Yong Yea Kiryu Dub Controversy
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Part of a series on Yakuza / Like a Dragon. [View Related Entries]
Overview
Yong Yea Kiryu Dub Controversy refers to backlash against the performance of YouTuber and voice actor Yong Yea as Kazuma Kiryu in the English dub of Like a Dragon 8: Infinite Wealth and Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name. After the game's demo came out in November 2023, the voice acting was harshly criticized by many for not fitting the character and was exacerbated by Yea blocking his critics on social media.
Background
On June 21st, 2023, Yong Yea was announced as the new English voice of Kiryu for the upcoming video games Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name and Like a Dragon 8: Infinite Wealth.[1] On July 2nd, a clip of Yea doing a reading as Kiryu from Anime Expo 2023 was posted online (shown below).
Yong Yea line-reading as Kiryu Kazuma #AnimeExpo2023 pic.twitter.com/GxvnDo2Cqc
— ANN Events (@ann_events) July 3, 2023
The clip received some criticism centered on how Yea's "Kiryu" voice sounded too much like his own and was not fitting of the middle-aged ex-Yakuza veteran.[3] The criticism prompted Yea to post the official clip of the line from the video game on Twitter.[2] However, Yea's voice acting in the clip was again criticized, and he deleted the tweet.
An edit of the video he posted was reposted to YouTube by Sckarton on July 3rd, along with a scene of Gollum from Lord of the Rings crying "It burns!" spliced in to criticize the performance. It gained over 61,000 views in four months (shown below).
Developments
Criticism of Yea's Kiryu voice intensified in early November 2023 amid the release of The Man Who Erased His Name and the release of the Infinite Wealth demo. On November 6th, 2023, Twitter / X user @Dastanovich posted a clip from the Infinite Wealth demo along with a comment saying the casting choice "f---ing sucked," gaining over 410 retweets, 700 likes and 330 quote-tweets in one week (shown below, top). On November 8th, Yea posted a side-by-side between his performance and the Japanese performance of Kiryu on Twitter (shown below, bottom).[4]
discodivekick</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Avito502?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">Avito502 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/jCxAeZqI4d— Дастанович @ Judgment/LAD Gaiden (@Dastanovich_) November 6, 2023
Here is an official look at Kiryu in English. Did a side-by-side with J for those wanting to hear the difference. This is some of the first stuff we ever recorded a year ago, performance got more refined as we went further along. Excited for y'all to experience the full games! pic.twitter.com/xAzxdtXbHY
— Yong Yea 🐉 Eng Voice of Kiryu (@YongYea) November 8, 2023
The post was heavily criticized, and many of the replies to the tweet have been hidden by Yea[4] (examples shown below, left). Criticism was exacerbated by claims that Yong Yea was blocking anyone who said he was miscast on Twitter. On November 9th, Twitter user @NeoGameSpark[5] claimed he was blocked by Yea for criticizing his performance, despite not tagging Yea or replying to one of Yea's tweets (shown below, right).
Yea's response to criticism served to further spark outrage and the social media pile-on. On November 11th, YouTuber ItsAGundam posted a video going over the controversy and mocking Yea for blocking his critics, gaining over 187,000 views in two days (shown below, left). The same day, YouTuber FritangaPlays made a similar video, gaining over 52,000 views in the same timeframe (shown below, right).
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