I still can't get over how this idea that Nomura, a man who is not fluent in English, must personally contact this one specific American actor or else it's proof of a malevolent scheme against them, is in any way reasonable. He doesn't even do this with the Japanese cast, and some of those people he is actually close to on a personal level.
In a completely unbiased discussion, no one would even blink an eye at this. However, Face My Fear only refers to Alyson by her last name, and in a thread where he has repeatedly talked down to her as an inferior person while elevating Hayden to the second coming to Jesus, it's clear that he does not respect her.
How is it clear that I don't respect Alyson when she voices my second (and sometimes first, depends on the day) favourite character!? Kairi isn't even near the top of the list.
I was just referring to Alyson for what she was so far in the series, in regards to Kairi - she was the replacement for Hayden in the smaller appearances of Kairi. That is a fact. Before KH3 came out, I think most people saw Alyson that way and expected Hayden to come back for KH3. It's typical for a major star to only appear in the major titles (like Tom Hanks as Woody), and have someone else do the minor work, so I thought that would be the case for Alyson/Hayden's situation with Kairi.
I'm not disrespecting Alyson over anything. My problem is simply that Square/Nomura didn't telephone or text Hayden to ask "hey are you interested in doing Kairi's voice for KH?" It doesn't cost Square's secretary or Nomura's personal assistant any money to do that and takes less than a minute to do, so clearly there is a reason they didn't want Hayden back and that's just wrong in my eyes to not ask. Square must have known that KH3 was - in a way - a celebration of getting everyone back together... "everyone" includes Hayden, who was there from the start and helped make the franchise what it is.
Back in the day, a big selling point of KH was the fact that so many DISNEY voice actors from the films were actually in the game. I think that same excitement and joy should be extended to the original (and particularly the main) characters LIKE KAIRI. So yeah, Hayden - for whatever reason - wasn't able to do the smaller gigs for the handheld titles and Alyson was paid to be the replacement. That's fine and understandable. What's not fine nor understandable is the fact that in an age of nostalgia and wanting to see original casts back together, Square/Nomura decided to not even ask Hayden to come back.
And honestly, people just jumping to conclusions about Hayden being "inconsistent" so they fired her and moved on with Alyson, like really? Is Tom Hanks inconsistent voicing Woody because he only does it for the films? Is it really worthwhile to delay a handheld project/drain the budget just to get THE Hayden Panettiere to voice one line? She did it when she could, but don't condemn her for not doing all of the one-liners they had across the handheld games. Hayden shouldn't be penalized or subject to name-calling ("inconsistent") just because she didn't say like 3 lines across 3 handheld games.
The right thing for Square/Nomura to have done was reach out to Hayden during 0.2's pre-production and let her know that KH3 is coming out and that they're wondering if she's interested. Maybe even TELL HER that Kairi is going to be featured heavily and will be the focus of a DLC package and solo game. For all we know, Hayden may have thought that Kairi's role was reduced to nothing if she got multiple requests for the handheld games and she gets the script and it's just one line.
Anyway, I'm going to end this by voicing my displeasure with Square and Nomura for not even calling Hayden. Full stop. It has nothing to do with Alyson.