Pokemon voice actor role(s) that took you by surprise?

[chocovelvetcake]

What are some Pokemon voice actors roles that took you by surprise? They don't have to be an English voice actor, btw.

I'll go first:

Bonnie's Japanese voice actress, Mariya Ise, also voices....

Stocking Anarchy?! Yep, you hear that right. Bonnie and Stocking share the same seiyuu. Crazy, right?

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

In Japanese, Lawrence III is voiced by Takeshi Kaga, aka Chairman Kaga from Iron Chef (also later he'd be Light's dad in the live action Death Note movies)

I was shocked to hear Lisa Ortiz playing Jessie-as-Lina-Inverse! I know the whole sequence is a big reference to Jessie's Japanese voice actress's career and it's lost in other languages, but I'm glad the English dub was able to cobble together a cut like that.

Finding out that Maddie Blaustein was also the voice of Lezard Valeth in Valkyrie Profile was quite jarring in the best way

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

Eric Stuart as Brock, James, and Butch: never in my wildest dreams did I think those 3 had the same English voice actor for most of the 4Kids dub run (I say most because Ted Lewis voiced James first for all of 6.5 episodes, Stuart took over at the end of 8). He was clearly the VA that had the broadest vocal range of the original main cast IMO (still think they did such a better job), even if his delivery was odd sometimes.

Veronica Taylor as Ash and Delia, never imagined for a second that was the same VA (TPCi would do the same thing as 4Kids here just with Sarah Natochenny, only that Sarah was easy to recognize using a similar voice for both at times in comparison and not as distinctive).

Rachael Lillis as Jigglypuff, shocking that was Misty and Jessie, sounds nothing like either and so iconic even after the TPCi purge in late Gen 3 that her audio still is recycled in SSB Ultimate in 2018 as Purim and Michele Knotz still mimics it to this day.

Maddie Blaustein as Bruno, Lt Surge, and Meowth- though I could detect traces of Meowth in Surge at times, though she voiced EDIT: Meowth later, never imagined she was Bruno too!

 

[chocovelvetcake]

Eric Stuart as Brock, James, and Butch: never in my wildest dreams did I think those 3 had the same English voice actor for most of the 4Kids dub run (I say most because Ted Lewis voiced James first for all of 6.5 episodes, Stuart took over at the end of 8). He was clearly the VA that had the broadest vocal range of the original main cast IMO (still think they did such a better job), even if his delivery was odd sometimes.

Veronica Taylor as Ash and Delia, never imagined for a second that was the same VA (TPCi would do the same thing as 4Kids here just with Sarah Natochenny, only that Sarah was easy to recognize using a similar voice for both at times in comparison and not as distinctive).

Rachael Lillie as Jigglypuff, shocking that was Misty and Jessie, sounds nothing like either and so iconic even after the TPCi purge in late Gen 3 that her audio still is recycled in SSB Ultimate in 2018 as Purim and Michele Knotz still mimics it to this day.

Speaking of 4kids voice actors, it took me by surprise to find out that Meta Knight from Kirby: Right Back At Ya! shares the same English voice actor as Brock and James.

Never in a million years would I've guessed that a Kirby character would share the same voice actor as a Pokemon character. But then again, the Pokemon and Kirby anime were both dubbed by 4kids.

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

Speaking of 4kids voice actors, it took me by surprise to find out that Meta Knight from Kirby: Right Back At Ya! shares the same English voice actor as Brock and James.

Never in a million years would I've guessed that a Kirby character would share the same voice actor as a Pokemon character. But then again, the Pokemon and Kirby anime were both dubbed by 4kids.

Indeed. Another one that took me by surprise was that he voiced Scyther, that’s a lot higher pitched than Eric’s usual range.

Bill Rogers voicing Dome Ace Tucker shocked me because his Brock has the deepest, gruffest voice but Tucker sounds like Kelsey Grammer and is way higher pitched and smoother.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Speaking of 4kids voice actors, it took me by surprise to find out that Meta Knight from Kirby: Right Back At Ya! shares the same English voice actor as Brock and James.

Never in a million years would I've guessed that a Kirby character would share the same voice actor as a Pokemon character. But then again, the Pokemon and Kirby anime were both dubbed by 4kids.

Oh god the Kirby one that gets me is that Ted Lewis was King Dedede. His Giovanni is so distinctive and I never would have thought that good ol' Foghorn Leghorn-sounding Dedede was the same actor.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

J. Michael Tatum as Tobias was quite a surprising one as he would end up becoming the first guest VA in the dub... and then years later he returned in Journeys as Professor Amaranth which was a nice surprise.

Diantha is another one as her VA Vanessa Johansson happens to be the older sister of Scarlett Johansson.

Marc Swint's Kiawe happened to be my favourite of the main S&M leads for just how great he is in the role and I was surprised to see he was in one episode of XYZ before S&M. Villain wise for me it's still Tyler Bunch as Lysandre although Barron Bass as Rose comes surprisingly close for how little content he had.

Curtis Arnott guest appeared in an episode of XY (though uncredited). Toronto VA Anthony Sardinha was also in Ramos's gym battle episode as the referee.

All of Greg Abbey's TPCI roles have been father characters.

Lucien Dodge was in two episodes of Battle Frontier (the ones with Anabel where he voiced Maron).

Lance's VA (Wayne Grayson) is also best known for voicing Joey Wheeler in Yu-Gi-Oh and has been in every single series of that show (Marc Thompson as well).

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

J. Michael Tatum as Tobias was quite a surprising one as he would end up becoming the first guest VA in the dub... and then years later he returned in Journeys as Professor Amaranth which was a nice surprise.

Diantha is another one as her VA Vanessa Johansson happens to be the older sister of Scarlett Johansson.

Marc Swint's Kiawe happened to be my favourite of the main S&M leads for just how great he is in the role and I was surprised to see he was in one episode of XYZ before S&M. Villain wise for me it's still Tyler Bunch as Lysandre although Barron Bass as Rose comes surprisingly close for how little content he had.

Curtis Arnott guest appeared in an episode of XY (though uncredited). Toronto VA Anthony Sardinha was also in Ramos's gym battle episode as the referee.

All of Greg Abbey's TPCI roles have been father characters.

Lucien Dodge was in two episodes of Battle Frontier (the ones with Anabel where he voiced Maron).

Lance's VA (Wayne Grayson) is also best known for voicing Joey Wheeler in Yu-Gi-Oh and has been in every single series of that show (Marc Thompson as well).

Was Lucien Dodge the green-haired referee sometimes in the BF dub with the Frontier Brains? I feel like I heard him before there?

I find Wayne Grayson's very underrated as Lance, people don't even remember, or choose not to remember, that the voice he used in Johto changed into something very different in both AG & Journeys: Ben Diskin makes me cringe SUPER hard, in comparison, just another generic deep voice that only gets praise because of his name notoriety rather than any merit to that performance. I'm glad 4Kids cast him as Lance, and TPCi's NY crew retained it, as much as my opinion of the dub fell hard once the switch happened.

Anyway, never guessed that Erica Schroeder was Nurse Joy under 4Kids the last two seasons (Darren had no choice because she had left LA after Season 6 back then so it wasn't optional + a mandatory recast, and 4Kids only uses NY talent as did TPCi before SDI took over- understandable, unlike the S9 purge IMO) and then Bianca in the TPCi BW dub, she has some range people don't note as well.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Curtis Arnott guest appeared in an episode of XY (though uncredited). Toronto VA Anthony Sardinha was also in Ramos's gym battle episode as the referee.

Excuse me WHAT? Takahata101 and Antfish were in the dub? That's amazing!

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

Excuse me WHAT? Takahata101 and Antfish were in the dub? That's amazing!

Aka DBZ Abridged Nappa and Dodoria, yes, I think Sardinha was a referee in XY.

Unfortunately the dub of that saga is where the dub more or less loses most of the fandom, I thought things fell off way before Goldfarb/Gopal and the VA work etc. though so shrugs.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Oh yes I know very well who they are. I wonder if any of the other TFS people were ever approached (if they ever need a spare Meganium trainer they should get Lani since he loved their Meganium in their Soul Silver playthrough so much he named his real world dog after him).

God I love when fan actors make it big. To drag this more back on topic, I'd never heard of this guy before but when I posted on my Pokevillains discord that Faba's Masters voice actor is a Youtuber named Octopimp, people went nuts so apparently he's a big deal.

 

[Daren]

Morrison/Masamune from AG's Japanese Voice actress being voiced by Masako Nozawa--who voiced Son Goku in Dragon Ball. Honestly a bit wild to me that a fairly minor rival got some a huge VA.

This is a smaller one but got my attention when I noticed it; in Steven's AG appearance in Japan he was voiced by Rintarō Nishi, who also played the villain Shadam in Super Sentai Dairanger.

More recently, I got a small shock when Veronica Taylor voiced Andy in the new version of Advance Wars, just in case you ever wanted to hear Ash Ketchum not know what an airport is (she pretty much uses her Ash voice for him).

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

Morrison/Masamune from AG's Japanese Voice actress being voiced by Masako Nozawa--who voiced Son Goku in Dragon Ball. Honestly a bit wild to me that a fairly minor rival got some a huge VA.

This is a smaller one but got my attention when I noticed it; in Steven's AG appearance in Japan he was voiced by Rintarō Nishi, who also played the villain Shadam in Super Sentai Dairanger.

More recently, I got a small shock when Veronica Taylor voiced Andy in the new version of Advance Wars, just in case you ever wanted to hear Ash Ketchum not know what an airport is (she pretty much uses her Ash voice for him).

I think 4Kids took a look at that, and then went with Sean Schemmel accordingly, who voices Goku in the FUNimation dub of Dragonball Z/Kai/Super in general.

How odd Steven is one of only a handful of people to keep his original English VA through 4Kids AG & TPCi XY/JN, on that note, he doesn't in Japanese.

Same, I was elated to see that credit for her: she's using the late Johto-AG/Hoenn to Early BF voice she did for Ash for him. LA always typecasts her as adult women often times, so it was nice to see her back in her iconic forte young boy voices there: good job, Cristina Vee, I like it!

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Yeah, though Schemmel had previously voiced Archie as well (and would go on to also be Cyrus)

Was surprised to hear Taylor as Cosmos in Dissidia Final Fantasy



On an opposite note I was surprised that Mipha in Breath of the Wild was NOT voiced by Rachael Lillis because she sounds so much like Misty trying to affect a British accent.

 

[BigDocFan]

I think Megan Hollingshead returning to voice Nurse Joy was a great surprise but enjoyed it

Hearing Rachael Lillis return in DP as Maylene was great, really wish she'd stuck around

Ted Lewis returning to Giovanni was also a great surprise

 

[c la fet]

The famous Koichi Yamadera (voice of Spike Spiegel, Captain Herlock, Beerus, Ryoga Hibiki, Rosinante, Inspector Zenigata and Ryoji Kaji) voiced a ton of characters for the Pokémon movies like Professor Lund, Butler, Sir Aaron, Jack Walker, Baron Alberto and Newton Graceland !

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Yamadera is also Mew, right?

Was also amazed to find out that Oak's old Japanese voice also Ishizuka was also Mr Satan and HEIHACHI MISHIMA.

Also I just found out that Nemona's voice actress is also Juri Han from Street Fighter and that's entirely hilarious to me

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

Hearing Rachael Lillis return in DP as Maylene was great, really wish she'd stuck around

She has said afterward they had some kind of beef with her for what happened in the recasting period, so they wouldn’t let her come back after mid DP apparently. It was kind of insulting hearing Knotz as Jessie at the time Lillis was back anyway, though, given then there was a chance to switch back but DuArt didn’t and still randomly brought back the old 4Kids VAs in minor roles save Giovanni.

It’s similar in BW, hearing the original Oak as Cedric while hearing the man hired to merely sound alike/imitate him in JCC at the same time was also gigantically insulting to me. Zagnit was told no point blank when he asked if he could reprise Oak, as well. He left shortly thereafter.

 

[lmaodawg]

Lillie's english VA, Laurie Hymes, voicing Caillou in Caillou's New Adventure
lmao

 

[Tree99]

The Ice Drive Genosect in the Genesect film English dub being voiced by a Japanese VA, Yuko Minaguchi. She was studying in New York at the time, so they cast her.

Really rare in any English dub to have a Japanese VA in it.