Bayonetta VA Says She Was Replaced After Being Given Low Offer

There was recently news about Crunchyroll replacing Kyle McCarley as Mob in the third season of Mob Psycho 100. According to McCarley, it’s because Crunchyroll didn’t want to set up a discussion with a union. Now another voice actor has come forward after being replaced in a video game role to explain why she says it happened.

Hellena Taylor was the voice of Bayonetta in the games Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2, but in the upcoming Bayonetta 3, the main character will be voiced by Jennifer Hale.

Director Yusuke Miyata said the change of voice actors was because “Various overlapping circumstances made it difficult for Hellena Taylor to reprise her role.” And also: “We held auditions to cast the new voice of Bayonetta and offered the role to Jennifer Hale, whom we felt was a good match for the character.”

Taylor, however, has been sharing videos on Twitter telling a different story.

“Bayonetta franchise made an approximated 450 million dollars,” she said. (The information on how much the franchise earned does not appear to be available online to check this number.) “That’s not including merchandise. As an actor, I trained for a total of seven and a half years. Three years at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art . . . and four a half years with the legendary Larry Moss in Los Angeles. and what did they think this was worth? What did they offer to pay me? The final offer, to do the whole game, as a buy-out, flat rate, was $4,000. This is an insult to me. The amount of time that I took to work on my talent and everything I have given to this game and to the fans . . .”

Taylor says she’s asking fans to boycott the game and spend the money they would have used on charity. She’s put up a total of four videos discussing what she said happened and her thoughts.

Hideki Kamiya, the creator of Bayonetta, wrote something on Twitter that might be a response to this: “Sad and deplorable about the attitude of untruth. That’s what all I can tell now.”

Source: ANN

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Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin, plus its sequel, Manga Art for Everyone, and the first-of-its-kind manga chalk book Chalk Art Manga, both illustrated by professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.