Normally this incident is minor enough in scope to not be considered "thread worthy" from my perspective. But I get the sense that this forum would care about matters such as this, so I figure- why the hell not? Lets discuss this.
Famed anime voice actor Vic Mignogna (the English dub voice of Edward Elric, Obito Uchiha, and Broly, among many other roles) has been fired from Funimation and Rooster Teeth over sexual harassment allegations.
Dating back to 2008, there have been rumors that he's kissed, groped, and made unwanted comments to fans without their consent, some of whom were underage. Voice actresses Monica Rial and Jamie Marchi are also alleging that he's sexually harassed them before and several if not many different anime conventions are blacklisting him or dis-inviting him from guest appearances.
On the other hand, there has been some evidence that there might be an active conspiracy to have him railroaded out of the industry and that this is all just more #MeToo nonsense that is mostly groundless. Most video evidence that exists seems to be of Vic not being overly sexual in terms of physical contact or hugging people at worst. There is at least one instance of footage that was edited to make him look worse than what actually happened and its purpose was evidently just to smear him. There is some controversy that Monica Rial stands to gain from Vic Mignogna being removed due to the fact that she's inherited many of the roles that Vic Mignogna was going to voice and thus stands to gain from all of this. In a relatively recent photo, Monica Rial seemed to be on good terms with Vic and was all smiles and it comes across as suspicious to a lot of people that she's suddenly having nothing but bad things to say about him now as opposed to before.
The anime crowd on the internet is now dividing into two camps on this issue:
The anti-Vic Mignogna side assumes that he did it and that he's guilty. #KickVic includes Twitter and Pensacon which is an upcoming Anime convention in Pensacola, Florida- which has threatened to trespass anyone who brings up the topic of Vic Mignogna from their premises during the event.
The pro-Vic Mignogna side assumes that he's innocent and that he's being framed. #IStandWithVic includes fervent fans of Vic Mignogna's work and people who aren't convinced by the evidence that is available because the vast majority is only rumor or hear say that can't be verified.
To date, Vic Mignogna has apologized for his behavior, giving the impression that he's guilty to some degree. But some people contend that he's simply too nice and is getting walked all over as a result. So far as the more extreme allegations like molestation go, Vic Mignogna has denied all of it.
Given the information that is available via the internet and media, which do you believe is more true? Are you more inclined to believe that Vic Mignogna is suffering consequences he brought on himself, or that he's a good man being defamed because he wasn't disciplined enough in certain situations or displeased his colleagues too much?
One rumor is that several Voice Actors gave Funimation an ultimatum to fire Vic Mignogna and that they'd quit if they didn't, so Funimation chose to fire Vic Mignogna after a hasty internal investigation that might've or might've not been fair.
Situation:
https://www.monstersandcritics.com/anim ... haberkorn/
https://thedaoofdragonball.com/blog/new ... legations/
https://www.monstersandcritics.com/anim ... els-manga/
Analysis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEM-w3vhF9Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuWPmeAYMRw
In my opinion, nobody can prove that Vic Mignogna has done anything wrong and neither can anyone prove that he's being fired unjustly and that everything was made up. Nobody was there to verify 100% either way, so we'll never really know. People will have to go with whichever information convinces them more in this case.
