#Takahiro Sakurai Removed From Cast of Ayaka Original Anime

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“Takahiro Sakurai Removed From Cast of Ayaka Original Anime”

Takahiro Sakurai, the voice actor behind characters like Mob Psycho 100‘s Reigen Arataka, Demon Slayer‘s Giyu Tomioka, and Final Fantasy VII‘s Cloud Strife, will no longer play the role of Shinto priest Haruaki Kurama in the upcoming original anime Ayaka. The announcement cites “various circumstances” as the reason behind the change.

The replacement voice actor has not yet been announced.

On January 17, the Weekly Bunshun tabloid magazine reported that Sakurai had a 15-year affair that began in 2006. The next day, Intention, the talent agency that Sakurai is affiliated with, posted a statement that apologized for the trouble caused and revealed that the woman had asked for 10 million yen (~US$74.9 thousand) from the voice actor. Sakurai, through a privately hired attorney, turned down the request due to the “exorbitant” amount.

Intention added that it was in discussions with its legal counsel and wrote that it hoped to restore everyone’s faith.

On October 26, 2022, Weekly Bunshun reported that Sakurai had a 10-year extramarital affair with a writer who worked on his P.S. Genki Desu. Takahiro radio show. The writer was said to have been in the relationship without knowledge of Sakurai’s marital status, which was only revealed publicly in a September article from Weekly Bunshun. The magazine wrote that when the writer did learn of Sakurai’s marriage, she ended up being admitted to the emergency room and later retired from the broadcast writing industry. Intention issued an apology to the writer and acknowledged Sakurai’s culpability on October 27, 2022 in a statement responding to the report.

Ayaka is currently set to premiere sometime this year. The other main voice actors for the supernatural action show, which involves people with powers and entities called Aramitama, are Yuuto Uemura as Yukito Yanagi, Takuma Terashima as Jingi Sagawa, and Yuuichirou Umehara as Aka Ibuki.

GoRA (K series) and KINGRECORDS are credited with creating Ayaka. Nobuyoshi Nagayama (Love Flops) is directing the show with GoRA as series composer and scriptwriter, Misaki Kaneko (Smile Down the Runway) as character designer, illustrator redjuice as original character designer, and Kana Shibue (Sasaki and Miyano) as music composer. Studio Blanc. is the animation production company.

Source: @AYAKA_animePR

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