Anime has proven itself as the next big thing coming thanks to the success of Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle, which earned over $600 million worldwide at the box office and beat Superman. With even more anime heading to theaters soon, including Chainsaw Man in late October and JuJutsu Kaisen in December, there’s never been a better time to be a fan.
But not everyone is quite so happy. The voice actors who help bring anime to American audiences are worried that Hollywood may see dollar signs and make a very predictable choice: replace them with A-list stars and pump out mediocre content.
At New York Comic-Con, Polygon spoke to the English dub cast of JuJutsu Kaisen — Adam McArthur (Yuji), Robbie Daymond (Megumi Fushiguro), Anne Yatco (Nobara), Kaiji Tang (Gojo), and Kayleigh McKee (Yuta) — about the current state of anime and how Demon Slayer’s success may influence its future.
Mega-hits like Demon Slayer don’t come out of nowhere. That anime series developed its fan base for five years (including 63 episodes and a previous movie, Mugen Train) before releasing Infinity Castle. According to JJK’s cast, there’s no way to skip straight to box office success.
“Hollywood will try to look at this and be like, Oh, man, anime films, let’s go, right? But I think the true formula to an anime film’s success is you really need those build up seasons,” Tang says. “You need to have followed the story for two, three, four years. To see the culmination of that story, or at least a very big part of it, on the big screen is kind of a reward for being there for all those seasons. That’s when you get the huge Demon Slayer numbers. That’s when you get all these fans hype for the movie, that’s the secret. I think if you just started releasing random anime movies, you’re not going to get the Demon Slayer numbers.”
The bigger concern, especially for this cast, is that Hollywood may decide to replace them with more famous American actors.
“I personally am honored to be the last generation of boots on the ground voice actors doing anime,” Daymond says, prompting thunderous laughter from his co-workers. “I’ll say it out: once those corpos get a hold of it, it’s just gonna be a bunch of celebs poorly dubbing anime, and hopefully they do a great job. I wish them well — that’s pure bitterness.”
And despite the medium’s growing success, McKee is confident that won’t trickle down to the voice acting cast.
“They’re not gonna increase our pay,” McKee opines. “They’re just gonna go get a celebrity.”
Tang quips in response: “Chris Pratt as Gojo?”
Their exchange highlights a familiar trend in the gaming industry, where traditional voice actors are seamlessly replaced by big-name actors — like David Hayter being swapped out for Kiefer Sutherland in Metal Gear Solid V or Chris Pratt voicing Mario in the 2023 movie. Voice actors are often treated as disposable in the gaming space, and once Hollywood fully embraces anime, there’s little to prevent the same pattern from repeating — or worse.
McKee laments: “Celebrities on the right, A.I. on the left,”