Hi, I was wondering if you had an idea for what you were gonna do with the Man From Nineteen Years Ago's voice, if you were gonna have Battler's VA voice it like in the Japanese VA, or if you were gonna go a different route. If you can't comment, that's okay :)

Ah, I’m impressed that someone asked about this detail! Thanks so much for your question, @taylorhyuuga! (A word of caution: this post contains minor spoilers!)

There are a number of different directions we could end up going with the Man from 19 Years Ago’s voice, especially since, from a meta perspective, it’s very possible that the voice the player hears and the voice Natsuhi hears could be two different voices. We talked about it at some length, but we ultimately decided not to commit to any particular idea before getting a feel for how all of the principle characters will sound in the first 4 episodes.

We haven’t ruled out the possibility of using Battler’s voice actor for the role, like in the Japanese version. But the fact that the English dub will also be released as a podcast makes it even more imperative that the Man From 19 Years Ago sounds distinctly different from Battler if we want to avoid confusing the listener.

This is because, by the time we get to Episode 5, the podcast audience (who may be new to Umineko) will be very accustomed to identifying the characters only by their voices, without the added visual aids that are present in the game– meaning that even if we do end up having Kyle voice the Man From 19 Years Ago, he will probably have to do a voice that is very different from his voice for Battler.

But regardless of what we end up doing, the decision will definitely be cleared with Witch Hunt/Ryukishi, and we’ll do our very best to work with the actor (or actress) to produce a sound that honors Ryukishi-sensei’s intentions with the text! :)