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Man Charged With Threatening Final Fantasy VII Remake's Tifa Voice Actress Ayumi Ito

Woman also charged for separately threatening Ito in June

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police processed two suspects on November 8 for prosecution for allegedly sending online messages threatening actress Ayumi Ito. According to the police in Tokyo's Shinjuku ward, the female unemployed suspect in her 20s and the male suspect in his 30s asked Ito to pull out of a live-action show's preview screening and asked a game company to recast a character voiced by Ito, among other demands. The authorities report that the female suspect from Aichi Prefecture and the male suspect from Hokkaido — who did not know each other — admitted to separately making threats and forcible obstruction of business.

According to the investigation, the female suspect wrote, "I hate you so much that I want to kill you," and other threats in the comments section of the website for Ito's agency on June 8.

The male suspect allegedly wrote, "I want you to recast the game character voiced by Ito" and "I feel like I want to gouge eyeballs with a knife," among other threats, on the game company's online comment form on June 11.

Ito's agency and the game company contacted the police in Shinjuku in June, and Ito reportedly did pull out of the June 25 preview screening for a live-action show due to the threats.

The only major game role that Ito is currently playing is Tifa Lockhart in the Final Fantasy franchise (and by extension, the Kingdom Hearts games). Ito is reprising Tifa for the Final Fantasy VII Remake game, which will launch on PlayStation 4 on March 3, 2020. She also played Tifa in the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Last Order Final Fantasy VII, and On the Way to a Smile - Episode Denzel: Final Fantasy VII anime.

Source: Anime News Network

 

[Northeastmonk]

Some fans out there are psychos. Smh

 

[Strife In a Teacup]

Guess Millennials aren't just a US concept.

Mofo needs to play some FF4-6.

He should definitely commit Sudoko ASAP.

 

[AeonGaidenRaiden]

Cute.

 

[Kagey K]

This is the shit that gives everyone a bad name and perpetuates “gamergate”

One bad fan shouldn’t pigeonhole the entire community as that. But they get held high above the bluff, like Simba, as a giant signal to all the non gaming people.

 

[NeilH1982]

Idiot

 

[Hudo]

The dude and the dudette bonding over their shared hatred for this voice actress, a love story in the making.

That being said, hardcore fans of anything have a tendency to obsess so much over what they "love" that they tend to "love it to death", ruining it for everyone in the process.

 

[-Arcadia-]

This is the shit that gives everyone a bad name and perpetuates “gamergate”

One bad fan shouldn’t pigeonhole the entire community as that. But they get held high above the bluff, like Simba, as a giant signal to all the non gaming people.

Don’t even worry about that. Shit people have been cherry picking examples to make generalizations about groups, for, I’m pretty sure, the whole run of humanity.

Take this modern example from where it comes from, delusional, paranoid behavior.

 

[Kagey K]

Don’t even worry about that. Shit people have been cherry picking examples to make generalizations about groups, for, I’m pretty sure, the whole run of humanity.

Take this modern example from where it comes from, delusional, paranoid behavior.

Yeah it’s been going on forever from Mortal Kombat to Jack Thompson’s crusade against GTA, but this gives them real ammo to fire back, where before it was mostly toothless.

 

[Gormless Noodle]

From the threats and seeing her career in general it doesn't seem to be for her role in Final Fantasy, but I could be wrong. But seems like that special sort of crazy hatred you see more often in Japan, for example with specific idols and such.

 

[-Arcadia-]

Yeah it’s been going on forever from Mortal Kombat to Jack Thompson’s crusade against GTA, but this gives them real ammo to fire back, where before it was mostly toothless.

Eh. We can’t control people. The fact is, that there will always be bad people in every group, for someone to point to and say, ‘Hah, you see!’

They always had ammo, and they always will.

We don’t need to worry about any of that. All we need to do, is just keep being the people we’ve always been, mock their nonsense, and hope the truth is obvious, as the media finds itself in its 183374839202th retraction, lawsuit, or hot water for false, inaccurate stories.

From polls to anecdotal observations, seeing the public opinion of the once-respected media, gaming or otherwise, degenerate to extreme lows since 2014 tells me that that’s already happening.

 

[The Scrivener]

Games. Serious business.

 

[Birdo]

"I hate you so much that I want to kill you,"

"You're not really going to kill me though, are you"

 

[Stitch]

"You're not really going to kill me though, are you"

 

[Spukc]

NANI?

 

[E.T. Waifu]

Holy crap, poor girl. I hope she's going to be okay.

 

[lukilladog]

Famous people get stuff like this all the time since forever, the difference I think is they have lawyers that tell them to not waste everybody´s time unless it´s an explicit concise threat.

 

[struggler_guts]

It looks like she's been Tifa since the start so what's these crazies' problem?

 

[Enjay]

Just the cost of being any level of rich and/or famous.

 

[Fuz]

What's wrong with her voice actress?