I'm not surprised by this casting. If you pay attention to Disney's films & TV shows, both animated & live action, they tend to keep the contact info of the majority of their main actors on a shortlist of people to hire for new projects. Drake worked for them on Ultimate Spider-Man until sometime 2 years ago, so this makes sense. Hell, a lot of the voices of the secondary characters have worked for Disney at some point, like Yuffie's original VA, Christy Carlson Romano, was voicing Kim Possible & was on Even Stevens at the time the first game came out for example & I bet Drake would've loved to be in a KH game if he knew what they were about, which is possible because the first game came out when he was a teenage working for Nickelodeon, so he might've played some of the games years ago & taken an interest since the rereleases came out & 3's been getting all the hype over the last 5 years. I agree that Josh should play young Xehanort, but that job's already taken by Benjamin Diskin, so that's not likely. Maybe a literal brother to Eriquis or a friend who's like a brother to him. Then again, who knows how popular Drake & Josh is in Japan to really warrant an overt reference like that.
Also, just looking through the past posts here, why does EVERY casting have to be brought down by politics?
Announcement Thread: "James Woods confirms KH3's dub's being recorded."
Someone replying to the forum: "Oh, I don't want him as Hades. His politics are awful."
Like, what? Who didn't expect Woods back as Hades since he's come back for, literally, everything Disney Hercules-related that has Hades because he loves playing the character? Can we leave politics out of Kingdom Hearts? Also, that thread got FLOODED with other responses like that, so it's not just 1 person.
Announcement Thread: "Drake Bell Might be Young Eriquis in KH3."
Admin: "Drake Bell has (apparently) made homophobic & transphobic comments on Twitter."
Like, what? Why does that even remotely matter towards the casting of a Kingdom Hearts game? Again, can we leave this out of these discussions? However your feelings about these topics, do they really belong in threads discussing the English dub of this game? Why does it matter? These are actors that are here to act in a video game. Separate art from the artist, would you please? Or dedicate a whole thread for it. This doesn't seem like it's the best place to discuss these things. I have nothing against these talks, since they're issues that still need addressing, but there's a time & place & I really don't think a video game forum thread for voice acting is really the best place for it. Not trying to offend anyone, I just wanted to say this.