Trivia / BlazBlue

• Acting for Two: Noel, Nu, Lambda, Mu, and Saya ^note Zig-zagged for the last one - in both the east and west, flashback Saya is still voiced by Noel's VAs; for Imperator Saya, however, the cases are different in each region: In Japanese, they made a distinction between Izanami (voiced by Yukana) and Saya (voiced by Kondo); in English, no distinctions are made; Jin and Hakumen; Tsubaki and Kokonoe, albeit dub only; Hazama and Terumi; Luna, Sena and Trinity; Relius and TA, albeit dub only; Nago and TB, albeit dub only; Izanami and TC, albeit dub only; Izanami and The Origin.
• Actor Allusion: Quite a few actually.
  • Ragna had a Gintoki costume as DLC in CT-CS, whom Sugita had previously voiced. It also led to this parody video.
  • Amane has a Persona color swap of the protagonist of Persona 3, who's also voiced by Akira Ishida. The English version goes along with this and assigned him with the voice of Yuri Lowenthal.
  • Exclusive to the English dub, but this isn't the first time Yuri Lowenthal has voiced a character who's primary weapon of choice are drills. It's also not the first time he's voiced someone who's incredibly flamboyant and obsessed with beauty.
  • As a nod to its parent series, Extend gave several Unlimited Characters Distortion Drives modeled after/copied from Overdrives belonging to the GG cast. Relius? He gets Nero Angelo, a Vol Tedo-based projectile that functions in the same manner as its English equivalent, Venom's Dark Angel. As of Guilty Gear XX Accent Core (which predates BlazBlue by nearly two years), Venom is voiced by Suwabe, assuming the role from Mikio Yaeda.
  • Upping the ante, Unlimited Relius receives Ruber Grando (Red Hail in Latin) in CP, thus borrowing another one of Venom's Overdrives... Red Hail.
  • Further upping the ante is a Gag Reel featuring him in BlazBlue: Chronophantasma where Relius ends up in a world where he's a good family man. Now who else is a family man?? Notable that the game is just out in Japan, so they may have noticed the English casting.
  • This isn't the first time Ragna and Jin have tried to kill each other, neither is it the second.
  • Asami Imai's favourite Idolmaster character is also named Yayoi. Ironically, she voices someone with the surname Kisaragi there.
  • This ain't the first time Chiaki Takahashi's voicing a character known for huge breasts.
  • Izanami isn't the first time Yukana and Kate Higgins shared the same voice.
• Creator Backlash: Spike Spencer was originally told that Arakune's strange voice problem would be created in post-production, but insisted that he replicate the effect of his voice cutting in and out directly in the sound booth. That's what you hear in the game. He claims to regret this because he was being paid by the word.
• Creator-Driven Successor: To Guilty Gear, as a 2D fighting game set in a bizarre post-apocalyptic Magitek future Earth, with anime-style graphics, an ear-thumping heavy rock/metal soundtrack, and an ensemble cast of insanely wacky characters with unique abilities and lots of belts headed by a red-clad and foul-mouthed Anti-Hero who fights with an angular sword and oozes snark and angst. Notably Blazblue was very poorly received by Guilty Gear fans initially and it took a long time for the game to establish its own identity.
• Creator's Favorite: Noel Vermillion. She's the mascot character of the series, and admitted favorite of Arc System Works producer Toshimichi Mori. She even became the central character in BlazBlue: Continuum Shift, although she can be a bit of Creator's Pet (but just a bit). He also mains Hakumen.
• Descended Creator: Toshimichi Mori, the producer of the series, also does the voice of Paracelsus in Guilty Gear. In Bururaji, Mori is always represented by a chibi Paracelsus wearing shades.
• Died During Production: In both English and Japanese
  • Keiji Fujiwara (Kagura Mutsuki's Japanese voice actor) died in 2020 from health problems. When Alternative: Dark War launched, Daisuke Namikawa took over.
  • Motomu Kiyokawa died in 2022, leaving Valkenhayn R. Hellsing without a Japanese voice actor. Unlike Kagura Mutsuki, it's currently unknown if Arc System Works will recast him or retire him altogether.
  • Billy Kametz died from colorectal cancer in 2022, leaving Naoto Kurogane without an English voice actor.
  • Philece Sampler died in 2021, leaving Taokaka without an English voice actress.
• Fake Nationality: Despite the names, very few are from where you expect. Based on the cities they are born where applicable, along with official material. Note this reflects the locations they were born in in the modern world; these countries no longer exist in Blazblue:
  • Ragna and Jin are English (most materials would have you know that Ragna is supposedly American)
  • Noel is Swiss but created in Russia, as was Lambda
  • Tao is Thai, as is Nu
  • Bang and Kokonoe are both from eastern Europe.
  • Kagura and Tsubaki are Canadian (although from different cities)
  • Makoto is Indian.
  • The Clovers and Mai are American (although from different cities)
  • Celica, Platinum and Trinity are Russian (although from different cities). Celica is possibly explained by it referring to her clone rather than her real self, the former of which was made in Kokonoe's lab.
  • Subverted; Litchi is Chinese. This is a continuity error; Litchi was officially born in Shanghai, which shouldn't exist anymore.
  • Rachel is from Transylvania, therefore Romanian.
  • Jubei, Naoto and Es are from Japan; unlike most characters they're from the actual country since they predate the Dark War. The bio, however, lists Jubei as coming from China.
  • Nine and Celica have a Japanese father and a mother from Ishana, the city of mages, though they grew up in Ishana.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": Celica and Naoto actually debuted in a series of light novels (BlazBlue: Phase Shift and Bloodedge Experience respectively) that are never localized outside Japan. So overseas-wise, the two characters debuted in CP and CF repsectively. Confusingly, they are actually plot-important characters who have ties with a good number of the cast, and their stories in the games plays off the stories in the novels which occidentals have little to no knowledge about.
• No Dub for You: Central Fiction never got the fan-favorite English dub on the basis that it would have delayed the game by six to seven months, running the risk of missing out on EVO 2017. Many fans regard it as a crappy decision and Patrick Seitz, Ragna's voice actor, was particularly disappointed. The massive fan outrage at the lack of a dub likely played a role as to why Cross Tag Battle got one.
  Patrick Seitz: Guess we're not so central to the fiction after all...
• No Export for You: A disproportionately large amount of side material is available for purchase only in Japan. While fan translations exist, the translators can only work so fast and on so much at once. Also, BlayzBloo didn't get a European release.
• The Other Darrin: Mostly Averted in the Japanese dub, with the exception of Yukana replacing Kanako Kondo as the Imperator from Continuum Shift Extend onward. English is another story however.
  • Hazama/Terumi is a pretty funny case actually. A lot of fans thought Doug Erholtz originally did his voice, but it turns out it was Erik Davies. The funny part is that Doug would eventually be his voice when Extend was localized and would go on to continue doing so in Chrono Phantasma.
    • Spike Spencer also did a few lines for him as part of an extra scene in CS2's Arcade Mode.
  • Cristina Valenzuela was unavailable to do the added Arcade story for Mu, so Tsubaki and Kokonoe's VA is used instead.
  • Tony Oliver was replaced by Steve Kramer as Bang's voice in CS2, this change would stick and he would go on to voice the character in Extend's added scenarios as well as Chrono Phantasma.
  • Laura Bailey did a few lines for Rachel in CS2, but unlike the above example, Mela Lee eventually returned to continue voicing Rachel in all subsequent releases.
  • Laura Bailey herself won't be reprising her role as Platinum in the English dub of Blazblue Alter Memory. Alexis Tipton takes over there.
  • Takamagahara TA, TB and TC were voiced by Travis Willingham, Ezra Weisz and Kate Higgins, respectively, in the original games. In Blazblue Alter Memory, Michael McConnohie, Bryce Papenbrook and Wendee Lee take over the respective roles.
  • Susanoo, Terumi's One-Winged Angel form, is voiced by Kenta Miyake rather than Yūichi Nakamura. This however appears to be a stylistic choice as sometimes you'll still hear Terumi's voice lash out angrily from Susanoo.
  • Daisuke Namikawa takes over Kagura Mutsuki for the late Keiji Fujiwara.
• Pigeonholed Voice Actor:
  • This is not the first time Yūichi Nakamura voiced a Jerkass. The moment you see the shit Terumi does, however, you will realize that this is his pigeonholed role taken way past eleven, to psychopathic levels.
  • Amane is voiced by Akira Ishida, who often does Dude Looks Like a Lady roles.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Spike Spencer voices Arakune in the English dub. Yes, he went from playing depressive teenagers, to an insane Eldritch Abomination.
  • There's also Hakumen. It's really weird hearing Tetsuya Kakihara with that deep of a voice, even if it is mechanically distorted.
• Stillborn Franchise: While the series is doing fine for the most part, its spinoff BlazBlue Alternative: Dark War would ultimately shut down by the end of January 2021, just a year after its release, even though it had much more content planned down the line.
• Teasing Creator:
  • Mori Toshimichi likes to tease or act like a Trolling Creator when the subject is about the playability of Kokonoe, especially when the fanbase tends to be rather unpleasable. Fans were asking for Kokonoe so much, that Valkenhayn's "Help Me, Professor Kokonoe!" segment in Continuum Shift Extend exists only to poke fun at the entire ordeal. The reveal that Kokonoe would indeed become playable rescinded things a bit, but only for the PS3 fans, as 360 fans will not only miss out on Kokonoe, but Chronophantasma entirely. Following that, Kokonoe turned out to be broken as hell and Mori refuses to rebalance her for CP, so—depending on how much you care about tiers vs. character playability—the PS3 fans still may have ended up being trolled despite their "wish" coming true. After Kokonoe's playable and rebalanced, repeat ad nauseum... except to her father, Jubei. When Jubei was announced, there has been another problem for fans to complain: No Dub for You. Still, he clearly gets off the tears of the complainers.
  • To a lesser extent, this has been done with The Imperator/Saya as well, with Mori saying something along the lines of: "We couldn't put Saya in the arcade version but for the home console? Yes, she will be there." Cue Chronophantasma's console release, where it turns out that he was only half right. She assists the final boss, Take-Mikazuchi in battle, but isn't playable herself.
  • An example that isn't Trolling is the subtle hints of the first Murakumo Unit, Alpha No.01 -A- pocalypse, who mysteriously looks like a female Ragna fused with Nu and even uses his Blood-Scythe. She first appeared in the Arc 25th anniversary artbook as ???◊ . Mori has since been posting designs◊ on Twitter, where he also revealed her full name, but little else. Her canon status is unknown, though The Stinger of Central Fiction heavily hints that she'll be making some sort of appearance eventually^note Ragna's Weapon Tombstone is gone and a message appears that contains the Greek letter "α", which both coincide with parts of Alpha's concept..
• Time-Shifted Actor: Both Ragna and Jin have different actors for flashbacks to their childhood in both languages, this is averted for the females however, who retain their voices as both children and adults whenever flashbacks occur.
• Troubled Production: BlazBlue Alternative: Dark War was announced back in 2017 with a release date of 2018 to celebrate the franchise's 10th anniversary. However, the original developer studio went out of business a year after the announcement, forcing Arc System Works themselves to take over the project. It wouldn't be until 2021 that the game would finally see the light of day, and then in less than a year later, the game would be shutting down by the end of January 2022.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Apparently, BlazBlue was meant to be an RPG, but was changed into a fighting game. It explains why the series is much heavier on story than most fighting games, at least. The series itself partly owes its existence due to the fact that Arc System Works temporarily lost the rights to independently make more Guilty Gear games. Rather than work through Sega, ArcSys opted to repurpose BlazBlue into becoming their new flagship fighting series.
  • This interview with Mori states that Makoto was built from the dregs of his attempt to write Tsubaki as a lesbian. And there go the last lingering threads of Makoto's heterosexuality.

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