girlfriend
    • Even the original Japanese production had this happen - during the recording of the final episodes of the first series (44-46) and the early portions of R(47-50), Kotono Mitsuishi (Usagi) was hospitalized to have her appendix removed and Kae Araki took over for her. Amusingly, this includes episode 46, which ends with the insert song "You Are Just My Love", a duet between Mitsuishi and Tohru Furuya (Mamoru). Araki returned to do the role of Chibiusa ten episodes after her stint as Sailor Moon.
    • The Brazilian dub also suffered uncancelling, with the R (and subsequent) season airing much later than the first season. The entire cast of the first season was replaced, although the new recordings happened in the same State as the first (that is, the dubbers didn't even look for the old voice actors). Curiously, the Amazon Quartet in Super S was voiced by almost all of the scouts' old voice actresses; probably a way to acknowledge the fans' reaction to the recast.
  • Sailor Moon Crystal, the newest part of the Sailor Moon franchise, had its own deals with this:
    • Only three of the original seiyuu returned to the cast: Kotono Mitsuishi as Usagi, Mami Koyama (from Esmeraude of the Black Moon, to Queen Serenity of the Silver Millenium), and eventually Megumi Hayashibara (from Himeko Nayotake in the S movie, to Sailor Galaxia in the Cosmos films).
    • Several of the Latin-American Spanish dubbers returned too, with some exceptions. ie the late Araceli de León was replaced by Adriana Olmedo as Jupiter, Rocío Garcel (who had just been diagnosed with cancer) was replaced by Irene Jiménez as Luna, and all the Outers save for Irma Carmona (Michiru) were darrined too: Betsabé Jara became Setsuna, Paulina Soto dubbed Haruka, and Yvette Toriz voiced Hotaru. When the Eternal movies (which covered the Super S saga) were released, Mrs. Garcel returned to the cast as Queen Nehelenia - darrin'ing her now retired older sister and fellow VA, Sylvia Garcel, who voiced her in the first anime.
      • For the Cosmos movies (covering the Stars saga), several more changes followed: Rei (the retired Mónica Manjárrez -> Ana Elizabeth "Analiz" Sánchez), Sailor Galaxia (the also late Nancy Mackenzie [1], -> Julieta Rivera), Seiya (Mónica Villaseñor and Irwin Daayán -> Maggie Vera), Taiki (Norma Echeverría y Jose Gilberto Vilchis -> María Elisa Gallegos), Yaten (Circe Luna and Sergio Bonilla -> Cassandra Valtier), etc.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!
    • The American voice actor for Tristan changed after episode 9 of the first season, replacing his original, perpetually cold-ridden nasally voice (Sam Riegel) for one less annoying and much more fitting (Greg Abbey AKA Frank Frankson). Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series naturally spent an entire episode on it, and it stuck... until the next episode, where the voice actor and writer of The Abridged Series changed the voice back, as he said it was easier to write jokes about it.

 Tristan: My voice gives me super strength!

  • Anzu, Jounouchi and Honda's Japanese voice changed too--from Ai Maeda, Toshiyuki Morikawa and Takayuki Kondou to Maki Saitou, Hiroki Takahashi and Hidehiro Kikuchi.
    • Mai's voice has changed during the series. She was originally voiced by Megan Hollingshead for the first three seasons, and by Bella Hudson for the fourth season. She was voiced by Caren Manuel for the short-lived Uncut DVDs.
    • Mokuba was recast for his last few appearances in Season 5 with Caroline Lawson when his original voice actress, Tara Jayne, had moved to California, and quit all of her roles in New York. Lawson also voiced Mokuba in the short-lived uncut DVDs.
    • Rex Raptor was originally voiced by Sam Riegel for the first 3 seasons of the series before the role was recast with Sebastian Arcelus for season 4 (and the uncut DVDs). Anthony Salerno filled in as Rex for his few season 5 appearances.
    • On the Japanese side, Rica Matsumoto took over as Bakura for You Inoue, who was diagnosed with lung cancer and shortly after, passed away. Notably, this is a case where the other Darrin had a completely different approach--whereas Inoue's Dark Bakura was quiet, calm and sinister, Matsumoto's Bakura had barely any lines where he wasn't shouting, laughing, and in general, tearing the scenery to shreds.
    • German Bakura underwent a similar change of character (from a calm and collected villain to a loud, rude and completely insane maniac), but at a different time. In this version, the change occured when Peter Reinhardt took over the role from David Nathan with the beginning of season 5.
    • Same to the Mexican Bakura, with Yamil Atala as the "calm and sinister" one and Jose Gilberto Vilchis as his hammy counterpart.
    • The "dedication" segment in the Abridged Series also lampshaded the other two characters who had their voices eventually changed sometime during the course of the dub. Mokuba wasn't that bad, but Mai's voice was actually changed mid-episode.
      • 4Kids switched the voice mid-episode to make the cast change less noticeable. They did the same for James in Pokemon.
    • When Cassandra Morris moved away from 4Kids, Yubel received a new voice for the 10th movie as well as the twins from 5Ds from episode 65 onward.
    • Carly's Japanese VA (Satomi Toyohara, artistic name Li Mei Chang) was replaced on episode 130 onward (by Aki Kanada) due to EXTREMELY messy real-life issues with the VA that caused her to resign.
  • Ranma One Half
    • Between seasons three and four (episodes 64 and 65), the North-American dub voice for Ranma abruptly changed from Sarah Strange, a woman playing a boy's voice, to Richard Ian Cox — a man playing a boy's voice after the former wanted to move on with her career. After the first six episodes Ranma's female voice actor also changed from Brigetta Dau (who also voiced the character in the first two OVA episodes) to Venus Terzo, but the change was arguably more subtle since it was fairly early on in the series, and the voices were similar.
    • When Angela Costain, the English voice of Nabiki Tendô, wanted to attend flight school, her sister Elaina Wotten-Costain took over the character for Season 6. (Unlike many vocal Darrins, the difference between the two performances was virtually nil — many viewers never noticed the change). Angela returned for Season 7 after getting her pilot's license.
    • Kodachi Kuno was voiced by Teryl Rotherly for the first four seasons before the character was recast with Erin Fitzgerald for Season 5. Ironically, she was recast AGAIN for Seasons 6-7 with Sylvia Zaradic taking over the role (who actually sounded much closer to Teryl than Erin).
    • Both the Jusenkyo Guide and Dr. Tofu were recast beginning in Season 6 with new voice actors (Michael Donovan and Kirby Morrow respectively) when their original voice actor, Ian James Corlett, left the show.
    • Cologne also had multiple voice actors at different points in the series: Kathleen Barr, Elan Ross Gibson, and Lynda Boyd.
    • The 2024 remake has keep almost all of the original main cast - starting with Kappei Yamaguchi and Megumi Hayashibara as Ranma and Noriko Hidaka as Akane. As of the end of the first cour, the following VA changes took place:
  • Slayers
    • The English version had several cases of this. Halfway through the first season, Central Park Media took a break from dubbing the series for about a year to evaluate video sales, and during that time period, lost contact with several of the voice actors. The most notable replacements are Crispin Freeman replacing Daniel Cronin as the voice of Zelgadis (making this his first anime role), and Veronica Taylor replacing Joani Baker as the voice of Amelia. With them are Zangulus (Ted Lewis replacing Liam O'Malley), and Prince Phillionel. This was consistent for the first three seasons.
    • In addition to this, ADV Films handled all the Movies and OVAs and used their Houston-based talent pool instead of the original New York cast for the series. They tried to get Lisa Ortiz back as Lina, but they were unable to, so Cynthia Martinez notably replaced Ortiz as Lina in the movies and OVA series, and in Slayers Premium, Chris Patton filled in for Eric Stuart as Gourry, Luci Christian filled in for Veronica Taylor as Amelia, and Kurt Stoll filled in for David Moo as Xellos; however, Crispin Freeman returned to play Zelgadis.
    • When FUNimation and NYAV Post dubbed Slayers Revolution and Evolution-R, Ortiz, Stuart, Taylor, and Freeman all returned to play the four leads; however, everyone else was replaced: Michael Sinterniklaas replaced David Moo as Xellos, Stephanie Sheh replaced Stacia Crawford as Sylphiel, Liam O'Brien replaced Peter Davis as Rezo, David Brimmer replacing Jimmy Zoppi as Philionel, and Marc Thompson replacing Roger Kay as Shabranigdo.
    • The Japanese cast has stuck through for the most part; however, Minoru Inaba would become Prince Phil's second Japanese voice in the third season after his first, Masahiro Anzai, because of the latter's severe case of diabetes.
  • The American dub of Dragon Ball Z returned from being Uncanceled with the third season having an entirely new cast. (Behind the scenes FUNimation eliminated their partnership with Saban, which also voided their ability to afford the expensive Vancouver actors of the first two seasons). For most of the new actors, this was their first voice acting role (DBZ was the first Dallas-based English dub), and it was obvious. Some had only minor differences in sound, but the performances varied heavily. Christopher Sabat alone replaced some six or seven of the major characters (although a couple were later reverted to new actors later on). After a few seasons, they had effectively created their own interpretations.
    • Before the full-cast switchover, Goku and Master Roshi had to be recast when Ian Corlett left over a combination of pay concerns and frustration with the production schedule. Peter Kelamis replaced him as Goku in both roles.
      • Even after the entire cast changed, and the show was being dubbed by Funimation in Dallas, there were some cast changes. Mark Britten left the series to go on a comedy tour in 2001, and many of his voices were recast. Burter and Korin were recast with Christopher R. Sabat, Mustard and the other world tournament announcer were recast with Brandon Potter, and the Ox King was recast with Kyle Hebert. In addition, Dale D. Kelly, the Funimation narrator and Captain Ginyu, left the series in 2000, and was replaced with Kyle Hebert for the Narrator, and Brice Armstrong for Captain Ginyu. John Burgmeier replaced Chris Cason as Tien, Christopher R. Sabat replaced Chris Cason as Mr. Popo, Bill Townsley replaced Dylan Thompson as Guldo, Leah Clark replaced Daphne Gere as Maron, J. Michael Tatum replaced Bart Myer as Spice, Markus Lloyd replaced Kyle Hebert as Blueberry, Douglas Burkes replaced Chris Cason as Rasberry, Stephanie Nadolny replaced Ceyli Delgadillo as Young Goku, Tiffany Vollmer replaced Leslie Alexander as Bulma (Leslie only played the role in DB Movie 2), and finaly, Meridith McCoy replaced the team of Christine Marten and Monika Antonelli as Launch (who only voiced the role in DB Movie 2).
      • FUNimation's dub later expanded to the original Dragon Ball, GT, movies, specials, video games, and pretty much all other DB media. FUNimation later redubbed everything from the first 2 seasons with their new cast, since the original versions of Seasons 1-2 were edited. FUNimation also partially redubbed themselves for the remastered release (mostly at the season 2-3 gap) since a few voices had changed since then (such as Captain Ginyu, Tien, Dende, Burter, Guldo, Oolong, Mr. Popo, and a few others), and were different for the seasons 1-2 redub, and needed to be revoiced in later episodes for consistency. Several consistent actors also redubbed themselves, since they sounded vastly different earlier, and the transition would've been very jarring.
      • The Japanese version of the franchise also had recasts. Chi Chi was voiced by Mayumi Shou in seasons 1-2. She was replaced by Naoko Watanabe for the rest of the franchise. Master Roshi's voice changed several times after Kohei Miyauchi's death in the middle of Season 9. Other casting changes in Dragon Ball Kai include Gregory's voice (Yuji Mitsuya), Dende's voice (to Aya Hirano in Kai), and the entire Ginyu Force.
      • Junpei Takiguchi originally voiced Uranai Baba, the Grand Elder, and Polunga, but left the show for unexplained reasons (although he did reprise the Elder in Kai, before passiong away) and ultimately passed away. His roles were taken over by Mayumi Tanaka, Masaharu Satou, and Daisuke Gouri respectively.
      • And of course, Dragon Ball Z Kai has Monica Rial as Bulma, Colleen Clinkenbeard as Gohan, Chris Ayres as Frieza, John Swasey as Dodoria, J. Michael Tatum as Zarbon and several other changes, including most of the Ginyu Force, with Greg Ayres as Guldo, Vic Mignogna as Burter, Jason Liebrecht as Jeice and R Bruce Elliot as Captain Ginyu, among others.
      • The Latin American voice of Bulma switched from Rocio Garcel after the "Cell Games" saga to Monica Manjarrez in the Majin Buu saga (with Laura Ayala in a few episodes), to Isabel Martinon in "Path to Power". Garcel returned to voice Bulma in the Latin version of Kai and then for Super.
      • Speaking of the Latin-American version of Kai, near all of the VA's (espescially notorious with Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo and Gohan) were notably recast with new voice actors (despite their originals showing an interest in returning). The same happened in the French version with Goku. Sadly, this meant the Latin-American cast director (Irwin Daayán, Dende's VA in all media), who apparently was told to seek for new voices by Toei itself) was horribly bullied by the fans and dropped the franchise altogether for several years. The major part of the cast was brought back for The Final Chapters, and also for Super.
      • The European Spanish dub also had this, with Goku and Gohan changing voices for a while after they left the Room of Spirit and Time. Amusingly, the first time they appear Piccolo says "You look changed, Goku!", which sounds like an accidental Lampshade Hanging.
      • The Portuguese Dub had Vegeta changing voices three times. This was lampshaded when a line of dialog was added after the second change, in which Vegeta explains that he "is getting so angry that it is making [his] voice change again".
      • Dragonball Z Abridged got into the act as well, replacing Lanipator with Vegita3986 as the voice of Raditz, and Lanipator (again) with Little Kuriboh as the voice of Frisza. The Raditz issue was handled mid episode in a very funny, off-camera fight. The latter occured mid-episode as well, but was simply handled by Lanipator coughing, and then Little Kuriboh taking over. Lanipator isn't gone, though; he still plays Krillin.
      • When Hiromi Tsuru aka Bulma passed away in 2017, Aya Hisakawa took over.
  • Yu Yu Hakusho experienced this when Funimation licensed the series after Central Park Media and Media Blasters had each dubbed a movie (the short first movie had been dubbed in Los Angeles by Media Blasters/Animaze, and the main second movie had been dubbed in New York by Central Park Media/Taj Productions). Two different casts were used for them alone, and when Funimation dubbed the series, their own Dallas talent was used instead, essentially a third cast that ended up becoming the officially known English voices (due to their dominance in the TV series). FUNimation is also re-dubbing the movie that Media Blasters had previously dubbed in Los Angeles with Animaze. A fourth English cast from Hong Kong was used for the Animax dub of the TV series for South-East Asian broadcast.
    • The Philippine dub of Yu Yu Hakusho had this due to a change in TV stations. It was particularly glaring since the change in voice happened after a Heroic Sacrifice with Genkai's spirit speaking through another character. Viewers took a while to realize that this was the new voice for Genkai. (Yusuke's change in voice-actors was less obvious but disconcerting for a while.)
  • Saint Seiya had the same seiyuu cast from almost 20 years, including the original TV series as well as the movies. Then came the Hades Saga and several actors were replaced (i.e.: the dead Kaneto Shiozawa was replaced by Takumi Yamazaki as Mu, the also deceased Kazuyuki Sogabe was followed by both Ryotaro Okiayu and Akio Nojima as the twins Saga and Kanon, Toshihiko Seki as as Milo instead of Shuichi Ikeda, Takeshi Kusao as Shura and not Koji Totani, etc.)
    • Then came the Tenkai-hen movie, after which practically everyone (including Tohru Furuya aka Seiya, replaced by Masakazu Morita) was changed. Furuya returned for Saint Seiya Omega, though.
      • In the Latin American dub, the Hades Saga had two parallel dubs. The original cast led by the late Jesus Barrero only returned for the DVD dub, but the TV version included a whole cast change led by Irwin Daayan as Seiya. There was also quite a bit of Internet Backdraft when the CG series for Netflix not only changed a good part of the cast, but it casted the celebrity actor Darío Yasbeck as Seiya and his performance was not up to the fans' standards. He was replaced for the second season by the more seasoned VA Carlo Vásquez, who now has more or less inherited the role.
    • The 2014 movie Legend of the Sanctuary has a completely new cast led by Kaito Ishikawa as Seiya, Ayaka Sasaki as Saori and Koichi Yamadera as Saga. One of the many changes was VERY needed - in this continuity Scorpio Milo is a woman rather than a man, and she was voiced by Masumi Asano.
      • While the Latin American Spanish dub gathered as many of the VA's from the original cast as possible (including Barrero, who'd die few years later), there were some modifications too: Tatsumi (Armando Larumbe -> Oscar Flores), Mitsumasa Kido (Pedro D'Aguillón -> his son Pedro D'Aguillón Jr.), the aforementioned Milo (Benjamín Rivera -> Carla Castañeda), etc.
  • In Getter Robo, Akira Kamiya voiced Ryoma Nagare for decades. When the Armaggedon OAV's came he was on the verge of retirement, Hideo Ishikawa replaced him and tried to give his own spin to the role due to the Darker and Edgier settlement... which caused much Internet Backdraft.
  • The Trigun movie had a completely different English voice cast from the series since it was licensed and dubbed by FUNimation, wheres the series was licensed by Geneon, and dubbed by Animaze. The only voice actor that returned to reprise their role in the movie was Johnny Yong Bosch as Vash.
    • When Trigun Stampede was released, there were cast changes everywhere. ie., Johnny Yong Bosch stayed as Vash in English, but in the original Japanese the role went from Masaya Onosaka to Yoshitsugu Matsuoka, and in Mexico it went from the late Gabriel Ortiz to Enzo Fortuny.
  • In the Naruto English dub, Shino was voiced by Sam Riegel in his first appearance, but was replaced by Derek Stephen Prince later on. Itachi received this treatment as well, going from Skip Stellrecht to Crispin Freeman.
    • Zetsu, Deidara, and Pain are yet more case where the dub voice for the character was someone completely different on their first (cameo) appearance at the end of Part I: Zetsu went from Brian Beacock and Michael Sorich (each one voicing a different of Zetsu's halves) to Travis Willingham, while Pain went from Dave Wittenberg to Troy Baker, and Deidara went from Quinton Flynn to Roger Craig Smith.
      • Interestingly, several cases of Talking to Himself were avoided later on, as Zaku (done by Sam Riegel) would face Shino in the Chuunin Exams, and Guy (Skip Stellrecht) would face Itachi after the Sand/Sound Invasion Arc.
    • Saffron Henderson voiced Kurenai for her single line in the third episode (the one where the red and white on her outfit are switched), but Mary Elizabeth McGlynn voiced her in subsequent appearances. Katsuyu (the slug Tsunade summons) switches from Mari Devon in Episode 96 to McGlynn in 161.
    • And in the video games (except the Clash of Ninja series), Tsunade is also voiced by McGlynn instead of Debi Mae West. Revolution 2 partly avoids this; because it uses old voice clips of the regular actress, and new ones. Odd, considering that her voice in the anime has remained the same.
    • On her original appearance, Anko was voiced by Julianne Buescher, then by Laura Bailey is here appearance in some Filler episodes and some games, and then Kari Wahlgren in some other games. In fact, this generally happens a lot with secondary characters in the video games. One particularly bizarre example is Jamieson Price playing the First Hokage in the series, but not in the video game — where he does play the Second Hokage.
    • Nobutoshi Canna replaces regular seiyuu Showtaro Morikubo (who was in the hospital after an accident) as Shikamaru in episode 141. Canna (who usually voices Kabuto) sounds almost exactly like him if he wants to.
    • The first Hungarian dub (that aired on Jetix) had a habit of switching around everyone's voices, except for the main trio's. Listing all the examples would be difficult. The second dub, which used the original, uncut Japanese version as a basis managed to stay consistent, and most of the first dub's cast returned to reprise their roles. Though after episode 52, there was a noticeable change: Sakura's voice actress moved to abroad, which resulted in her sounding about 15 years older, until the new actress warmed up to the role. Tenten's voice change was barely noticeable, on the other hand.
      • Two other changes, however, were especially jarring. Around episode 100 of the original series, Kakashi's voice actor quit (his reason being he simply didn't have time anymore to continue the dub), and episode 169 changed Orochimaru's voice as well. Neither of their new actors sound like the originals.
    • On the Japanese side, Akiko Koike took over for Konohamaru at the beginning of Shippuden, when Ikue Ohtani was on pregnancy leave. Since this was after a Time Skip, it actually wasn't jarring...but Ohtani eventually took over the role again anyway.
    • In the Latin-American dub, Ilia Gil played Kurenai until Shippuden, with Ana Isabel "Anabel" Méndez taking over from then on. When Sakura's Va Christine Byrd retired, her role was picked up by Montserrat Aguilar.
  • In the English dub of Bleach Kim Strauss as Sajin Komamura was replaced by J.B. Blanc due to Strauss retiring.
    • The late Tomoko Kawakami as Soifon was replaced by Houko Kuwashima in 2008 (plus other Kawakami roles)
    • Starting with episode 244 of the English dub, Kenpachi is voiced by Patrick Seitz instead of David Lodge.
      • Just after everyone got used to the fact that Doug Erholtz replaced Michael Lindsay as Urahara. In a subversion, the original VA was absent for a while and returned to his role post-filler.
  • The second Bleach anime, which covers the Thousand Year Old Blood War last arc, started a whoopin' ten years after the end of the first TV series, so changes have been made accordingly.
    • Japanese: Masaaki Tsukada alias the original Genryusai Yamamoto passed away in 2014, so he's been replaced by Binbin Takaoka.
    • Mexican Spanish: Eduardo Garza, Liliana Barba, Claudia Motta and Gabriel Ortiz returned as Ichigo, Rukia, Orihime and Renji; however, Victor Ugarte (who doesn't work for the new dub company) and Dan Osorio (who wasn't called back) were replaced as Ishida and Chad by Armando Guerrero and Carlos Reynoso, respectively. Among the captains, after the death of César Arias Zaraki's role went to José Luis Miranda: also, Christian Strempler didn't return as Byakuya and was replaced by Dave Ramos, Aizen went from Ricardo Mendoza to Víctor Kuri, and Neliel aka Nel is now voiced by Patricia Acevedo (once Lirin from the fillers) instead of Laura Torres.
      • Regarding the original series, it was dubbed in Mexican Spanish by Art Sound Mexico in 2014-2015... up until episode 229 (right before the start of the Filler Zanpakuto arc). When the second anime was announced in 2021 and then streaming service Star+ purchased the series itself, the studio Famasound quickly re-started dubbing what was left between late 2021 and early 2022. As a result, MANY voices aside of those mentioned above were changed; ie, Karin Kurosaki's VA Christine Byrd had already retired from voice acting, as mentioned above, so Mayra Arellano took over the role.
      • Renji's Latino Spanish VA Gabriel Ortiz died of a heart attack after the release of TYBW's second cour's dub, so Óscar López took him up.
    • English: A very messy, MESSY example. While Wendee Lee was called back to the Bleach cast, her big role as Yoruichi Shihoin was instead given to rising actress Anairis Quiñones, allegedly on the basis that Yoruichi is Ambiguously Brown so the VIZ executives wanted a darker-skinned voice actress like Quiñones as her. Fans did NOT react kindly, so Lee was cast back as Yoruichi... But THEN, Lee made some very rude and catty comments about Quiñones on Twitter and many people saw THAT as a real-life Kick the Dog moment, siding with the latter instead...
  • Vampire Princess Miyu - Miyu went from being voiced by Kimberly J. Brown to Dorothy Elias-Fahn after 7 episodes. In addition, Pamela Wielder had earlier voiced the role in the OVA.
  • While almost every other character kept the same voice actor after the Time Skip in the dub Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (except Simon and Rossiu in the Distant Finale) Nia went from being voiced by Hynden Walch to Bridget Hoffman (though the fact that happens over the Time Skip makes it less noticeable as characters frequently change actors over such periods) It was later explained in a press release that Hynden had to drop out of the show for personal reasons.
  • The Italian (and faithful to the original) version of Tokyo Mew Mew replaced Deep Blue's voice actor in the last ten episodes without any reason. The Blue Knight also had two different voice actors that alternated in order to help keep his identity hidden.
    • The entire Portuguese cast of Tokyo Mew Mew was replaced for the second half of the series since the first half was based off the 4Kids English dub, and the company doing the second half completely ignored everything that was done for the first half. Not only has the entire voice cast different, but the character names and attack names were changed as well.
  • The second Fullmetal Alchemist gets this in force, as the only main cast members reprising their roles from the first series are Romi Paku (Edward), Rie Kugimiya (Alphonse), Kenji Utsumi (Armstrong), Keiji Fujiwara (Hughes), Hidekatsu Shibata (Bradley), and Shoko Tsuda (Izumi). Some of the new arrivals include Shinichiro Miki as Mustang, Fumiko Orikasa as Hawkeye, Kikuko Inoue as Lust, and Kenta Miyake as Scar.
    • The dub has much less of this, but still happened with Al (Aaron Dismuke to Maxey Whitehead, justified since Aaron grew up and thus his voice changed accordingly), Scar (Dameon Clarke to J. Michael Tatum), Marcoh (Brice Armstrong to Jerry Russell), and Hohenheim (Scott McNeil to John Swasey). Note that the now teenage Aaron still has a role — the young Hohenheim from the flashbacks to his past.
    • Chris Patton returned to reprise his role as Greed in the first half of the dub. For the second half, he was replaced by Troy Baker. It's kind of justified, considering it happens when Greed gets a new body, and they still use Patton's voice for flashbacks of his original body, even though Greed was portrayed by Yuuichi Nakamura for the whole series.
    • The Latin-American Spanish dub (from Venezuela) stayed more or less the same in the transition from the 2003 series to Brotherhood, save for the VA's for Izumi and Riza.
      • In the second LATAM Spanish dub for Brotherhood, José Manuel Vieira and Johnny Torres stayed as the Elrics (though Vieira now lives in Spain so he had to record his lines and then send them) but near all the others were changed since the series was dubbed in Mexico. ie., Winry (Melanie Henríquez -> Montserrat Aguilar), Roy (Rolman Bastidas -> Rafael Escalante), Riza (Rocío Mallo -> Ana Elizabeth "Annie" Rojas), etc.
  • In the Japanese version of Katekyo Hitman Reborn, the seiyuu voicing the character of Dino goes from Kenta Kamakari to Kenichirou "KENN" Ouhashi from episode 34 on.
  • Through the various movies, recuts, and compilations of Neon Genesis Evangelion that have been made in the last decades, several of the casts (especially the English and LATAM ones) have changed. For example, in the English dubs Gendo has had two separate VAs, Touji has had three, and Kaworu has had a different voice actor for the series, movies, and director's cut. It's become something of an in-joke in Eva fandom that the cast has a habit of vanishing off the face of the earth.
    • In the Rebuild of Evangelion movies, only Shinji's, Asuka's, and Misato's voice actors reprised their roles (though Gendo's voice actor from the Director's Cut episodes also reprised his role).
    • Only Shinji (Victor Ugarte) and Gendo (Humberto Solorzano) kept their original voice actors from the first Latin American dub. I.e., Rei is voiced by Victor Ugarte's youngest sister Gaby in the second dub, which becomes Hilarious in Hindsight when you recall that Rei, as a clone of Shinji's mother Yui, is essentially his half-sister.
      • In the Rebuild of Evangelion dubs, Circe Luna aka the Original Rei returned... until 3.0, where she was replaced by Ana Lobo, who also played Rei Q.
    • One that really ticked some people off was the English dub of Rebuild replacing Amanda Winn-Lee with Brina Palencia as Rei. The official reason was Lee taking time off to look after her ailing son, though it would be a bit naive not to suspect it had something to do with her (not undeserved) reputation for alcoholism and general bad behavior.
      • Maya is probably the worst. She's had a different VA in every installment of the series (Series, End of Eva, Directors cut, and Rebuild). While all of them fit her character, most of them sound totally different from one another.
  • Revolutionary Girl Utena's dub stayed pretty consistent except for the role of Akio, who was played by Crispin Freeman (Touga's voice actor) for episode 13, and by Josh Mosby for everything else. Also, Sharon Becker plays the third Shadow Girl player during the Black Rose Arc, but after that, Lisa Ortiz plays the third girl while Becker keeps on playing the second.
    • The Japanese version of Utena replaced the Actor for Akio for the movie, from Jurota Kosugi from Mitsuhiko Oikawa. The reason for that was probably that Akio is a very different character in the movie, far from the sexy Magnificent Bastard that he is in the series.
  • After Gundam SEED ended, Mami Matsui (who had been active from The Sixties) retired and Romi Paku took over her character Nicol Amalfi for the Compilation Movies and subsequent video game appearances.
  • Ah! My Goddess went through many dubbing crews for the English version, and thus, the series went through many talent pools (North Carolina for the OVA, Los Angeles for the movie and Mini-Goddess, and New York for the TV series). However, the Japanese version stayed pretty consistent, though Kikuko Inoue was briefly replaced by Akemi Okamura in the Mini Goddesses series due to Inoue being on maternal leave. Major Playing Against Type moment, as Okamura often plays Action Girls and not Yamato Nadeshikos.
  • In Bubblegum Crisis, the seiyuu for Priss Asagiri, the primary focus character of the ensemble, was originally Kinuko Ohmori. Ohmori was already an established synth-rock/J-rock singer, and performed most of the music for the series. When the sequel series, Bubblegum Crash! was made; she chose to focus on her musical career with her band SILK, and was replaced by Ryoko Tachikawa.
  • Li's voice actor in Cardcaptors was replaced around the Star Card arc as the original actor's voice broke.
  • In the second episode of Ronin Warriors the show experienced very noticeable differences in the cast only to have the actors from the first episode to return for the remainder of the season. The reason for this was that many of the actors had gotten sick. With limited time, some of the hired actors were required to fill in for multiple roles while other characters were voiced by office employees. The episode was not redubbed with the correct actors for the DVD sales.
    • The Ronin Warriors actors switched again when the OVAs were dubbed years later.
  • In the Japanese version of Hellsing Ultimate, Norio Wakamoto replaced the late Nachi Nozawa as Alexander Anderson. And then proceeded to inject as much hamminess as only Wakamoto can do.
  • In the first English adaptation of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman known as Battle of the Planets, fans generally associate the voice actors Ronnie Schell and Alan Dinehart Jr. with their respective characters of Jason and Tiny. But in the first episode dubbed by Sandy Frank, Jason had a much different and lower voice provided by an unknown actor while Tiny was voiced by Schell and had a gruffer, raspier voice than the slow "big guy" one that Dinehart would make him famous for. To this day, it remains unknown who was the original Jason, though it is suggested that it was either Alan Oppenheimer or David Joliffe, two other veteran actors that had worked on that particular episode.
    • In the case of the second English adaptation G-Force: Guardians of Space, the characters of Hooty, Dr. Brighthead, and Computor were alternatively voiced by Jan Rabson or Gregg Berger, depending on the episode. As this dub lacked credits for the cast, it's become a chore for fans to pick out which episodes are "Berger" ones and which ones were done by Rabson.
  • Kenichi the Mightiest Disciple expirienced this when the actor for Hermit (Jason Liebrecht) was replaced with Eric Vale for Season 2 following Jason's motorcycle accident.
  • Detective Conan experienced this with Kogoro Mouri in October 2009, when Akira Kamiya left the show to become a seiyuu trainer instead (plus his vocal chords had been damaged over the years of playing Hot-Blooded heroes). He had been the voice of Kogoro since the show first started in 1996, and the new voice (Rikiya Koyama) is distinctly different.
    • The English dub of Case Closed had a couple of casting changes. The most notable was "George" (Genta) who was originally voiced by Dameon Clarke for the first 3 seasons and part of the fourth. He also voiced George in the first movie. Because of his move to more live-action media, Mike McFarland has taken over the role of George beginning partway through the fourth season and into the fifth. He also voiced the role in all the remaining dubbed movies.
      • The English voice for Booker/Yusaku Kudo (Randy Tallman) died shortly after finishing production on the series, and several of his movie appearances. John Swasey filled in for Booker's remaining English movie (The Phantom of Baker Street).
    • The first Latin-American dub was first made in Los Angeles, until around halfway the fifth season. The second one, done in Mexico, only covered the first movies, but lost the license after the people in charge illegally used fansub scripts for it. Then a Chilean studio started working on the rest of the series, but stopped around season 10. Then some of newer movies, the Lupin III crossovers and the Magic Kaito TV series were doubbed in Mexico.
  • Initial D had a dub cast change for Third and Fourth Stage after Funimation acquired the rights from Tokyopop (including Joel McDonald, Brina Palencia, and J. Michael Tatum), and they also redubbed the seasons Tokyopop did the "tricked out" dub on.
  • In the case of Himitsu no Akko-chan, voice actress Noriko Tsukase (Gammo) died of cancer during the filming of the second series in 1988. She had to be replaced by Yuuko Mita.
  • The dub voice of Eiko Magami from Project A-ko was Stacey Gregg in the original movie. Gregg was replaced by Teryl Rothery for the remainder of the OVA series.
  • In Future GPX Cyber Formula, Tatsuya Matsuda has been the voice actor of Ryohei Sumi in the TV series, 11 and ZERO. In SAGA, he was replaced by Naoki Tatsuta, who also voiced Bootsvortz.
  • From the first Negima anime, Negima Second Season, and all the way till the third episode of the OVA series, Hazuki Tanaka was the voice for Ku Fei. When the fourth OVA was distributed, she was replaced by the more popular Kana Asumi.
    • Similarly, Chao's original actress Chiaki Oosawa was replaced by Megumi Takamoto around the same time.
  • Every dubbed season of Duel Masters replaced the entire voice cast, apart from one or two returning actors. Being the kind of show that it was, later seasons made jokes about this.
  • The third season of Star Blazers had a completely different dub cast from the first two seasons, since the dubbing was taken over by Peter Fernandez and his Speed Racer voice team.
  • Saber Marionette J, Saber Marionette J Again and Saber Marionette J To X, while all licensed by Bandai in North America, were each dubbed into English at different studios. The entire cast changed between each series (although Saber Marionette R did share some cast with J). This means Otaru changed from Light Yagami to Ascot to Betterman. Lime was Bulma, a Tachikoma, and Meifon Li. Etc.
  • When Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha was spun off from Triangle Heart 3 ～sweet songs forever～ and was turned into an anime, nearly every character received a new seiyuu, with Kyouya Takamachi, the main character of Triangle Heart 3, being the only one who retained his original voice actor.
  • Lupin III's English cast has never been consistent with several media being dubbed and redubbed multiple times, due to several failed attempts to market the franchise in America. One movie (The Mystery of Mamo) has 4 dubs produced from 1979-2003. However at least 7 different English "Lupin" casts are known to exist.
    • The Japanese cast for Lupin III also had some changes that began with the entire cast changing after the pilot film, and the entire cast temporarily changing again to a cheaper one (led by Toshio Furukawa as Lupin) for the 1987 Fuma Conspiracy film. Lupin's main Japanese voice actor, Yasuo Yamada, died in 1995, which led to part being handed to Kanichi Kurita (a stage comedian who was a friend of Yamada's) for all future media.
      • Fujiko (Eiko Masuyama -> Miyuki Sawashiro), Goemon (Makio Inoue -> Daisuke Namikawa) and Zenigata (Gorou Naya -> Kouichi Yamadera) were permanently replaced from the 2011 TV special onwards. This left Jigen as the only character of the main cast whose seiyuu (Kiyoshi Kobayashi) remained consistent for the longest time since the 1969 pilot short film (not counting The Fuma Conspiracy)... until few before his death in 2022. After that, Akio Ohtsuka took over the role.
    • The prequel series Lupin Zero has Lupin and Jigen as 13-year-old boys. Kid!Lupin is voiced by Tasuku Hatanaka and kid!Jigen by Shunsuke Takeuchi. (And curiously, the aforementioned Furukawa plays Lupin's father and predecesor Lupin II)
  • Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro had 4 different voice actresses playing him over the course of 5 TV series. The movie Japan Explodes, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the anime, opened with a unique scene which brought together all incarnations of Kitaro (and his co-stars) with each of them voiced by the original voice actress.
  • In 2005, the complete voice cast of Doraemon was replaced by younger VA's. The VAs of the main cast had played their characters for 25 years.
  • Tenchi Muyo has a number of Other Darrin moments:
    • Wendee Lee took over the voice of Kiyone Makibi despite the fact that her original VA, Sherry Lynn, was still active as Sasami and Tsunami! Ironically, she does voice a Kiyone in the OVAs — Kiyone Masaki, Tenchi's mom.
    • When Funimation was set to record episode 18 of Tenchi Muyo! GXP, which reintroduced the original OVA cast, none of the original cast members could return and thus everyone got new voices (one could say Mihoshi was the only one to return, but she was already an Other Darrin, as she was the voice of Mihoshi from Tenchi in Tokyo).
    • Staying with Funi and Tenchi, when they got ahold of the third OVA series, they were able to get most of the voices back. However, Ryoko's voice actress had retired, so they ended up using her GXP VA to reprise her role. To their credit, though, they tried to make her sound like the original.
    • When Sasami Magical Girls Club was being made, the decision was made not to use Chisa Yokoyama, Sasami's seiyuu since the Tenchi franchise began, in favor of the actual child actress Mana Ogawa (who was 12-13 years old back then). Likewise, Funimation didn't rehire Sherry Lynn to reprise her role for the English dub, either, casting Alison Viktorin instead.
  • Shamisen, the cat briefly given the ability to speak in Haruhi Suzumiya, was voiced by Steve Kramer in the English dub of Season 1, and Michael McConnohie in the more expanded appearance in Season 2.
  • When Disney went on to dub the "remaining" (at the time) movies of Digimon years after the series' runs, they couldn't get hold of all the voice actors, so replacements happened:
    • In the second Adventure 02 movie, Jason Spisak replaced Joshua Seth as Tai, Bridget Hoffman replaced Laura Summer as Patamon (which coincided with another Patamon voiced by Hoffman in the Disney-dubbed Frontier) and Jeff Nimoy (Tentomon's voice actor) replaced Kirk Thornton and Neil Kaplan as (respectively) Gabumon and Hawkmon.
    • In the Tamers movies, Philece Sampler replaced Bridget Hoffman as Jeri, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn replaced Michelle Ruff as Lopmon and Yuri Lowenthal replaced Brian Donovan as Kai (Takato's cousin).
    • In the Frontier movie, Dave Wittenberg replaced Michael Reisz as Takuya; in Frontier itself, Wittenberg also took over as Takuya whenever he became EmperorGreymon because Reisz refused to go through with the amount of yelling involved at that point. Ironically, there was actually a comparitively small amount of shouting involved during EmperorGreymon's scenes.
    • In the Adventure series proper, Michael Lindsay (Joe's voice actor) voiced Agumon for the first couple of episodes before Tom Fahn took over for the rest of the series (and had a different voice actor for all of his forms), Koromon had three different actors, Steven Blum replaced Jeff Nimoy as the young Gennai when 02 came around, Doug Erholtz (quite understandably) replaced Wendee Lee as TK in 02, and Jeff Nimoy replaced Joshua Seth as Tentomon from the second episode onward, only to be replaced by Robert Martin Klein near the end of 02.
    • In the Japanese version of 02, Toshiyuki Morikawa replaced Ryuzaburou Otomo as the voice of Myotismon. Averted in the English Dub which Richard Epcar reprised the role. It's a Justified Trope in Japanese: Myotismon / MaloMyotismon was controlling a man named Yukio Oikawa, voiced by Morikawa from the start.
    • The two Digimon Rumble Arena games, the only voiced game appearances of anime characters, saw several substitutions. Mary Elizabeth McGlynn replaced both Brian Beacock and Edie Mirman as Takato and Gatomon, respectively; the former (a man voicing a boy replaced by a woman voicing a boy) was particularly jarring. In the second, Robert Martin Klein did Veemon instead of Derek Stephen Prince, Melodee Spevack did Angewomon instead of Edie Mirman, and Tom Fahn and Dan Lorge did Takuya's evolutions instead of Reisz or Wittenberg.
    • Similarly, in the Latin-American dubs five Digidestined changed their VAs from the first season to the second: Taichi (Gerardo "Gerry" Meza -> Enzo Fortuny), Yamato (Uraz Huerta -> Jose Gilberto Vilchis), Koushirou (Monica Estrada -> Alfredo Leal), Takeru (Lupita Leal -> Irwin Daayan), and Hikari (Cristina Hernandez -> Martha Ceceña - as well as Tailmon).
    • The entire voice cast of the Finnish Adventure dub changed around the middle of the season when negative feedback they got pretty much forced the original dubbing company, Agapio Racing Team, to give up the series. The dubbing was then taken over by the much more Tuotantotalo Werne.
    • While the entire cast of the Digimon partner's voice actors return in the Japanese version of Digimon Adventure Tri, all the Digidestined get new voice actors. This is partly justified in Sora's case, given Yuko Mizutani's Ill Girl condition which led to her passing away shortly after the release of the first movie, and Taichi's, given that his voice would break at that age thus requires recasting (Koushirou was still voiced by a female voice actress [Mutsumi Tamura] though).
    • Happened the same with entire cast of 02 Digidestined for the 20th anniversary movie, with the Digimons' original VAs all reprise their roles.
  • Averted with Nurse Witch Komugi. The anime is a Spin-Off / Self-Parody of The Soultaker. ADV got the rights to dub Nurse Witch Komugi, but didn't dub its predecessor (the Ocean Group handled that job). Instead of using new actors, ADV got the original Soultaker dub cast to reprise their roles, and thus ensuring consistency
  • The English dub for Angel Beats! had a few minor characters that shifted actors:
    • Illich Guardiola played Takamatsu from episodes 8-13 and Kalob Martinez played him for the first seven episodes.
    • Elizabeth Bunch played Hisako in episodes 3-4 and Yusa in episodes 10 and 14. Jessica Boone played Hisako in 5-6, 12 and 14 while Serena Varghese played Yusa in the first nine episodes.
  • Averted with Full Metal Panic the Second Raid. Like the incident with Komugi and Soul Taker, the original Full Metal Panic and its sequel, Full Metal Panic Fumouffu, were dubbed by ADV, where Funimation got ahold of The Second Raid. Since most, if not all, of the series' mains were also being used by Funi (both companies were based in Texas so shared a common talent pool), they were able to just rehire them to reprise their roles.
  • In Oniisama e..., Yuko Mizutani played Nanako in the pilot episode. In the proper series, she's voiced by Hiroko Kasahara instead.
  • The Berserk films has replaced many of the voice actors from the previous anime adaptation. Among the characters who were darrin'd so far are...
  • The Viz dub of Inuyasha has the following:
    • Sota Higurashi/Eri: Saffron Henderson --> Rebecca Shoichet
    • Kohaku: Danny McKinnon --> Alex Doduk
    • and the Viz dub of Inuyasha: The Final Act has:
      • Kagome Higurashi: Moneca Stori --> Kira Tozer
      • Sesshomaru: David Kaye --> Michael Daingerfield
    • In the Latin-American dub, Naraku's original VA Luis Alfonso Padilla had died of cancer before Final Act was dubbed so he was replaced by Alan René Bressant. Also, the movies were dubbed in Venezuela rather than Mexico so the whole cast changed accordingly.
  • Most of the Japanese cast for the cast of the OVA series of Record of Lodoss War was changed for the TV series, Chronicles of the Heroic Knight: For the latter, Nobutoshi Canna replaced Takeshi Kusao as Parn, and Shiho Niiyama replaced Yumi Touma as Deedlit. The Central Park Media English cast, on the other hand, remained the same for these characters...at least until the second half of the series. Crispin Freeman originally played both the protagonist Spark and Maar; as time passed, the voices for Gaberra, Groder, and Garrack had all dropped out, so Freeman played all three of them, along with his original two roles.
  • When the second season of Strike Witches was being produced, Saeko Chiba was on maternity leave, so Saori Seto was brought on board to play Mio Sakamoto.
  • According to an employee at Nelvana, some characters in the first Bakugan series had this. Naga in particular was bad about this, going through three different actors during the run.
  • In Kimagure Orange Road, the roles of the three main characters were changed from the pilot episode to the main series. For Kyosuke, Yuu Mizushima was replaced by Tohru Furuya, Hiromi Tsuru replaced Saeko Shimazu as Madoka and Yoko Ogai was replaced by Eriko Hara for Hikaru. And they were changed again for the CD dramas recorded years later: Ryo Horikawa, Tomo Sakurai and Yuka Imai became Kyousuke, Madoka and Hikaru, respectively.
  • One Piece has had to change voice actors in both the original Toei Animation casts and Funimation casts, due to actor availability or outside problems arising. Examples:
    • In the original Japanese cast, Big Mom was voiced by the late Toshiko Fujita in her brief appearances in the Fishman Island Arc, but by Mami Koyami in the Whole Cake Island arc.
      • Emporio Ivankov was voiced by Norio Imamura in episodes 438-452, but due to a scandal he was replaced by Mitsuo Iwata in subsequent appearances.
      • Nami is normally voiced in the Japanese cast by Akemi Okamura, but in episodes 70-78 she was voiced by Wakana Yamazaki (Nojiko) due to Okamura being on maternity leave. Konami Yoshida temporarily darrin'ed Ikue Ohtani as Chopper for the same reason, and the same took place when Houko Kuwashima briefly replaced Miyuki Sawashiro as Charlotte Pudding.
    • For the first and second Latin-American Spanish dub, Zoro's (Alfredo Basurto -> Dafnis Fernández) and Luffy's (Diana Pérez -> Karina Altamirano) VA's were replaced after the first 52 episodes. Curiously, when the series was dubbed further (and MANY other cast changes followed), Basurto returned to the cast - and he first played Doquixote Doflamingo for Stampede (though the role later went to Christian Strempler), then retook Zoro.
    • As for Mexican!Luffy: h'es had six VA's: the aforementioned late Diana Pérez (4Kids original dub, first part), Karina Altamirano (4Kids original dub, second part), Ayari Rivera (OP Gold), Mireya Mendoza (Netflix redub plus several specials and movies), Desirée González (from the OP - Toriko - Dragon Ball Special onwards, Netflix redub), and Iñaki Godoy (live action actor AND dubber).
    • Before the TV series properly started running, there was an OVA named Defeat Him! The Pirate Ganzak set right before Usopp's recruitment: it had Urara Takano as Luffy, Wataru Takagi as Zoro and Megumi Toyoguchi as Nami. Out of them, only Takagi officially joined the cast of the TV series - first as Bellamy, later as Van der Decken IX.
    • Takkou Ishimori, who voiced one of the antagonists in the aforementioned OAV, went on to voice Fleet Admiral Sengoku. After he passed away of heart failure in 2013, the role was given to Tohru Ookawa.
    • Regarding the Netflix live-action series, almost all the Latino Spanish actors retook their roles for it. The two exceptions were Luffy and Sanji: since their live-action actors (the abve mentioned Iñaki Godoy and Tarek Yassin "Tak" Skylar) are native Spanish speakers, they also dubbed their own charas. Skylar even used his Canarian Spanish accent for Sanji!
    • As of 2024, Kazuki Yao retired from voicing Franky (the reasons weren't mentioned, but it seems to be a mix of his old age and health problems). So from 2025 onwards, Subaru Kimura will take over.
  • The Sorcerer Hunters dub changed the voice actors for Gateau (Chris Corey -> Andrew Klimko), Big Mama (Sue Ulu -> Kelly Mainson) and Zaha Torte (Guil Lunde -> Randy Sparks) halfway through the series. The switch for Gateau's actor was due to the change in directors; when Chris Corey spoke out against the changes Steven Foster was making to the scripts, he was promptly let go and replaced.
  • The Slam Dunk anime ran from 1993 to 1996. The 2022 CG movie, as a result, has changed all of the seiyuu:
    • Hanamichi Sakuragi: Takeshi Kusao -> Subaru Kimura
    • Kaede Rukawa: Hikaru Midorikawa -> Shinichirou Kamio
    • Takenori Akagi: Kiyoyuki Yanada -> Kenta Miyake
    • Hisashi Mitsui: Ryotaro Okiayu -> Jun Kasama
    • Ryouta Miyagi: Yoku Shioya -> Shugo Nakamura
    • Kiminobu Kogure: Hideyuki Tanaka -> Ryouta Iwasaki
    • Haruko Akagi: Akiko Hiramatsu -> Maaya Sakamoto
    • Ayako: Eriko Hara -> Asami Seto
    • Youhei Mito: Toshiyuki Morikawa -> Chikahiro Kobayashi
    • Mitsuyoshi Anzai: Tomomichi Nishimura -> Katsuhisa Houki
      • In the Latin American Spanish dub, out of the five VA's for the core five, only René García (Sakuragi) and Sergio Bonilla (Rukawa) returned. The changes are as shown:
    • Takenori Akagi: José Luis Castañeda (retired) -> Héctor Estrada
    • Hisashi Mitsui: Jorge Palafox and Benjamín Rivera (unknown reasons) -> Óscar López
    • Ryouta Miyagi: Enrique Mederos (passed away in 2004) -> Ferso Velásquez
  • In Tokyo Revengers, Tatsuhisa Suzuki lost his role as Ken "Draken" Ryuguuji due to being caught cheating on his wife, and Masaya Fukunishi replaced him.
  • Rurouni Kenshin had a drama CD in 1994, a TV anime in 1996 (plus a 1997 Motion Picture), some Darker and Edgier OAV's (Tsukioku-hen [about Kenshin's past] and Seishouhen [a bit of a conclusion for the anime]) and a second anime from 2023 onwards. The cast has changed accordingly:
  • Hunter X Hunter had a pilot OAV, a 1999 series and a 2011 second series:
  • In the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Mexican dub, Genya's first VA Orlando Trejo died of Covid-19. In the Swordsmith Village arc, Luis Fernando Orozco replaced him.
  • The Captain Tsubasa cast stayed more or less stable through the first TV series, the 1985 to 1986 movies and the 1989 Shin OAV's, but there were some changes for the 1994 movie Holland Youth. ie., Genzo Wakabayashi (Koichi Hashimoto -> Shinichiro Miki), Koujiro Hyuuga (Hirotaka Suzuoki -> Nobuyuki Hiyama), Taro Misaki (Eiko Yamada -> Megumi Ogata), Jun Misugi (Aya Mizoguchi -> Yuko Kobayashi), Sanae Nakazawa (Chinatsu "Chika" Sakamoto -> Fujiko Takimoto), Kumi Sugimoto (Waka Kanda -> Emi Motoi), Ken Wakashimazu (Nobuo Tobita -> Daiki Nakamura), Hikaru Matsuyama (Mie Suzuki -> Masami Kikuchi), Takeshi Sawada (Noriko Uemura -> Tetsuya Iwanaga), Makoto Souda (Hochu Otsuka -> Kousuke Okano), Munamasa Katagiri (Bin Shimada -> Kouji Tsujitani) etc.
    • The J series, aired in 1994, kept some of the Holland Youth VA's but changed several others. Of special note is how Tsubasa was voiced by his original seiyuu Yoko Ogai in the first half, but Nozomu Sasaki took over for the older Tsubasa of the second part.
    • Naturally, all the VA's were changed for the 2002, the videogames (like Tatatake Dream Team and Rise of the New Champions) and 2019-2023 anime. The only one who has stayed more or less regularly around is Kenichi Suzumura, who has played Wakabayashi from the 2002 series onwards.
  • Glass Mask has this happen at least often between the 1984 TV series, the 1998 OAV, the 2005 second TV anime and the 2020 pachinko game:
  • Rose of Versailles, one of the classic shoujo manga and anime from The Seventies, had a cast led by Reiko Tajima as The Heroine Oscar Francoise de Jerjays, Miyuki Ueda as Marie Antoinette, and Taro Shigaki as André Grandier. There were talks of it having a movie adaptation in 2006, but it went into Development Hell: it would've had Sanae Kobayashi as Oscar, Ayako Kawasumi as Marie and Toshiyuki Morikawa as André. But 19 years later, the movie was actually released in 2025: it had Miyuki Sawashiro as Oscar, Aya Hirano as Marie, and Toshiyuki Toyonaga as André.
  • After an almost retired Tohru Furuya's massive, massive Role Ending Misdemeanor was discovered (more details in the main page), several of the roles he was still doing were handed to other actors. This includes the adult Sabo from One Piece (given to Miyu Irino), Yamcha from Dragon Ball (given to Ryouta Suzuki), and Tooru Amuro from Detective Conan (given to Takeshi Kusao)
  • Before Hajime no Ippo had its Animated Adaptation, it had a 1996 CD drama that included Ippo, Takamura, Kamogawa, some of Ippo's rivals, Fujii and Ippo's mom. Out of them, only Masaya Onosaka kept his role as Takeshi Sendo; the rest of the cast was as it follows:
  • In regards to the Hell Teacher Nube second anime, out of the whole cast, only two seiyuu will return: Ryotaro Okiayu (Meisuke "Nuubee" Nueno) and Toshiyuki Morikawa (Kyousuke Tamamo). As for the others...:
  1. ↑ (who actually passed away during the initial recording sessions, so some loops keep her voice)
  2. ↑ (it's been said that she was one of the biggest victims of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny's Troubled Production, reflected on Cagalli being Demoted to Extra; the actual reasons have remained in the dark, leading to many rumors [Shindo was falsely accused of having an affair with the director Mitsuo Fukuda by his Ill Girl wife and series main writer Chiaki Morosawa and reacted by "demoting" Cagalli's character; Shindo HATED Fukuda's changes to the Destiny plot and his feuds with her fellow VA's and loudly questioned him, so he reduced Cagalli's screen time rather than Morosawa, etc.])
  3. ↑ (The aforementioned Megumi Han's mother)
  4. ↑ Miki would later be cast as Ryouhei Sawamura
  5. ↑ Yanada would later play Takuma Saeki
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