Mob Psycho 100 Actor May Not Return, Blames Crunchyroll

October is set to be a stacked month in anime with the return of the popular shonen series Bleachand the debut of the highly anticipated Devil Slaying anime Chainsaw Man. However, it doesn’t look like the English voice actor for everyone’s favorite milk-drinking medium will be reprising his role in the upcoming season of Mob Psycho 100.

Today, Kyle McCarley, the English voice actor of Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama, uploaded a video to YouTube titled “A Message to Mob Psycho 100 Fans.” In it, he informed fans that they probably wouldn’t hear his voice in Mob Psycho 100 season 3, which is slated for release on October 5, because Crunchyroll, the main anime streaming service on the Internet, reportedly refused to work with McCarley under a Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists union contract.

“I know for some of you that probably sucks to hear, and believe me, that sucks a lot to say. I’m really, really bummed about that,” McCarley said in the video. ‘was clearly explained that in the case of the third season of Mob Psycho 100Crunchyroll will not produce this show on a SAG-AFTRA contract.

McCarley said Kotaku that Crunchyroll originally contacted him on September 8 to ask if he was available to work on Season 3 of the anime. According to McCarley, Crunchyroll typically opts for a show’s simuldubs, which means recording both English and Japanese voiceovers for a series whenever they can.

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“I thought it was strange that they waited so long to ask me about it, given that the season was announced in … January, I think that was the case? And the Funimation side of the company, before the merger, had already replaced me in the Scarlet Nexus anime last year when I declined to work on this non-union project,” McCarley said.

McCarley said Kotaku that he would be happy to reprise his role as Mob in the anime’s third season if it were a union contract. In his YouTube video, McCarley clarified that as a member of the SAG-AFTRA union and a member of the SAG-AFTRA voice acting steering committee, it is important to him that all work he does is covered by a union contract. . A contract that guarantees that McCarley will not stress his vocal cords by shouting too long, which shonen protagonists are used to doing, while recording his lines.

He also mentioned that the issue was not about money, saying that Crunchyroll was willing to pay him whatever amount he would receive under a union contract. And while he didn’t ask for a huge raise, he did ask for a union ladder, which he could use for health care coverage and retirement savings.

Due to the major role McCarley has as the anime’s main character, McCarley said he approached Crunchyroll with an offer to work on season three under a non-union contract on the condition that the company agrees to sit down and meet with him and other SAG-AFTRA representatives to negotiate a potential contract for future anime shows.

“A lot of the cast and I had a Zoom call that night to talk about it, that’s when the idea of ​​offering to do this non-union work in exchange for a meeting with some SAG-AFTRA representatives was launched,” McCarley said. Kotaku.

After checking with Treslyn Williams, the head of SAG-AFTRA’s voiceover department, to see if there’s a “Crunchyroll-specific deal” in the sense of contracts that voice actors are offered through streaming services like netflix, who signed a SAG-AFTRA corporate contract in 2019, McCarley said SAG-AFTRA would be open to anything Crunchyroll was willing to go along with. After speaking with Williams, McCarley said one of his comrades reached out to Crunchyroll’s production manager directly to give him his pitch to negotiate a potential contract.

“While neither of us had heard anything last Thursday morning (the first day of their original availability window to begin recording), I took it upon myself to make sure the terms of the offer were clearly articulated to anyone who could weigh in on the decision,” McCarley said.

McCarley said he emailed Rahul Purini, president of Crunchyroll, and copied the chief content officer, chief human resources officer, chief operating officer, and chief operating officer. production of the company to reaffirm that he was only asking to have a meeting with them. .

Yesterday morning, McCarley said he got a call from Crunchyroll’s head of production saying the company wasn’t going to agree to those terms. After reiterating that he was not looking for a commitment to anything other than a reunion, he said he received a call this afternoon from Crunchyroll confirming his position on the matter.

“I could speculate why they took that position, but that would be speculation,” McCarley said. I don’t know why they are so staunchly anti-union that they won’t even have a conversation about it. I felt like that was a pretty reasonable request, but you’d have to ask them why they seem to disagree.

Kotaku has contacted Crunchyroll for comment.

Regarding the next step for McCarley, he said Kotaku that he will continue to work on union jobs that contribute to his retirement and health and will continue to make efforts to organize the voiceover industry so that more work can be covered for actors under SAG-AFTRA contracts .

Mob Psycho 100, created by Athe mangaka behind A punch, follows Mob, an all-powerful psychic whose powers kick in whenever his emotions boil over. Mob Psycho 100 streams exclusively on Crunchyroll