M. Bison’s regular Japanese voice actor will not return in Street Fighter 6

On June 7, Capcom announced in a trailer at the Summer Games Fest that M. Bison will be one of the four characters that will be available for Street Fighter 6.

But it was recently announced that his legendary Japanese voice actor Norio Wakamoto will not be returning this time, possibly marking the end of an era for the iconic character (h/t: EventHubs).

Norio Wakamoto has been voicing the character for over 20 years, his first appearance was probably in 2000 in SNK VS Capcom: The Match of the Millenniumwhere he replaced Tomomichi Nishimura. He is replaced by Taiten Kusunoki, who lent his voice to the character in the Japanese dubbing of Destroy it Ralphalthough Capcom did not give an official reason for this actor change.

Instead, the information was simply relayed without further comment via M. Bison’s character biography on Street Fighter’s Japanese website, where Kusunoki is listed as his current voice actor.

Because of this change, some fans are speculating that 79-year-old Wakamoto may retire from voice acting, but this is currently unconfirmed.

Wakamoto recently appeared in Guilty Gear Strive (as Johnny last year) and will probably appear as a voice actor in the upcoming RPG Reynatiswhich is due to be released next month. However, it is not known when these voice lines were recorded.

Additionally, it was confirmed via the English version of the website that Gerald C. Rivers will return for the English dub.