Toei Animation’s official Dragon Ball Kai website has updated with the cast for the Ginyu Special Squad members. As is starting to become the trend, all five members have been completely re-cast with none of the original voice actors returning to take on their original roles:
- Ginyu: Katsuyuki Konishi
- Jheese: Daisuke Kishio
- Butta: Masaya Onosaka
- Recoom: Sasaki Seiji
- Gurd: Yashuhiro Takato
Jheese’s original voice actor, Kazumi Tanaka, passed away in late-2007 from pulmonary heart disease. Also of note, Kenji Utsumi , the original voice actor for Recoom, has already returned to reprise his role as Shenlong in Dragon Ball Kai, but appears to have given up voicing Recoom. He had left following the 100th episode of Dragon Ball Z, shortly after voicing Recoom, who was last credited in episode 95. Finally, Kōzō Shioya was the voice actor for Gurd in Dragon Ball Z, but since this character has been re-cast, it makes me wonder if the rest of his roles will also be re-cast in the future. If you will remember, Shioya was the sole voice for all of Majin Boo’s forms. So, did he decide he would rather return to voice Boo later rather than do Gurd now, or will he not be returning at all? I suppose only time will tell.