Crunchyroll has confirmed that The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2 English dub release date is at 5:00 PM EST/2:00 PM PST on May 4, 2022. In addition, it’s been confirmed that the first season’s voice actor for Naofumi, Billy Kametz, will be replaced by VA Stephen Fu.
The Shield Hero Season 2 dub will be streaming on both Crunchyroll and Funimation. The two anime streaming services were both purchased by Sony. As such, the content on Funimation is slowly being shifted to Crunchyroll as the two platforms are being merged into one.
In the past, the Shield Hero English dub was released the same day as new episodes were released in Japan. The first season of the Shield Hero dub suffered a dubbing process delay and it seems The Rising Of The Shield Hero Season 2 dub will not keep up with a same-day Simuldub schedule.
New The Rising of The Shield Hero Season 2 dub episodes will be released weekly on Wednesdays. The latest simulcast episodes from Japan are streaming on Wednesdays at 6:00 am PST on Crunchyroll and Funimation.
Previously, Crunchyroll had announced that the Shield Hero Season 2 dub will also include English, Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, and Russian.
Naofumi voice actor changes for the Shield Hero Season 2 English dub
Billy Kametz, the LA-based voice actor, was recently diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. Fans of The Rising of the Shield Hero anime series will be familiar with Billy’s work, as he was the English dub voice behind Naofumi Iwatani in Shield Hero Season 1.
In recent times, Billy has been undergoing chemotherapy and he will be taking time off from work. Due to his condition, he had to pull out of voice acting roles but wants fans to support the shows and the voice actors that will replace him.
“We want to give a special thank you to Billy for his work on this series and other anime projects. His Crunchyroll friends and family wish him the very best right now.”
-Crunchyroll (via email correspondance)
Kametz’s voice acting career in anime is impressive. He voiced Josuke Higashikata in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable, Mikhail in Sirius the Jaeger, and Seiya Ichijō in Sword Gai, among many others.
Readers of Anime Geek that want to support Billy can make donations at the following GoFundMe page. And for those that want to keep up to date with the latest developments in Billy’s life, consider following him on Instagram.
The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2 English dub cast
The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2 dub cast includes:
- Stephen Fu (Wonder Egg Priority) – English voice of Naofumi Iwatani
- Erica Mendez (Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba) – English voice of Raphtalia
- Brianna Knickerbocker (The Seven Deadly Sins) – English voice of Filo
- Amber Lee Connors (Komi Can’t Communicate) – English voice of Ost Horai
- Dawn M. Bennet (Black Clover) – English voice of Eclair Seaetto
- Sean Chiplock (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind) – English voice of Kyo Ethnina
The ADR director is Steve Staley (Magia Record).