Free! Cast Reaction

Starting last Monday, Funimation started announcing their dub cast for Free! Eternal Summer, and boy are my emotions conflicted. I would have to say over all the cast is pretty stellar, but there are a few people that I don't particularly care for or think that  they could've been better cast, but this is just my opinion, so before you get too whipped up if you don't agree with me, remember that.

So, let's get to talkin about this cast! I'll talk about them in the order they were announced. Starting with Rei, who as Ariel and I predicrted, was cast as J. Michael Tatum. Obvs, he always gets the cool bespectacled character, so that was to be expected. And in all honesty, I'm totally cool with this casting because I love J. Michael Tatum. He has acted his way into my heart and the love only increases with each character I see him play, so I doubt that I will be disappointed with him as Rei. Good call Funimation.

Next, Nagisa... oh Nagisa, you had the potential to not annoy me, but because you're Greg Ayres, I have a dislike for you. The only role that I have been able to tolerate him in was Kaoru, and that was because his high pitched squeal was masked by the glorious Todd Haberkorn. Unfortunately for me though, I can totally see how his voice fits Nagisa, so this was technically a good call on Funimation's part, but it will torture my ears to hear Greg's voice, which I'm not a fan of.

Up next we have Makoto, and taking on this role will be Johnny Young Bosch, a newish name to me, but he quickly earned his way onto my list of men that make me chuckle when I watched him as Kitamura in Toradora, and I think he could play a great bro, so I'm gonna go ahead and give him my Andi Bun of approval.

To my hearts great joy the next day Haruka was announced, and it's not that I'm obsessed with Haruka or anything, more like I'm obsesed with Todd. The glorious man Todd Haberkorn is going to be voicing Haruka, and I cannot wait. As far as I'm concerned he can do no wrong. So, I don't really need to say much except for thank you Funimation, just, thank you.

Rounding my favorite bro's is Vic Mignogna, who is going to voice Rin. I do not think this is a good fit, and this is not in any way a dis on the Mignogna, it's just that he has a very specific kind of voice that I'm not sure really fits with Rin. Who knows, maybe he'll prove me wrong which I'm hoping that he goes chameleon mode and proves me wrong, but only time can tell at this point. So I just have to give him a chance and see if he grows on me.

For the supporting characters I'm just going to briefly talk about them so let's jump right into these guys. Up first we have Jerry Jewel as Momotaro, and can I just say, bravo. I LOVE JERRY JEWEL. He's one of my faves, so he's obvs gonna rock the house. Josh Grelle as Aiichiro, who has the right kind of voice for this lil dude, whiny but not an annoying whiny, the lovable kind of whiny that I can get behind. To round out the Ouran reunion, we've got Caitlin Glass playing Miho, and while I have to admit she definitely has the mature teacher voice that goes along with Miho's character, she's not really on my list of favorite characters, so I'm probably gonna pout through her scenes but I still don't share the same level of dislike for her as I do Greg Ayres, for that level of dislike you're gonna want to talk to Ariel. The final two that I'm going to talk about are Sosuke and Gou who are voice by Ian Sinclaire and Jamie Marchi respectively. Ian is a very good choice in my opinion, he has always been able to pull off that cool, serious type guy character, so I'm gonna stand behind this casting decision. Now as for Jamie, I honestly don't have anything against her, but I feel like her voice is too mature to play Gou. That's pretty much my only beef, she generally plays the older sister/mother/teacher character and I think that those kind of roles fit her pretty well, but I'll give her a chance and see how she handles this role, because I'm just that nice, not to mention the fact that she's already been cast, so there's not a lot that can be done to change this.

Overall, I'd say that this show was pretty well cast, with a couple of exceptions, but me being the generous person I am, I'm going to give all these guys a chance before I say anything too harsh about them. So basically, stay tuned until after the show aires to hear what I think about the show after I've watched a couple of episodes!