Firefly Wedding’s English Dub Starts Today. Meet the Voices Behind the Bride Who Proposed to Her Assassin

Firefly Wedding, the Meiji-era romance about a dying noblewoman who proposes to the assassin sent to kill her, starts streaming in English on Crunchyroll today. Rowan Gilvie voices Satoko and Kieran Flitton plays Shinpei, with Dallas regulars Jason Douglas, R Bruce Elliott and Chris Rager around them. Caitlin Glass cast and directed the dub.

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Crunchyroll named the English cast on Thursday, and Anime News Network reported it the same day. The full list: Rowan Gilvie as Satoko, Kieran Flitton as Shinpei, Jason Douglas as Mitsueda, Ben Stegmair as Kotaro, R Bruce Elliott as Jubei, Jordan Colea as Miwako and Chris Rager as Ozoe. Weston Loy, James Marler, Nic Hamill, Marcus Rothenberg, Nasim Benelkour, Sambob Park, Adrian Godinez, Hollis Beck and Taylor Murphy fill in the additional voices.

The show adapts Oreko Tachibana’s manga, which launched on Shogakukan’s Manga ONE app in January 2023. Satoko Kirigaya is a count’s daughter with a weak heart and not much time left. She wants to marry well and make her father proud. Then she’s kidnapped, and the man hired to kill her, Shinpei Goto, grins at her through a spray of blood. Her way out is to offer him her hand. He says yes, and he means it far more than she does. Takahiro Kamei directs at david production, and the series has aired on Fuji TV’s Noitamina block since October 9.

A bride who proposes, and the assassin who says yes

Gilvie’s recent leads include Guideau in The Witch and the Beast and Shion in Magic Maker: How to Make Magic in Another World. Fans of cozy shows may know the voice as Ryoko Toba in Laid-Back Camp. Gilvie announced the role on Bluesky early on Friday: “What I’ve heard so far is enchanting. I’m thrilled, so humbled, and grateful to be along for the ride.”

Crunchyroll's English cast cards for Rowan Gilvie, Kieran Flitton and Ben Stegmair, as shared by Gilvie on Bluesky on October 23, 2026. Images: Crunchyroll. Composite image: Voice Over Herald

Flitton was born in England and now works out of Dallas, according to his Anime News Network profile. He plays Hyoga in Dr. Stone: Science Future, Renji Yanagi in The Prince of Tennis II and Kanata in MF Ghost, and he voiced Draht in Frieren. He also writes. His credits as an ADR script writer include The Apothecary Diaries and The Drops of God, so he knows how a line has to fit a mouth before he ever steps up to say it.

Shinpei is the hard part. In Anime News Network’s preview guide, critic James Beckett described the character’s sound in the Japanese version: “He speaks every line with a Cheshire Cat’s grin and a sardonic lilt in his voice.” Reviewing the Anime Expo premiere in July, Kalai Chik wrote that Kōki Uchiyama “provides a good balance in Shinpei’s voice, maintaining a light but sharp tone as the smiling assassin.” That’s the bar Flitton walks up to today.

The Japanese voices set the bar

Lynn plays Satoko in Japanese and Uchiyama plays Shinpei. At an early screening in Tokyo on September 6, both talked about how they got there. Lynn said her manager was a fan of the manga and told her, “Make sure you win it!” Uchiyama had already voiced Shinpei in the manga’s voice comic before he won the TV role at audition.

He found it funny how quickly the staff agreed. “Shinpei is a complex character, so I thought recording him would be hard work,” he said, according to the official anime site, “but the staff all told me I was ‘perfect!’ for him. I couldn’t be happier… but I have complicated feelings about it.” Overseas fans know Uchiyama as Tomura Shigaraki in My Hero Academia and Kei Tsukishima in Haikyu!!.

Lynn, center, with Kōki Uchiyama and Kent Itō at the Tokyo advance screening on September 6. Image: Firefly Wedding anime official site

The manga’s creator heard the two of them at the recording. “At the recording, I got to hear Lynn and Uchiyama’s voices, and I was amazed. They sounded just as I’d pictured, as if the two of them really existed,” Tachibana wrote on the official anime site. The creator heard “a Satoko who is delicate yet strong at the core, and a Shinpei who is both alluring and childlike.”

Kenjirō Tsuda, who voices Kento Nanami in Jujutsu Kaisen, plays Mitsueda, the Tennyo Island yakuza who was paid to have Satoko snatched. He sounded delighted: “It’s a lot of fun getting to play a dangerous guy.” Kent Itō plays Kotaro, Satoko’s childhood friend and bodyguard, and Kazuhiro Yamaji plays her father, Jubei.

Dallas veterans fill out the house

The English supporting cast is stacked with voices anime fans have heard for decades. Douglas, who plays Mitsueda, is Beerus in Dragon Ball Super, Heiter in Frieren and Kishibe in Chainsaw Man. His agency, Mary Collins, notes he’s “most often recognized from his four seasons as ‘Tobin’ on AMC’s The Walking Dead.”

Rager, the English Ozoe, is Mr. Satan, also known as Hercule, in Dragon Ball Z Kai and Dragon Ball Super, Cementoss in My Hero Academia and Arlong in One Piece. Elliott, who plays Satoko’s father Jubei, has been Captain Ginyu in Dragon Ball Z Kai, Dot Pixis in Attack on Titan and the butler Tanaka in Black Butler. Between them, that’s a lot of anime history at Satoko’s family table and on the island’s back streets.

Stegmair, the English Kotaro, works both sides of the glass. His site describes him as a German-American actor and director who’s an assistant director at Crunchyroll, and he’s credited as assistant ADR director on Frieren’s second season, Gachiakuta and My Hero Academia’s final season. In front of the mic, he voices Yuru in Daemons of the Shadow Realm. Colea, who plays Satoko’s spoiled half-sister Miwako, is a Dallas actor whose roles include Sora in The Drops of God and Lilian in Pass the Monster Meat, Milady!.

The matchmaker behind the mic

Glass is credited as both casting director and voice director on the dub. On her own site she’s a Senior Voice Director at Crunchyroll, and her directing credits include Fruits Basket (2019), Solo Leveling, Mob Psycho 100 III and Chainsaw Man: The Movie, Reze Arc. As an actor she’s Winry Rockbell in Fullmetal Alchemist, Haruhi Fujioka in Ouran High School Host Club and Damian Desmond in Spy×Family. Her site says she aims for “the dubs we watch to sound like the people who watch them.”

Gilvie’s Bluesky thread thanked Glass “for bringing me into this beautiful story” and singled out engineer Wesley Coleman and adaptation writer Matthew Greenbaum. The rest of the team: Samantha Herek produces, Macy Anne Johnson supervises the adaptation, Nathanael Harrison mixes, and Justin Cook, Michael Harcourt and Harrison are the studio producers.

When and where to watch

Episode 1 of the English dub arrives on Crunchyroll today, Friday, October 23, with new episodes weekly. Gilvie’s post puts the first one at 11 a.m. Central, which is noon in New York. The subtitled version keeps streaming on Crunchyroll as it airs in Japan, Fridays at 11:30 p.m. on Noitamina.

Shinpei and Satoko in episode 1. Image: Oreko Tachibana/Shogakukan/Firefly Wedding Production Committee

Be ready for the tone. Reviewers have called it a romance with real violence in it, and episode 1 doesn’t soften the kidnapping. In English, the manga is published by Viz Media, and Shogakukan put out the 13th Japanese volume on October 19. A live-action TV version follows on Fuji TV in 2027, so Satoko and Shinpei will soon have a third set of voices.

Sources: Crunchyroll News; Anime News Network (cast announcement, encyclopedia, Fall 2026 Preview Guide, Anime Expo premiere report); official Firefly Wedding anime site (hotaru-anime.com); Rowan Gilvie on Bluesky; caitlinglass.com; benstegmair.com; jordancolea.carrd.co; Mary Collins Agency. Quotations from Japanese sources are translated by Voice Over Herald. Hero image: Oreko Tachibana/Shogakukan/Firefly Wedding Production Committee.

Lee este artículo en español: El doblaje en inglés de Firefly Wedding se estrena hoy. Estas son las voces de la novia que le propuso matrimonio a su asesino

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