It has been nearly two months since the initial announcement from Sucker Punch Studio that they would be abandoning the potential return of Jin Sakai in favor of a female protagonist in the upcoming Ghost of Tsushima sequel, Ghost of Yotei. While the announcement of a sequel to this beloved title had many people ecstatic, gamers and longtime fans of the series began to question the decision to move on from Jin Sakai so easily. The choice to move the franchise 300 years forward in time and to gender swap the playable character left many gamers scratching their heads.
Within a matter of days, the games media and industry shills began attacking critics of Sucker Punch and defaulted to labeling them with such familiar terms as "incels" and "bigots." While the decision to not continue Jin Sakai's storyline has always been the primary critique, much of the criticism of this long awaited sequel has also been centered around the lead character in Ghost of Yotei, a ronin named Atsu. Atsu is voiced by Erika Ishii, a voice actress with many years of experience in the industry. While nobody has ever questioned Erika's ability to do her job adequately, it was her online statements and interactions that caused plenty of controversy.
The internet was quick to discover that she had preemptively blocked a massive list of YouTuber's and content creators on Twitter/X, as well as her long and exceedingly vocal history of activism in the name of "trans rights." There also seems to be a recurring theme where many of the characters she has voiced are members of the "LGBT community," marking an increased push for LGBT "representation" in voice acting (Her character Valkyrie from Apex Legends quite disgustingly has a line where she sarcastically offers to sell one of her ovaries for some Ramen).
In a shocking twist, Daisuke Tsuji, the voice actor for Jin Sakai, had an absolute meltdown over the 2024 US election results on his Twitch channel on Sunday. An anonymous tip led me to discover his Twitch stream, and the level of Trump Derangement Syndrome on display did not disappoint. After starting his livestream and adjusting his background music, Daisuke decided that the best way to help everyone struggling with the results of the election was to lead his viewers in a "breathing exercise." This consisted of him breathing in for seven straight seconds, and then screaming for ten more.
As comical as it may have seemed at the time, it was a fairly harmless, albeit strange, exercise. Immediately following the screaming exercise, things took a much darker turn. Daisuke, who has a prolific voice acting career, began to talk about how he had recently been playing Spiderman 2 to help him take his mind off the election. He then went on to compare the Spiderman villain Venom and his world-consuming "black goo" to Donald Trump being reelected for a second term. What I did not expect to hear was him saying that "in order to heal the world, we need to destroy the black goop." He then went on to clarify that he wasn't calling for violence, but the statement seems extremely reprehensible given the multiple attempts on President Trump's life.
The insanity didn't end there. He would then go on about how he didn't want to “blame anyone” for Trump being reelected, but that he ultimately believed that President Biden and the Democrats had 4 years to make necessary changes, and they didn't capitalize on it. These changes, according to Daisuke Tsuji, would be imposing 4-6 year term limits on Supreme Court Justices and replacing the Electoral College entirely. Despite Trump winning the popular vote, he claimed that "clearly the Electoral College is not working," and even went on to state that one of the roles of the Electoral College was to "remove unfit candidates," which he believed President Trump qualifies as.
What would get even stranger was his claim that the election was decided by a group of billionaires who had already made up their minds that Trump would be the next president (his evidence of this was The Washington Post choosing not to endorse Kamala Harris). This claim runs counter to the reality that Vice President Kamala Harris massively outraised President Trump in terms of campaign donations. Daisuke would then go on to attack Trump in a docuseries that showed a behind the scenes look at him dictating to a beautiful blonde woman who was posting to his Truth Social account, claiming that she had only got the job because she “looked a specific way.”
While it may shock many to see these disgusting remarks being made by the voice of Jin Sakai, it is just one more example of the rotten state of both the AAA games industry and voice acting as a whole. Many of the people who developed and acted in the games and franchises that we grew up on and remember fondly, hate us for what we believe. This is one more reason that the games industry needs to have these activists rooted out before the entire thing caves in on itself.