Forum - View topicINTEREST: Gundam's Tomino Thinks Young Voice Actors All Sound the Same
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WatchforMoons7
 Posts: 529 |
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Miyazaki, which has been mentioned before, has indeed criticized the use of "professional voice actors" after Porco Rosso. I think it had to do with them considerably melding the anime culture on how we see it today, so Miyazaki believes it lacks "being natural" while his movies reflect life lessons or culture. So he doesn't want to be "cutesy" or "school-like". That kind of presence. He wants a Japan presence.
I dunno. It left me curious, and so now has Tomino's opinion. "All the same"? It's funny since he employs new VAs to be the main characters. Does he mean main characters? I'm a bit of an ageist and somewhat think like he does. From what I gather: There has been Seiyu Booms, amount of voice actors are increasing, especially among younger people, but there is so much recycling. Like it was mentioned: "Junior" VAs are hired because they're cheaper. I have yet to see anything special among Ishikawa Kaito, Ono Kensho, Ono Daisuke, Kaji Yuki, Kimura Ryohei, etc. And they are constantly in highly-received content, or something that gets notable advertisement. Like on ANN for example. Out of hundreds of VAs. With this feeling of "restriction", typecasting comes in. Or rather, the VAs get more chances to sharpen their craft or "widen their breadth". Video games are a bit better. Yuki Kaji has this "youthful zeal" in his voice and he's racking more regular roles than anyone along with Nakamura Yuchi, Sakurai Takehiro, Miyano Mamoru, and Kakihara Tetsuya. Just examples. But I think out of all of the ones I listed, Sakurai gets my respect. On the vet side, Midorikawa Hikaru, Hoshi Souichiro, and Seki Tomokazu still has regular roles. 
But understanding comes with time and I just have to watch. The past wasn't any different, with Furuya Toru and Kamiya Akira being in lead for a long time, but I assumed that the Boom wasn't as significant. In addition, I almost see the same people voicing Monster of the Week in tokusatsu shows. Some VAs just have different inflection. Some anguish differently than others, sing better than others, shout more passionately, show more evil and coldblood or mischievousness than others, can't help but sound mellow, inexperienced, and young, and some VAs perform with a different chemistry depending on who they're performing with. But it may ultimately have to do with studio choice (ie: Aoni), who's in, and more importantly, what's being made that the VAs are invested in (ie: what kind of anime is being made). VAs are only one part of a production, so a director does play a role. As for "flare", we'll see what G-Recon has to offer.  Sorry for rambling. Love those guys.
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Shadowrun20XX
 Posts: 1936 Location: Vegas |
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But really, how far have writers reached away from the same ol Ojisan, Onee-san and Onii-san crap. Its unsafe to do so. I believe he has a point though, pay attention to the dialog Japanese VA's are given. He would need to say something to the chain of command like the directors, not the VA's. How often do Japanese VA's have creative control? |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Oh dear. If there were an actual Cult of Tomino you'd be in the running for high priest. |
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shamisen the great
 Posts: 658 Location: Oregon, USA |
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Hannish Lightning
Posts: 376 |
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Ha ha this guy is great. He just pissed off a ton of sub only elitists.
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residentgrigo
 Posts: 2574 Location: Germany |
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I feel that most female VA´s are directed the same these days but the male counter pasts have the same variety they had in lets says Zeta Gundam. That said why is Tomino´s judgment controversial ? He has 40 years in the business, a brain full of crazy and gave us anime for adults through messed up toy commercials.
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Shippoyasha
Posts: 459 |
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Tomino back to his usual attention whoring antics while pushing the rest of the industry under the bus.
He has been doing this for decades. |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5496 |
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Katsuhiro Otomo said the same thing while making Akira, he was originally going to use young actors, to match the characters age, but they all sounded the same so he used older ones.
I don't get what what you are expecting from a young VA, they haven't had years of experience, they are going on their training. That could of been what he was getting at anyway. |
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13613 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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It's possible that he has a figurative dementia/Alzheimer's.
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Chrno2
 Posts: 6172 Location: USA |
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I could almost agree with him on the whole j-pop thing but I don't know as far as actors go. Although I will admit that I've often times mistaken some well known male actors for some of the newer guys, so there might be something there. Now if they're talking about the ladies...hmmm...well hell, you guys are the ones that like all that high pitched girl stuff and all these flamboyant guys. Yep, I guess we be getting old now.
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Surrender Artist
 Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
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This is the sort of question that is hard, or even impossible to talk about because it’s not readily quantifiable or measurable, so it’s deeply subjective. Discussion of that kind of question tends to stop being about the question and just become a pretense for identity conflicts. Maybe Yoshiyuki Tomino isn’t really talking about judgements of contemporary as compared to historical seiyū and I feel like a few people sure as Hell aren’t.
I am skeptical of his claim, but this might be because of the rarified cartoon air that I breathe and my own limited appreciation of seiyū. Yet, yn the other hand, I can see how he could be right. I have a feeling that some people are overlooking or unaware of his criticism that contemporary voice acting adds, “too much flare,” as contrasted to more naturalistic speech. I don’t think that he’s referring to some sort of ordinary monotony, but rather that the industry ingraines into them a very marked and peculiar style and collection of mannerisms. Anime now is far more commoditized and money tighter than it was in the way back when. The people financing it have a pretty tightly defined audience, who in turn have very specific, known expectations, which include how voices should sound. There is limited business need or incentive to take risks that deviate from those expectations, so the choices of seiyū and how they are directed to act will be confined by the range of those expectations. Female Voices 1, 2 and 3 might be hair’s breadths apartment and defined by affectation, but they are what the fans want to hear, what they’ll obsess over and what they’ll buy. Why take the chance of irritating or alienating your reliable core audience by widening the differences between them, encouraging naturalistic tone or introducing Voice 4? Commercial products tend to become more 'refined' like this as the industry matures. Just look at bubblegum pop, rap or almost any popular entertainment medium and you'll see analogous phenomena. He might be old and cranky, but it's not inconceivable that he's on to something. |
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Shippoyasha
Posts: 459 |
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I wouldn't go that far, but Tomino has been known to be quite eccentric. He has shown some anti-social and even depressive states before, all that basically self confirmed by Tomino himself. I don't really hold it against him necessarily, but yeah, who knows if it's a medical/mental issue with him. To a certain extent, Hayao Miyazaki and Hideaki Anno showed somewhat similar streaks of eccentricities themselves. Though with the likes of Anno, he is so over the top and theatrical, one wonders if he's just playing out a role. While Miyazaki just seems like an old angry coot at times. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Watch any old anime, but especially the sorts of mecha anime that Tomino worked on. The voice acting will almost certainly not sound naturalistic, with people yelling their lines at every opportunity in an effort to sound cool or dramatical. Unnatural flare definitely existed way back then too, and was a more prevalent problem.
What? "Way back then", as you refer to it, toy companies would directly finance shows with the expectation of selling toys based on the characters, the machines and the monsters found in the show. Anime was very commercialised and commoditised back in the 70s and 80s. It still is, so nothing has really changed much except the specifics of how the companies wring money out of fans.
Oh puh-leez. Tomino himself has in interviews decried the annoying interference that the toy companies had on his productions. With Mobile Suit Gundam, everything - from the script; to the level of violence; to the characters; to what the lead machine looked like; and even the name of the show - all had to be approved by studio executives and the sponsors. Everything had to be suitable for the young male audience that were the show's intended target. So please Surrender Artist, do not try and tell me that only in recent years have studios and sponsors come down on directors and begun interfering in creative decisions. That behaviour has been going on since at least the 70s.
Again, see above. This is not a new problem in the slightest.
He's not onto anything, especially that is new. And neither are you. |
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WeskerGriff
 Posts: 89 |
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Kind of unreal all the level of ignorance in this thread and disdain being throw in Tomino’s direction. He was asked a question and gave his honest opinion, his opinion. Tomino has been working in the animation industry for over forty years, longer than the ages of most of the people who probably even visit this site.
People are already going to have their preconceived opinions on Tomino probably before reading this article, and as Western anime fans, it’s hard for people to imagine the immense popularity of series like the original Gundam series, Zeta Gundam, and Char’s Counter Attack. Since these series didn’t so well in NA and given how most Western fans enjoy the AU series like Wing, Seed, or 00. |
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King Arthur
Posts: 8 Location: Oregon, USA |
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Regarding the argument that "(original) Gundam and Zeta are the most popular", I would like to argue that the most popular Gundam series for recent generations has been Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny. Both Kira and Lacus kept topping character polls for years after the shows ended and to date it has been the only Gundam AU to get two full 50-episode seasons.
This popularity was even lampshaded by Sunrise themselves when the lead Gundam in Gundam Build Fighters was in fact the Strike Gundam from Gundam Seed. As for Tomino's bit regarding voice actors, I can understand where he's coming from. I fluently speak Japanese as both my parents are from Japan, and I've noticed a lot of "Mizuki Nana"-style and "Inoue Marina"-style voice acting and singing recently to name a few names. That said, I disagree that this is necessarily a bad thing as these styles are popular with the audience and the audience clearly wants more. And whatever style the voice actors may be using, it takes talent and skill for voice actors to do what they do. |
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