#ryu number

The Reading Development Library series is nominally about Reader Rabbit and Sam the Lion reading children's stories out of a book, like "Goldilocks and the Three Bears". This would normally render the Baby Bear appearance ineligible as in-universe fiction, but the games take the extra step of not only providing in-character narration, but also letting the player write letters to the fictional characters in question, who will respond with a narrated letter.

Shout out to @drslouch for correctly identifying the connections: the characters above are linked by voice actors.

As with previous April Fool's posts, I've made an effort to limit myself to one character per franchise. I've also made an effort to limit myself to confirmed voice actor roles, ideally through credits but also through other means like resumes and social media posts, given the specifics and politics behind dub voice actor crediting. The contributors over at Behind the Voice Actors were quite helpful to assembling this route.

I say "effort" because I have fallen just a bit short on both counts, however. First, both Makoto Yuki and Ryotaro Dojima are from the Persona series, and if you want to split hairs even further, you could put them in conversation with Raidou Kuzunoha XIV from Devil Summoner as part of the larger Megami Tensei series. Second, I wasn't quite able to find a confirmation that Dave Mallow necessarily portrayed Tokugawa Ieyasu in some Warriors games, which would be less of a sticking point if I didn't disqualify two separate alternate routes because I was unable to find a source on 1. whether Troy Baker did, in fact, voice Sol Badguy at some point, and 2. whether Kenji Nomura did reprise his role as Lex Luthor in video games like Injustice: Gods Among Us.

The voice actors highlighted in this route are:

Takashi Nagasako (Big the Cat from Sonic the Hedgehog and Cervantes de Leon from Soulcalibur)

Patrick Seitz (Cervantes de Leon from Soulcalibur and Ragna the Bloodedge from BlazBlue)

Tomokazu Sugita (Ragna the Bloodedge from BlazBlue, Raidou Kuzunoha XIV from Devil Summoner)

Billy Kametz (Raidou Kuzunoha XIV in Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne HD Remaster and Blue in Pokémon Masters EX)

Ryōta Ōsaka (Green in Pokémon Masters EX and Tokugawa Ieyasu in Samurai Warriors 5)

Dave Mallow (Tokugawa Ieyasu in Samurai Warriors 3 and Richard Nixon in Call of Duty: Black Ops)

Naomi Kusumi (Richard Nixon in Call of Duty: Black Ops and Roadhog from Overwatch)

Josh Petersdorf (Roadhog from Overwatch and Mike Haggar in Street Fighter V)

Kiyoyuki Yanada (Mike Haggar from Final Fight and Richter Belmont from Castlevania)

SungWon Cho (Richter Belmont in Vampire Survivors and Vaseraga from Granblue Fantasy)

Fumihiko Tachiki (Vaseraga from Granblue Fantasy and Rost from Horizon)

JB Blanc (Rost from Horizon and Ryotaro Dojima from Persona 4)

Unshō Ishizuka (Ryotaro Dojima from Persona 4 and Heihachi Mishima from Tekken)

Jameison Price (Heihachi Mishima in Street Fighter X Tekken and Zero Sr. in Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward)

Akio Otsuka (Zero Sr. in Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward and the Prince in Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones)

Yuri Lowenthal (The Prince in Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones and Makoto Yuki from Persona 3)

Akira Ishida (Makoto Yuki from Persona 3 and Gaara from Naruto)

Liam O'Brien (Gaara from Naruto and Johnny from Guilty Gear Strive)

Norio Wakamoto (Johnny from Guilty Gear and Cell from Dragon Ball Z)

Travis Willingham (Cell in Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi and Roy Mustang from Fullmetal Alchemist)

Shin-ichiro Miki (Roy Mustang from Fullmetal Alchemist and Spider-Man in Spider-Man (2000))

Robbie Daymond (Spider-Man in Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite and Chai from Hi-Fi Rush)

Hiro Shimono (Chai from Hi-Fi Rush and Zenitsu Agatsuma from Demon Slayer)

Aleks Le (Zenitsu Agatsuma from Demon Slayer and Lighter from Zenless Zone Zero)

Hiroki Takahashi (Lighter from Zenless Zone Zero and Ryu from Street Fighter)

Oh, and Big the Cat has an actual Ryu Number of 1.