Pokemon voice actress Rika Matsumoto who has served as Ash Ketchum's (Satoshi) Japanese dubber for several years now found herself in the middle of a controversy after it was reported that she allegedly embezzled COVID-19 relief funds that were intended to be distributed to struggling artists.
The incident was covered by Friday and according to the Japanese news outlet, Matsumoto's former manager came out to accuse the voice actress of committing the crime. She claims that Matsumoto deposited the entire COVID-19 fund straight to her account, all to herself, instead of distributing it to the respective beneficiaries.
The report, of course, was written in Japanese but it has been translated and summarized by Twitter user Doug Dinsdale. In a series of tweets, Dinsdale explains that Matsumoto allegedly assembled a group of six applicants to file with. However, two of them were not eligible to receive the grant due to their job titles. Check out the full thread below:
Matsumoto has since denied the allegations, claiming that she was only "holding the money" for the applicants and she intends to distribute them fairly. The accusations have yet to be proven. Matsumoto is an accomplished artist herself and considering Pokemon is still riding the wave of success all over the world, it's crazy to think that she'll be needing the money since it's safe to assume that the pandemic didn't exactly affect her livelihood.
Meanwhile, Pokemon Journeys: The Series is streaming on Netflix.
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