© Takuya Satō
The official Japanese X (formerly Twitter) account of Chinese developer Hypergryph’s Arknights mobile game announced on Wednesday that voice actor Takuya Satō will step down from the roles of Midnight and 12F in the game due to “various circumstances.” Hypergryph apologized to fans and stated that it will announce a replacement of the existing audio for the character at a later date.
In related news, Satō is leaving the role of Zayne from Papergames’ Chinese mobile otome dating game Love and Deepspace. According to the game’s X/Twitter account, Satō is leaving as his contract expires on June 7. The company will announce details regarding the replacement of the character’s existing audio in the future.
While there is speculation online that this is related to Satō visiting the Yasukuni Shrine in 2009, there has been no official word. Yasukuni Shrine is a Shinto shrine dedicated to Japanese soldiers who have died in service of the Japanese Emperor, including controversial World War II soldiers who committed atrocities against Chinese people.
Satō has numerous roles in anime, including Tasuku Takato in A3! Season Autumn & Winter, Ryūnosuke Tsunashi in IDOLiSH7, Caesar Zeppeli in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Albert James Moriarty in Moriarty the Patriot, Sabnock Sabro in Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun, and Toshiki Kai in Cardfight!! Vanguard.
Showtaro Morikubo stepped down from the role of Elysium in Arknights due to “various circumstances” in March 2025.
Chinese developers Studio Montagne and Hypergryph released the game in China in May 2019, and then Yostar launched the game worldwide in January 2020. The game then inspired several animated promotional videos since 2019 and a nine-minute animated “Holy Knight Light” short in December 2021 to mark the game’s first anniversary.
The Arknights: Prelude to Dawn anime premiered in October 2022 and had eight episodes. Crunchyroll streamed the anime as it aired in Japan. The Arknights: Perish in Frost television anime debuted in October 2023 and had eight episodes. Arknights: RISE FROM EMBER, the third television anime season, debuted last July.
Sources: Arknights game’s X/Twitter account, Love and Deepspace game’s X/Twitter account via Hachima Kikо̄ (link 2)
