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The story
The story of Emiri Kato, who voiced Kyubey in Puella Magi Madoka Magica, being bashed since the show’s original broadcast simply because fans hated the character has resurfaced on 5ch. The thread brought up examples like voice actors who played Gundam villains, and Tom Felton, who played Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter and faced abuse from overseas fans, sparking debate over whether confusing a character with the actor who plays them is a uniquely Japanese phenomenon. Posters also argued over whether Japan or other countries have a bigger problem with people mistaking fake images and fake videos for real ones and sending abuse based on them.
What people said
Yeah they clearly can't lol
Harassing drama actors over their roles is basically a Japanese tradition going back to the days of Oshin
Is that even a real thing?
Yeah, Jasley's voice actor got bashed too
Good thing the actor who played Rustal wasn't on social media
Reminds me of how the actor who played Malfoy got abuse from all over the world just for 'playing a hated character in a hit franchise'
Guess Japanese people aren't so different after all
Meanwhile in Japan he was hugely popular, and it made him love Japan
Actresses playing hateful roles in dramas and getting absolutely trashed in real life — that's been happening forever
Malfoy
Will Smith
Queen
stuff like that, huh
Then maybe stop trashing celebrities from your own country who haven't done anything wrong, every single day
She was on TV for a while and then just vanished
Weird how this other character she voiced is way more evil, yet nobody ever brings it up
That one's just a subordinate of Ainz, though…
Unlike QB (Kyubey), she's just a straightforward villain
Re: #69
Because she's just one exec in an evil organization
I love this one
Eiko Kano: 'Yep, fake news!'
Apparently an actress from Breaking Bad in the US got bashed too, so it happens everywhere
There are Japanese people out there sending abuse because they believe the tons of reposted fake overseas videos on YouTube are real…?
And if you check the original source, the foreign commenters clearly know it's fake
After hearing about the Malfoy thing, hearing about the Emiri Kato thing makes you think this
Wasabi Mizuta (Doraemon's voice) probably feels the same way
Honestly foreigners don't get it as much as people claim either
Though yeah, it's true Japanese people don't get it
Foreign commenters spam 'AI,' 'Fake,' and 'Actor' nonstop
A good chunk of them do it, and those comments get plenty of likes
In Japan almost everyone falls for it, so it's hopeless
Japan has plenty of those comments too and they rise to the top, and there are plenty of overseas comments from people who don't notice either
Though YouTube's full of bot comments, so you have to account for that
Emiri Kato got absolutely torn apart by otaku at the time
Because the person on the receiving end was getting unfairly attacked
Sugako Hashida (the famed scriptwriter) said something similar — apparently back in the day people didn't even understand the concept and thought actors made up their own lines
Even now the hate mostly lands on the director first, so not much has really changed
This is still baffling even today
Background and Key Points
Emiri Kato, who voiced Kyubey, is a well-known case of dislike for a character during the original broadcast turning directly into abuse toward the actor herself. Similar things have happened abroad too — Tom Felton, who played Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter, and actresses who played ‘the mean woman’ in Japanese morning dramas and faced real-life harassment from viewers, are both examples of fans confusing a role with the person playing it, showing this isn’t limited to Japan. The thread pointed out a gap between the self-image that ‘Japanese people can tell fiction from reality’ and the reality on the ground, while others pushed back, arguing that people overseas are more wary of AI and fake videos and better at spotting them — leaving it unclear which side actually has the bigger problem. It’s also worth noting that the underlying structure, where resentment tends to land on the individual performer rather than the writers or director, doesn’t seem to have changed much even now, so this isn’t simply a case of a ‘uniquely Japanese’ problem.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “[Sad News] Emiri Kato Reportedly Got a Sympathetic Statement from Eiko Kano Because of Madoka Magica lol“.
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