Trivia / D.Gray-Man

• Acting for Two:
  • For the first anime:
    • Shizuka Itō voices both Lenalee and Lero, with the latter having a high pitched, distorted voice.
    • Sanae Kobayashi voices both Allen and the 14th Noah.
  • In Hallow:
    • Yutaka Aoyama voices both the Millennium Earl and Mana, probably cause both characters are one and the same.
    • In a similar case to the first anime, Ayumu Murase voices both Allen and the 14th Noah/Nea.
    • Hilariously enough, Tetsu Inada provides voice to two characters as different as General Socalo AND Jeryy.
  • In the English dub:
    • Luci Christian voices both Lenalee and Allen's younger self.
    • Jason Liebrecht voices both Lavi and the Millennium Earl.
• Bonus Material: Starting from the 52th episode onwards, the first anime had a section of omakes after the end of the episode known as "D.Gray-theater", that depicts the characters of the series (who appear in a Super-Deformed style) in short, generally comedic segments. Curiously enough, the style is taken from the own "chibi" art of Hoshino in the omakes of the manga.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: In the first series, Allen is voiced by a female in the Japanese, European Spanish, French and Korean dubs.
• Directed by Cast Member: Antonio Villar, who voiced the Millennium Earl (plus a few background characters) in the Spanish dub of the anime was also the director of the dub.
• Disowned Adaptation: In a 2016 interview for Hallow, Katsura Hoshino felt that the first anime was too different from the manga for her liking, due to TMS Entertainment changing several elements of her original stories. Eight years later, TMS offered to make Hallow, but Hoshino turned it down because she didn't want a repeat of the first anime. Although she got involved as a supervisor, Hoshino later admitted on Instagram that she was disappointed with the changes made to her characters as well as a promotional poster which depicts Allen and Kanda in suggestive poses resembling two people post-coitus.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • Only half of the first anime series was broadcasted in Spain, and none of it was ever released on home media. According to interviews, the entire series was dubbed, but the second half of it never left the company archives and as of 2023, it is unknown if it will ever do.
  • Hallow hasn't aired in Japan since December 2016, when it was last rerun on Nara Television. Fortunately, the episodes are available for streaming online.
• Late Export for You: After the legal issues with Dentsu were sorted out in 2016, Funimation licensed episodes 52-103 of the 2006 series for a North American release.
• The Other Darrin:
  • The 2016 series features an all-new voice cast. For example, Allen, voiced in the first series by Sanae Kobayashi, is now voiced by Ayumu Murase.
  • In the English dub, when Jason Liebrecht was injured in a motorcycle accident, both of his roles, Lavi and Millennium Earl, were temporarily recast with Chris Patton and Todd Haberkorn (Allen's voice) respectively during their appearances in episodes 27-39.
  • Hallow's dub has Ian Sinclair taking over for Travis Willingham as Kanda due to the latter being mostly in union-only projects after moving to Los Angeles. Jeremy Schwartz also took over for the late Jerry Russell as Froi.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Shizuka Itō is mostly known for voicing sexy and seductive women who are often Ms. Fanservice incarnated, but, along with Lenalee, one of the characters she voices in the anime is Lero... who is a talking umbrella and the biggest Chew Toy of the series.
  • Ironically, in a series featuring a lot of pretty boys, Mamoru Miyano (well-known for both voicing Bishōnen and hammy characters) is casted for the meek and homely Chaozii.
• Role Reprise: In the English dub, virtually everyone from the 2006 series reprised their roles for D.Gray-Man Hallow with a couple exceptions.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: Funimation began arranging plans to release the second half of the 2006 series in North America after releasing the first 51 episodes. However, the release was locked away in 2011 thanks to Dentsu asking Funimation for more money than the company was willing to afford. In June 2016, Funimation announced that it had licensed Hallow as part of the 2016 Summer Simulcast season, as well as the second half of the 2006 series a week later.
• Screwed by the Network: Aniplex was originally going to release Hallow on Blu-ray and DVD starting in September 2016. Unfortunately, issues with the production quality and Hoshino's disappointment with the season caused the release to be delayed indefinitely at the beginning of that month. By March 1, 2017, Aniplex cancelled the release. No news has come of this since then.
• Series Hiatus: The manga has gone on hiatus several times, due to Hoshino's frequent issues with her health.
• Uncanceled:
  • The first anime series got a sequel almost a decade after the original ended.
  • After fifty-one episodes of the original anime series were released between 2009-2010, the North American English release came to a halt because of legal issues with Dentsu. Funimation would eventually continue their release of the series in 2016, after those issues were resolved.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Todd Haberkorn, also the director of the first half of the 2006 series, knew about the Black Order members being British, and contemplated putting those accents on them. He decided against it because the test recordings made Allen sound harsher and less appealing, and their natural accents would be easier on the actors (this was when they had initially planned to dub the show to the end, like a long-runner).
  • Lavi was originally intended to be main character for a series called "BOOK-MAN", a project which never reached beyond the planning stages. Still, the author wanted to use him and Bookman so they made it into D.Gray-man as side characters instead.
  • The fan book Gray Log revealed some unused ideas Hoshino planned initially or had to change later in the manga, some which include:
    • While joining the Black Order, the whole "Destroyer of Time" prophecy Hevlaska tells Allen while inspecting him and his synchronization rate with his Innocence wasn't originally planned and was added in the last moment as a way to make Allen's entrance to the Order more impactful. Hevlaska also wasn't originally going to look that eerie and supernatural, but her appearance was changed in order to make the reveal more effective.
    • Allen was going to have an Exorcist enrollment test by having a duel with Kanda, but this was changed to Allen having his first Exorcist mission with him instead.
    • Tiedoll was going to be more callous and cold, with him faking to care and mourn his students but really feeling nothing about them. However, as the author thought a character like that wasn't interesting and wanted for Kanda's master to be his exact opposite, she made the General a fatherly, almost clingy character.
    • Plans for a storyline concerning Bak's great-grandfather and the gate of the Asian branch were made early on, but as the plotline of Allen recovering his Innocence was taking so much time, Hoshino decided to delay it until finding a better moment for it.
    • Eliade wasn't going to appear again after her destruction, as Hoshino felt that she already had a good conclusion. However, during Krory's fight in the Ark, she changed her mind and decided to draw her again, albeit in a way where her face wasn't revealed as a nod to that original plan.
    • Following the end of the Noah's Ark battle, Hoshino wanted to depict Allen and Johnny talking about Suman and playing chess as a way to make them bond together. However, as the manga was weekly back then and the pacing was so hectic, she was forced to cut the scene entirely. Noticeably, the anime did include a scene where Johnny thanks Allen for saving Suman after he returns from the mission in Japan.
    • The reconciliation between Lenalee and Komui after they distanced each other following the evolution of her Innocence into Crystal type wasn't originally planned in the Komuvitan D arc, and Hoshino admitted that she even forgot about their strained relationship while making that arc, but the introduction of the ghost of the headquarters gave her the chance to make both siblings reconcile, so she took that chance to solve that plot point.
    • After chapter 186, there were plans for a mission involving the Third Exorcists shortly after their debut (which is hinted in that chapter, where Allen and Lenalee come with the Thirds to the Asian branch in search of Kanda for a mission in Istanbul) which would have fleshed them out. However, the change in magazine after the big hiatus following that chapter made Hoshino cancel that arc and instead mix some of the ideas she had for that plot point with the Alma incident.
    • Alma's rampage was going to be longer, but the editor told Hoshino that the flashback depicting his fall was going too long, so she had to cut it and moved on to the part where he and Kanda fight. Among some of the scenes cut include the order in which Alma would kill all the scientists, what he said to Edgar before stabbing him, a depiction of the Asian branch, Marie almost getting killed in the rampage, and one scene of Bak in the other side of the lab's gate. Some of these scenes were able to be included in the anime, however.

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