Today, Hideo Kojima revealed via his Japanese Twitter another voice actor working on the Japanese dub ofDeath Stranding: Houchu Ohtsuka.
The photo tweeted by Kojima features Houchu Ohtsuka at the left, Kenjiro Tsuda, who voices protagonist Sam Bridges/Norman Reedus at the right, and Kojima himself.
For now, we don’t know which character will be voiced by Houchu Ohtsuka. Kojima, however, confirmed in another tweet that Ohtsuka is not Mads Mikkelsen’s character’s Japanese voice:
Important note, when writing such stories related to Japanese voices, I may inadvertently use the term “seiyuu”. The term simply means “voice actor” in Japanese, but is quite a convenient term as it’s genderless and is used to designate any Japanese voice actor and actress.
Like with most of the other seiyuu onDeath Stranding, Houchu Ohtsuka already worked with Kojima in the past. He was the Japanese voices of Ramón Gálvez Mena inÂMetal Gear Solid Peace Walker,and Evangelos Constantinou inÂMetal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
Houchu Ohtsuka is also widely popular as the voice of Jiraiya inNaruto, and mecha anime fans may recognize him as the voice of Yazan Gable inMobile Suit Zeta Gundam, or the infamous villain Gates inFull Metal Panic. Ohtsuka is a veteran seiyuu, with a particularly recognizable and awesome voice, so his inclusion inDeath Strandingis great news.
My personal bet is that Houchu Ohtsuka is voicing the character modeled after Guillermo del Toro. Kojima already confirmed at Tokyo Game show 2018 he’s a fun character who chats and jokes a lot, and that’d definitely fit Ohtsuka.Update:I forgot they already revealed Del Toro’s character is voiced by Akihiko Ishizumi. Kojima also tweeted a photo with himself, Tsuda and Ishizumi:
One thing certain is that I’ll definitely be playingDeath Strandingin Japanese at some point, but I’m still not sure if I’ll play it in English first or not. You might think I’m one of those people who think Japanese is inherently superior, and I actually do. I believe it’s one of the most beautiful languages on Earth, but when it comes to cultural products, I tend to prioritize experiencing them with the original voices first, which are the English voice-overs in the case ofÂDeath Stranding. This is also why I’ll have to make a good one hour trip to go watchARCTICÂin the next few days, as cinemas in Paris suburbs tend to only schedule French dub screenings.
Death Stranding’s developmentis going smoothlyandsome industry insiders,includingDecima Engine developers Guerilla Games, have reported being stunned after seeing private footage of the game. Mads Mikkelsen was also recently asked about the game, but he can’t say anything without risking the visit of"Six Strong Japanese Guys".
While part ofDeath Stranding’s Japanese cast was revealed atTokyo Game Show 2018 with a live event we’ve summarized, full-scale Japanese dubbing of the game only began in December. Be sure toread our story about itwhich includes an explanation of how Japanese games' dubbing usually works, and whyÂDeath Strandingis different.
Death Strandinghas no release date,but might be coming in 2019. You canpre-order it via Amazon,and I’d say a good way to occupy yourself for nowÂis to learn Japanese.
