Following months of public speculation that, given a recent string of absences from a number of recent Capcom outings, his personal sociopolitical opinions had resulted in his being labelled a persona non grata by the Japanese developer, voice actor Reuben Langdon has clarified that while a misinterpretation of his words has indeed resulted in his expulsion from the Street Fighter franchise, it has had no effect on his continued performance as Devil May Cry‘s stylish protagonist.
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As previously reported, suspicions surrounding the long-time Ken Masters and Dante voice actor’s expulsion from Capcom were first raised in 2021 when, following a dishonest attempt by Newsweek three-years earlier to paint him as a right-wing extremist and conspiracy theorist based on both criticisms he made towards the potential for corruption inherent in the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements as well as compliments he gave Vic Mignogna’s character amidst the height of the #KickVic campaign, the Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat mobile game was inexplicably released with not Langdon, but rather P.M. Seymour in the role of the franchise’s red-coated lead.
Fan fears towards the voice actor’s firing were then further compounded when, in 2022, it was announced, likewise without explanation, that rather than Langdon, the series’ red gi’d shotokan practitioner in the then-upcoming Street Fighter 6 would instead be brought to life by David Mantranga (Shoto Todoroki, My Hero Academia).
And unfortunately for those seeking clarification on the matter, the next few years would see their questions left unanswered as rather than publicly comment on his Capcom career, Langdon chose to maintain radio silence and instead shift his attentions to raising awareness on such topics as UFO disclosure, U.S. government authoritarianism (such as their campaign to force COVID vaccinations), and social media censorship.
However, this silence would eventually be broken on February 19th when, thanks to organization efforts provided by video game-centric YouTuber Mekel Kasanova, streamer and ESTV minority owner Tenryo The Light, Twitch streamers Boomer-Tiro and Captain Davebeard, and Twitter user @The1Otaku1, Langdon hosted a Twitter Space discussion with the intention of setting the record straight regarding his future as either of the developer’s iconic red-themed heroes.
Beginning on the topic of Street Fighter, the voice actor unfortunately confirmed to listeners that not only was his dropping from the role of Ken permanent, but that it had in fact been directly caused by the aforementioned Newsweek hit piece.
“So, 2019,” recalled the voice actor, recapping his side of the story from square one. “I’m back in Japan and I did an interview for some guys out of Florida [YouTubers Toy Bounty Hunters, Hero Hei, and YellowFlash, the details of which can be found in our previous coverage here]. I didn’t even know them very well or what their background was, they just asked me if I could come on and do an interview for Devil May Cry V, since either it just came out or was just coming out.”
“In that interview, they brought up this whole fiasco with Vic Mignogna, and because I had worked with Vic they were sort of asking my opinion,” he detailed. “I had no idea, I didn’t know what kind of trouble Vic was in, I didn’t know what was going on there. They had asked me some questions about my experience working with him and I just told them, ‘Hey, as far as I know Vic’s been a stand-up guy. He’s been a man of his word to me. I can’t say him otherwise. And as far as I’ve seen him navigate things with women, and that kind of thing, of course he seemed like a ladies man, but it never seemed like it went much further than that.'”
“Then you hear all this stuff, and I’m like, ‘I can’t comment on that,” said Langdon . “So, then I started talking about other stuff, like the #MeToo movement and Black Lives Matter and how those groups start off as a good thing but oftentimes they get hijacked – and at that time, I guess it was still a little too early to say that, because now we know, look at the leaders of Black Lives Matter and what they’ve done with the money and all that stuff we know with the #MeToo movement and all.”
“So,” he continued, “Newsweek calls me, and says, ‘Hey, we want to do an interview with you in regard to your comments that you did in that podcast,’ and I said ‘Yeah, sure, absolutely,’ – This was all done by email and I have the records, I have the receipts – And I said ‘Sure, I’d be happy to do an interview and talk about what I said about #MeToo and Black Lives Matter and clarify that if you wish,” said the voice actor. “However, when it comes to to Vic, I’m not going to comment because I don’t know the situation and it’s not my place to say anything.”
“[Then] this Newsweek article by that writer, no idea who it was, came out and was basically taking things that I had said in the interview out of context – or with no context – and just saying ‘Rebuen said this and this and this about Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, that I’m a right-wing extremist, that I’m a UFO alien believer, crazy nut case,” the voice actor said. “Which is crazy, because two months prior, Newsweek had interviewed me for a magazine article – Newsweek Special Edition: Life Beyond Earth?, talking about ETs and extra-terrestrial life – they did an article on me and I’m highlighted in a positive way!”
“This other guy from Newsweek puts out this total fake news article,” he then opined. “I was telling my wife about how fake news is a real thing, and how even mainstream media goes in and does hit pieces on other whistleblowers – this is the conspiracy theory stuff before my situation – and she was with me, but not really, and then this whole thing came out and she was witness to everything that happened.”
“So, some people wrote Capcom, particularly [Street Fighter series producer Yoshinori] Ono-san,” noted Langdon. “He saw it, and I guess he lost his sh-t. He didn’t understand the nuances and didn’t bother to reach out to me to ask ‘What the hell’s going on?’ He got super scared and actually called – I remember this very clearly because this was a few days before E3 started – my partner calls me and he goes ‘Reuben! What the f–k did you do!’, and I’m like, ‘What do you mean?! I didn’t do anything!’ ‘You don’t realize how much damage you’ve done! We just lost the Street Fighter gig!’ And he said, ‘Yeah, because of that Newsweek article, we – the [motion capture] company [Just Cause Productions] that I was no longer a part of – actually lost a multi-million dollar gig’, because Ono, in a sense, thought that I was still part of the company, which I wasn’t, didn’t do any research, any homework, didn’t look into it or even bother to have a conversation.”
“I tried to arrange a meeting so I could sit down with Ono-san and explain what happened, that this was all taken out of context, this was not the case, it was a hit piece, literally, from this Newsweek guy,” he asserted. “But Ono-san wouldn’t have it. He wouldn’t even take a meeting. It was crazy.”
“Everybody was trying [to get me a meeting],” Langdon told his hosts. “So you know, I just left it as is. Did my apologies to my partner, ‘I’m sorry this has happened this way. This is just this crazy world we’re in.’ It turned out later there were other issues with Ono-san. I think he publicly quit, but there was a lot going on there that I think Capcom was ready for him to move on. And the project met all kinds of delays because of that. There were script issues, even the director was switched and off the project, there were a lot of issues.”
“So basically all that happened,” he continued. “Years later, COVID hits, and then yes, I’m very vocal about the jab, about the forced [vaccinations] – which is a breaking of a Nuremberg code from WW2, to force inject anyone with anything without their consent, we already learned this lesson, and just to see this industry, my industry, the entertainment particularly, take that stance, broke my heart. And I was like, I don’t want any part of this.”
Following this lengthy testimony, Langdon then assured fans that while he may no longer be gracing their speakers during the occasional round of Street Fighter, neither the Newsweek hit piece nor his personal opinions had had any effect on his continued role as Dante.
“And so, a few months after that,” he told listeners, [Devil May Cry series director Hideaki[ Itsuno-san calls up and says ‘Hey, Reuben, can you come back to Japan and do a mo-cap? We’re going to do a special edition of Devil May Cry V.’ So I went back, and I asked Itsuno-san and my partner too, ‘What’s the deal? How come you guys didn’t flip out over ‘Rebuen’s Newsweek article’?’ and they were like, ‘Yeah, we just looked into it, and it’s fine.'”
“So the DMC team, including looked into and saw what a bunch of BS it was,” the voice actor laughed. “Including Itsuno-san, they did the research,and totally validated that I didn’t say anything to offend anybody or I wasn’t whatever Newsweek tried to make me out as, all the lies. So it was fine!”
“I haven’t talked to Itsuno-san lately,” he added. “[But] As far as I know, our relationship’s fine, I haven’t been cancelled, I haven’t been spanked or told otherwise.”
To this end, Langdon then explained that his absence from Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat was not due to his beliefs or views, but rather budgetary constraints on the behalf of its developer, the China-based Nebula Joy.
“The night before the recording, I got an email from the lady, saying, ‘We’re so sorry to do this to you Reuben, but this project has been cancelled,'” he said. “And I knew, that was sort of, okay, something happened probably with the finances where they weren’t able to afford it, or something along that line.”
“They literally probably didn’t have enough money to finish the game, or at least hire professional voice actors, or whatever,” Reuben then stressed. “That doesn’t mean I was cancelled, this doesn’t mean Capcom hates me, because this happened with the [2007 Madhouse-produced] anime and other projects. It wasn’t up to Capcom to cast me.”
“We’re talking about budgets, we’re talking about outsourcing,” he ultimately concluded his side of the story. “These are things that Capcom doesn’t necessarily, or Itsuno-san doesn’t have the power over, the Chinese company, everybody’s working within these parameters, and it didn’t work out. And just because it didn’t work out, doesn’t mean I was cancelled.”
As of writing, Capcom has not offered any public comment on Langdon’s above claims.
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