BlazBlue Central Fiction English Dub Won’t Happen, & Ragna’s VA Isn’t Happy
Unlike sister series Guilty Gear, BlazBlue has consistently had an English dub, something that isn’t always true of Japanese games these days. The same VAs in the games even dubbed the anime. But Aksys Games have announced a BlazBlue Central Fiction English dub is not on the cards.
@aksysgames For clarification- We’re doing one release this Nov, not multiple for BBCF, no dub. No plans for a dub release or DLC atm.
— Aksys Games (@aksysgames) August 24, 2016
Aksys Games took to Twitter to announce that they made the decision to not include an English dub in BlazBlue Central Fiction, and that they have no plans to later release an English dub as DLC. They’ve said it was either do this or delay the game for 6-8 months. As fans have often complained about the game coming out some time after the Japanese release, you can begin to see why they would make this decision if that was the case — especially when it comes to online and tournament play parity.
However, some fans have gotten pretty upset about the news. Unlike some other fighting games BlazBlue is very story heavy, and a large portion of the fanbase like the game more for its story and characters than for its fighting mechanics. It’s not uncommon to meet fans at events who barely play the game itself at all, and would much rather chat about plot theories than character tier lists. Some fans have even taken to signing a petition to get an English Dub into the game on Change.org.
But it’s not just fans that are upset. Some of the original English Voice Actors are upset too. Patrick Seitz, the Voice Actor of series lead Ragna, posted a very long Facebook post on his fan page about the situation. “I’m disappointed by the news—and I’m especially disappointed to be getting it via tweet”. Talking about the importance of story for fans he said: “Some fans just play BlazBlue to whup ass, and that’s fine. But for a lot of folks, the story mode—which has just grown richer with each iteration—is a major draw.”
After all this time, it hurts to be told that we’re not so central to the fiction after all
Seitz is not just the voice actor for Ragna. Starting with the series on Calamity Trigger, he then went on to be VO Director and Script Adapter for Continuum Shift Extend, and adapted and directed Alter Memory with Funimation. Seitz has been a key part of making things happen when it comes to BlazBlue in the west, and his sudden and abrupt cutting loose has echoes of David Hayter, voice of Solid Snake, being replaced in Metal Gear Solid V. “After all this time, it hurts to be told that we’re not so central to the fiction after all,” Seitz concluded in his post.
