Showtaro Morikubo Recast as Elysium in Arknights

The official X (formerly Twitter) account for Arknights announced that Showtaro Morikubo will be removed from his role as Elysium for “various reasons.” Hypergryph has not yet stated whether the replacement actor will re-voice all of Elysium's previous lines.

Prior to the official announcement, the March 14, 2025 patch notes on the Chinese version’s Weibo account had hinted at Morikubo’s departure. One of the new fixes included the deletion of certain voice resources. At the time, the patch notes did not state which character this would affect. However, many replies to the Weibo post and Twitter guessed that Hypergryph would remove Morikubo. This is because of another recent incident regarding him and a Chinese game company.

On March 12, 2025, the official Genshin Impact X account announced it would remove Showtaro Morikubo from his role as Ifa. Like with the Arknights post, it did not state the reason behind this decision. However, many fans have speculated that it’s due to his appearance in the reading of Inochigake no Shougen, which may have caught the Chinese government’s attention and in turn put pressure on companies like HoYoVerse and Hypergryph. Inochigake no Shougen, based on the book of the same name, highlights the Chinese government’s persecution of the Uyghur ethnic group.

This is not the first time that Chinese game companies removed a Japanese voice actor for political reasons. In July 2021, Ai Kayano was recast from her roles in Azur Lane and Arknights after she visited the Yasukuni Shrine. The shrine is controversial, as it enshrines war criminals from World War II, and visits to it tend to draw negative attention from Chinese and Korean citizens.

Arknights is readily available on mobile devices. As of March 14, 2025, Showtaro Morikubo is no longer voicing Elysium in Arknights.

The post Showtaro Morikubo Recast as Elysium in Arknights appeared first on Siliconera.