Trivia / Yona of the Dawn

• Acting for Two: The voice actors for Kija, Shin-ah, and Jaeha also voice their ancestors, Guen, Abi, and Shuten. In addition to Shin-ah and Abi, Nobuhiko Okamoto also voices Heang-Dae.
• All-Star Cast: The original Japanese features many well known voice talents including Tomoaki Maeno, Chiwa Saitō, Junko Minagawa, Masakazu Morita, Nobuhiko Okamoto, Jun'ichi Suwabe, Hiro Shimono, Akira Ishida, Takahiro Sakurai, Ai Kayano, Hiroyuki Yoshino and Ayahi Takagaki among others.
  • Ditto for the dub which has Monica Rial and Christopher Sabat as the leads. The supporting cast also includes Micah Solusod, Clifford Chapin, Ian Sinclair, Eric Vale, Joel McDonald and Jessie James Grelle.
• Casting Gag: In the dub, Su-Won is voiced by Micah Solusod whose voice is often compared to Johnny Yong Bosch. Oddly enough, they had Johnny play Su-Won's father.
• Cross-Dressing Voices:
  • Junko Minagawa as the feminine-looking Yun. Averted in the dub where he's voiced by Clifford Chapin.
  • In the English dub, Min-su is voiced by Lindsay Seidel, but averted in the original Japanese version where he is voiced by Kazutomi Yamamoto.
• Dueling Shows:
  • With Snow White with the Red Hair. At different points, both redheaded protagonists even get kidnapped on the high seas (pirates for Shirayuki and human smugglers for Yona) while requiring the help of their allies to save them. They're both also hit on by princes who are spoiled rotten (Prince Raj for Shirayuki and Kan Tae-Jun for Yona) but help those princes grow out of their negative qualities and become better people.
  • Also with The Heroic Legend of Arslan. At one point, both royalties had their countries taken by an enemy nation and flee to gather up some comrades to help take their countries back.
• Playing Against Type:
  • You'd probably know Nobuhiko Okamoto more for voicing boys that are either loud or crazy, like Rin, Nishinoya, Accelerator and Niizuma, rather than the very quiet and reserved Shin-Ah.
    • But since he is Acting for Two he gets to voice a character whose personality fits more with his previous roles mentioned above, the lively Heang-Dae of the Wind Tribe.
  • Similarly Christopher Sabat in the English dub who is usually known for voicing The Big Guy but instead voices Hak who really doesn't fit that character type (at least one who isn't a Bishōnen).
  • Also in the dub, Johnny Yong Bosch as Yu-Hon, an old middle aged man which is a far different from his usual teenage/young adult roles.
• Sleeper Hit: Being an adaptation of a popular manga by Studio Pierrot you can bet that a lot of people were not looking forward to this at first. The suspicion especially came from how Pierrot was handling another popular manga adaptation at the time. So for it to actually be one of the most well-received anime of 2014 and only get better as it went along really surprised a lot of fans. Even more surprising was how despite having a "read the manga ending", the series was actually faithful to the manga throughout its entire run.
• Throw It In!: In the original draft, Hiyou the drug lord said he would cut the flesh of Yona's "breasts and stomach". The publisher misread the characters and it was printed as "breasts and crotch". The mistake was kept since it was felt to have greater impact, and actually fit with Hiyou's personality slightly better.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Hak's name was originally "Soron", but that was too similar to "Su-won". It was then swapped for "Hak-jin", which was eventually shortened to "Hak".
  • Shin-ah's personality was originally going to be darker and more serious.
  • Kija's back scars were originally planned to be across his face.

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