Funimation fires Vic Mignogna

[Sceptile Leaf Blade]

You can't be serious.

Where is the conspiracy?

You waited a whole decadeish for this far left social justice era to dominate the country and initiate these stupid witch hunts to ruin these innocent people you don't like.

Ideas of 'far lest social justice era to initiate witch hunts to ruin innocent people's lives', seems very farfetched and conspiracy-theory-esque to me. People are speaking up against sexual assault and against people committing sexual assault. People committing sexual assault, groping, and violating so many people over the years are not frigging innocent. There is not some mass plan to ruin innocent people's lives. Why would anyone even want that?

It's sad these young people are so brainwashed by the leftist social media propaganda that's totally cool with drag queen children and forcing transgenerism on 6 years olds

Social media propaganda brainwashing people into forcing them to become transgender is also ridiculous, I don't even know where you got that from.

 

[FlorgesPower2]

People are speaking up against sexual assault and against people committing sexual assault. People committing sexual assault, groping, and violating so many people over the years are not frigging innocent.

None of this applies to Vic because nobody came forward with any genuine proof he did anything other than some admittedly awkward pecks on the neck, that's not sexual assault.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

None of this applies to Vic because nobody came forward with any genuine proof he did anything other than some admittedly awkward pecks on the neck, that's not sexual assault.

If anything an unwanted kiss is an unwanted advancement but doesn’t necessarily mean it would lead to sexual assault.

 

[Sceptile Leaf Blade]

None of this applies to Vic because nobody came forward with any genuine proof he did anything other than some admittedly awkward pecks on the neck, that's not sexual assault.

There are worse allegations than pecks on the neck. Besides, first-hand victim testimonies are also considered evidence. You can't expect women to wear body-cams 24/7 just in case that they might be harassed sexually for gathering evidence. You can call it sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexually inappropriate behaviour. That's semantics and terminology. It's wrong, and that's the point. Pecks on the neck without consent are also inappropriate and wrong, even if it might not technically count as assault. A defence of "he did not do this other thing that's even worse than what he actually did" is not a defence at all, that's just lowering the bar far beneath where it should actually be placed.

 

[lolipiece]

OK, just as a fair warning, I'm only keeping this up because it's technically anime-related.

However, just in case, let's not let this discussion get out of hand.

 

[Mr. Reloaded]

I do agree that many of these allegations are basically just baseless and a lot of it smells like a massive conspiracy, really doesn't help that Rial took all of Vic's non voicing roles almost immediately after that claim.

But Florges, no need to be all this aggressive and spiteful.

 

[Kutie Pie]

So I guess it's over, but at what cost?

 

[FlorgesPower2]

Regardless of wherever or not he was guilty in the end (I obviously don't think he was) how dare the guys at Funi be absolute snakes and throw this guy under the bus, and then claim they knew the whole. You don't look any better by not saying anything, just saying.

 

[Nodqfan]

I'm curious as to who they'll get to replace him as Broly (That's the role that I mostly know him from)

 

[keepitsimple]

He should have been fired a long time ago, but I support the decision to fire him now. Looking forward to the day when there's no longer an angry internet mob immediately smearing accusers as liars whenever someone well known is accused of sexual harassment, that would be nice.

 

[TheWanderingMist]

I think they should have gone with suspension without pay until whatever court cases emerged were settled. Seems the court of public opinion still holds that the burden of proof is on the accused.

 

[Sceptile Leaf Blade]

I think they should have gone with suspension without pay until whatever court cases emerged were settled. Seems the court of public opinion still holds that the burden of proof is on the accused.

I disagree. The threshold for losing your job isn't the same as the threshold for being thrown in jail. The thing with sexual harassment in the workplace is that if you only allow real repercussions if there's ridiculous amounts of evidence the practical consequence is that men, especially men in power, have effective freedom to sexual harassment because it is something that is notoriously difficult if not impossible to prove if you neglect witness testimonies altogether. And that is a real situation in a lot of workplaces that sparked the MeToo movement in the first place. Women being powerless to stop sexual harassment, because the harasser is higher in company hierarchy, because the harasser has a large fanbase and it'd cause backlash, because standing up for yourself can harm the company's image so you risk your own career.

Coming back to this specific situation. In a court case you'd ideally look at proof of wrongdoing beyond any reasonable doubt. That is open to interpretation. How much doubt is still reasonable? There will always be some kind of doubt, some theoretical possibility of a mistake somewhere. In this case I'd argue that still doubting that Vic is a creep who has a history of sexual harassment in the light of this many accusations is not reasonable. Individual cases you might still consider that they haven't been proven beyond reasonable doubt, but as a collective systematic behaviour that threatens the safety and well-being of female employees I'd say it is proven beyond reasonable doubt. The likelihood of the vast majority of accusations over so many years being false is simply negligible. And in that light I'd argue that him being fired is the only right course of action to show that you take safety in the workplace at least somewhat seriously. Does it have to do with their company image being tarnished even further if they didn't? Of course that also weighs in and might have even dominated Funimation's decision-making process. But one is not separate from the other.

 

[Kutie Pie]

Monica Rial is losing her goddamn mind right now.

Spoiler: pictured: insanity

Some people are throwing shade at her.

By the way, Rekieta is an actual attorney who runs a YouTube channel. He live-streamed a discussion about this recently.

EDIT: Hour-late edit, but time-stamp is about 18 minutes in if you're not interested in comic books.

EDIT 2: Pensacon has a few choice words to say:

Spoiler

You know, you can tell con-goers you don't want your guests being harassed over this without sounding unprofessional about it.

 

[Kutie Pie]

So something crazy just happened. In my last post, I edited in some tweets by the PensaCon Twitter basically threatening to get attendees arrested for having a different opinion from them. Well, they're still at it.

Ethan Van Sciver, a comic book artist who hasn't been keeping a close eye on the Vic shitshow until recently, was sent this by a PensaCon staff member about a bomb threat they claim some #IStandWithVic supporter sent in.

But as it turns out:

And now that they're being investigated:

EDIT, the email. Apparently reporting a potential bomb threat makes you a dick:

He starts talking about it around 16 minutes in.

 

[Mr. Reloaded]

See, this is kind of the reason why I sort of just tapped out of the Vic situation, I don't wanna get doxxed for something I said, or my beliefs on this whole s~~tshow.

All I'll say is Rial needs to act like a professional instead of modern day 20 year old college students, who gets mad when people try to approach them with any argument.

 

[Kutie Pie]

I agree, that's why I've been mainly watching from the sidelines and looking up information as it comes through, and posting only the more interesting parts here because there's just so much going on. It just keeps getting worse because everyone involved are literally insane.

For instance, on top of the bomb threat leading a con to now getting investigated on a national level, we have a hoax SWATing by a voice actress, Samantha Inoue-Harte, who was part of the investigation at Funimation. The SWATing incident blew up on Twitter before it was revealed it was fake. Then Samantha purged her Facebook, and Sean Schemmel also locked down his Twitter shortly after this.

https://archive.li/iwgRi
https://web.archive.org/web/20190218203039/https:/twitter.com/xerjester/status/1097537983727558656
https://archive.li/iicAa

The article below has screenshots of tweets that proved its falsehood, plus others that I've already given archive links to above.

https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2019/...funimations-vic-mignogna-investigation/77371/

Funimation voice actress and Saiko Studios head, Samantha Inoue-Harte, was discovered to have been involved in a SWATting hoax. According to some internet sleuths, they managed to uncover the plot to smear supporters of anime voice actor, Vic Mignogna, who has been tarred with allegations of misconduct.

Originally, on February 16th, 2019, voice actress Samantha Inoue-Harte posted a now deleted message on Facebook stating…

“[R]eactivated Facebook. Ugh. Vic’s fans were just extra terrible yesterday. Got tired of their constant victim blaming and their hate.

“I just can’t deal with it when people suggest threats of violence towards me. Repeatedly. Especially while I’m still recovering from being sick.”

On February 18th, 2019, Harte posted now deleted messages on Facebook claiming that she had been SWATted, and blamed Vic Mignogna’s fans for the incident.

On Facebook she wrote…

“Dafuq. House got swatted.

“Thanks Vic. Your fans are victim blaming Assholes.

“Spend most of the morning fixing my door frame and replacing the door.

“Police apologized and helped replace the door.

“I’m fine. Just pissed. It was at my rental house, not the one I live in daily.”

Fellow Funimation voice actor, Sean Schemmel, who is known for voicing Goku in Dragon Ball Z, also chimed in with his support via Twitter.

However, it turned out that it was all fake.

On the evening of February 18th, 2019, Twitter user ChambersofHeart posted up screenshots of the evidence, showcasing that the SWATting incident actually occurred back on August 19th, 2016.

https://twitter.com/ChambersofHeart/status/1097645929358917632

In the screenshots it shows that the images that Harte had used in her post claiming that she had been SWATted, actually came from the screenshots she used in the August 19th, 2016 post claiming that she had been SWATted.

ChambersofHeart also posted the message from the now private Facebook page where Harte had explained what happened on the morning of August 19th, 2016, where she wrote…

“So this happened early this morning. Williamson county police battering rammed my front door before dawn.

“I wasn’t there. But they knocked loudly on the door close to 3am and when the family woke up and went to answer the door, the police proceeded to ram the door open even though the family and kids kept saying that they would open the door for them.

“When the police came in, they aimed their guns at the family and searched the house.

“Police informed me that they had received a call saying that there was a burglary in progress in my house.

“So rather than knock on the door and let the family living there answer the door like civilized people, police rammed the door in. The family allowed the police to come in and brewed them coffee. But when the police were asked if they would pay for the damages the response was that they had “reasonable doubt” that there was a burglary going on.

“So yeah….getting a new door installed tomorrow morning at 8:30am…have to replace the door jam and the door.

“If I find out who made that call I am going to go Medieval on their behinds. Nearly $420 for a new door….and paying for door jam and contractor is making it close to $800 that I didn’t plan on shelling out because of someone making a false call.

“Police came by at 8:30am to drink more coffee and to apologize….but apologizing doesn’t replace a broken door.”

YouTuber Memology 101 also did a video with the images of the Facebook posts and of the door from 2016 to basically piece it all together within the span of a two minute video.

About an hour after the tweets went live pointing out that the SWATting was a hoax fabricated by Harte, the voice actress proceeded to delete/private her Facebook posts and privatize the account.

If you attempt to click on the links to the posts, they aren’t available as of the writing of this article. The post from 2016 is private and the post from 2019 is private.

While that in itself was a doozy, the real news was that Samantha Inoue-Harte was also supposedly involved with helping Funimation with the investigation into Vic Mignogna, which ultimatley led to his firing.

This was originally revealed in a tweet posted up on Kaylyn Saucedo, also known as “MarzGurl”, an internet anime personality. The tweet was posted on February 18th, 2019.

However, Saucedo conceded in a follow-up tweet later in the day when it was revealed it was all a hoax that she was disappointed to find out that the story about the SWATting from Vic Mignogna fans made by Harte was fake.

Of course, the revelation that Samantha Inoue-Harte had fabricated a story in order to make Vic Mignogna and his fans look bad called into question the veracity of her claims that were used in Funimation’s internal investigation that led to them firing Mignogna.

This also led supporters to instantly call into question whether or not Harte’s involvement with the investigation was purposefully done to sabotage Mignogna’s career.

I did reach out to Funimation to ask if they would be conducting a second investigation now that the information has come to light that Harte fabricated the story about the SWATting taking place at the hands of Mignogna supporters. At the time of publishing the article they have not responded. However, if they decide to respond the article will be updated with their response.

Nick Rekieta also confirmed last night in his stream that he got explicit permission to create a GoFundMe for Vic's legal fees. Still debating on if I should post a link once it's up, but figured might as well so folks can take a look through it.

EDIT: It's up now.

Vic Kicks Back

Vic Mignogna spent the past two decades building a career as a voice actor. He worked with great people, made great friends, and represented great companies.

Over the past month, all of that work and goodwill was maliciously and brutally destroyed by a dedicated group hell-bent on dragging his name and reputation into oblivion. This capped off with hurtful allegations from people Vic has worked with, and considered friends, for many years.

Now Vic has been removed from Rooster Teeth and Funimation, and disinvited from several conventions, disconnecting him from his income and from his fans and supporters.

Vic has tried to mitigate the situation with public statements, and the attacks on him and his character persist. Anyone who knows Vic knows he would never ask for this, and does not want this course of action. When your opponents leave you no choice, you eventually have to kick back.

This Fund is set up for Vic's legal defense fees. There are MANY possible defendants in different jurisdictions, from boring bloggers to multi-million, even multi-billion dollar corporations. It takes an agile and experienced (read: not cheap) legal team to coordinate this kind of strategy.

I AM NOT REPRESENTING VIC IN A LEGAL CAPACITY, but I am aware of the team who is and will coordinate this fund to pay for Vic's legal fees. Litigation costs are highly dependent on the actions of your opponents, so I'm hoping to raise enough to account for that. We will announce the disposition of any extra funds candidly and provide updates on the usage of funds to the extent that such information can be made public.

You know Vic, whether you've supported Vic for years, or just recently found out about his situation, you know he'd never ask for this. That's why I am doing this and he is not involved. He is thankful for prayers and support but, in my professional capacity as an attorney, I know this comes at significant financial cost.

BUT IT'S TIME TO FIGHT BACK. Brigades of pseudo-anonymous keyboard warriors cannot be allowed to defame and destroy decades of goodwill on rumor and unverifiable allegation. Companies cannot rely on non-credible accusations and devastate a career for virtue points.

Help Support Vic. Help Vic Kick Back.

There also is an independent company called Fantasy Soft Entertainment whom Vic (and Todd Haberkorn) has been working with have released a statement back on the 7th saying they're backing them up.

https://twitter.com/Fantasy_Soft/status/1093453105822351360

 

[FlorgesPower2]

At this point Vic needs to just sue everyone involved, and try and clear some of his name.

Because now I'm really questioning the motives of some of these people, voice actors who can't take mean words and call homeland security, people calling false swatting incidents ect. And people really tried to tell me this wasn't some sort of agenda.

 

[Draknir]

I'm going to preface this by saying that I feel this whole situation has become incredibly toxic as a whole. I am also going to say that I have my opinions on this situation but I personally will not voice them. I am merely posting information about the side that seems to have little to no representation in this thread.

Spoiler: Monica Rial posted this to Twitter last night

https://io9.gizmodo.com/one-of-anime-s-biggest-voices-accused-of-sexual-harassm-1832390505

There is also this article which has this tidbit, among quite a bit of testimony from over the years, that stands out in particular

In summer 2018, as preparations were being made to record the dubbed vocals for Dragon Ball Super: Broly, two people connected to the project met with Funimation executives to suggest Mignogna be recast due to some improper conduct allegations making the rounds in the voice acting community, according to someone present at the meeting. This person, who asked not to be named, said that Funimation later told them the company was conducting an investigation into Mignogna’s conduct—but it was inconclusive, so Mignogna was kept on the project.

So, to claim that Funimation "jumped the gun" and fired Mignogna without evidence is wrong. They were investigating as far back as last summer.

And, I don't think this is an opinion, anyone falsely claiming to have been doxxed or swat'd over this absolutely should face the consequences regardless of which side they are on.

 

[Kutie Pie]

I'm going to preface this by saying that I feel this whole situation has become incredibly toxic as a whole. I am also going to say that I have my opinions on this situation but I personally will not voice them. I am merely posting information about the side that seems to have little to no representation in this thread.

Good, we should get more information from both sides also I'm glad to see someone else wants to document information as well ; I saw Monica's statement last night, but I wanted to sit on it another day and see if there was going to be more since things are just continuously piling up. I'm honestly unsure how I feel about her statement given her behavior on Twitter last week and that I saw a tweet from her fiancé basically threatening to take Vic to court, I just think it's probably not a coincidence she released one shortly after the GoFundMe went live (or was it before? I saw it after). Still, though, should Gizmodo have thrown their hat into the ring given this current environment? Vic's lawyered up, and if this goes to court, he's got names. If Gizmodo turns out to be posting lies/pushing an agenda/doing something out of line, they'll get added to the list, too. I do think it's interesting they say they got an inside source that there was an investigation last year but that it came up "inconclusive". But I dunno, something just doesn't feel right about that reveal, like maybe we're missing a piece. That piece isn't about getting a name, though, I don't care about who it was who told Gizmodo about it.

In the meantime, Yellow Flash has posted a video going over Glassdoor reviews of Funimation (posted long before the Broly movie came out) and discovered a pattern in the reviews about terrible management.

He doesn't go through all 41 reviews on-camera, though, but every single one he looked at in the video brought up the mismanagement and he's said all of them do mention it.

And, I don't think this is an opinion, anyone falsely claiming to have been doxxed or swat'd over this absolutely should face the consequences regardless of which side they are on.

^^^ This.

EDIT:
Last night Rekieta streamed a video talking about litigation and companies. He brought up the definition of legal conspiracy, but what I'm timecoding is afterwards where he asked about who holds management in Funimation. Because as it turns out, in Texas, they have a "vice principal liability" doctrine. What this means is any "servant of the master" who is granted authority by the master (the company in question) becomes a "vice principal", an agent of the company.

When Funimation broke off from Saban Entertainment, they gave their main voice actors management authority as a cost-saving measure when they were first founded.

Vice principal liability is brought up at about 42 minutes in, but I've timecoded it to the discussion about internal investigations by companies and middle management that may come back to bite Funimation in the butt if they're not wrangling in people and telling them to knock it off. This could be what Monica meant by her risking her career talking about this.

 

[Mr. Reloaded]

I

I hope it's not actually related and is just a bug, they can't be that petty.