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Answerman - Why Do Voice Actors Perform Multiple Roles In Dubs?

Great Teacher Onizuka is a great example of this, Wendee Lee played 8 main characters, and I think even some extras. And most of the rest of the cast did as well, there is even a scene where Steve Blum pulls over Steve Blum for speeding.

MarshalBanana wrote:

Great Teacher Onizuka is a great example of this, Wendee Lee played 8 main characters, and I think even some extras. And most of the rest of the cast did as well, there is even a scene where Steve Blum pulls over Steve Blum for speeding.

First thing I thought of was GTO when I saw the topic.

Even Urumi, one of the main characters that had a unique actress in Michelle Ruff, saw Michelle playing a ton of bit background characters like newscasters etc.

She is my favorite VA, so I pick her out every time despite her excellent range.

I think the most egregious example of multi-casting I've ever watched was the Tagalog dub of the original Full Metal Alchemist anime. Grace Cornel (whose voice I adore) played every female character, except Pinako Rockbell and Izumi Curtis, plus Wrath.

It's not uncommon for this to happen in an anime with a particularly large cast. A pretty quick look at the seiyuu list for Shirobako, for example, will show a lot of people credited with multiple bit parts, including in the same episode. It's a little rarer for someone to do both a main role and a bit part, but I've seen that as well. It's a matter of degree, though it does make sense that it would happen more often in anime dubs than in the Japanese originals.

If I correctly recall, several voice actresses in Kantai Collection played as more than one character--as many as five. The only characters that had their own unique voice actresses are I-401 and USS Iowa.

belvadeer wrote:

You do realize the Japanese VAs are multi-cast in various roles too, right? It's not exclusive to English dubbing nor does it lower the quality of the anime in any way.

It's also sometimes "hidden" as far as credits go. There are some exceptions (like Shirobako), but usually when a Japanese voice actor voices more than one role in an episode, they'll only get the credit for the more important role. This is often the reason why some minor roles who clearly have lines you can hear will be completely uncredited.

Didn't I say basically the same thing on like, the second page? LoL.

I believe that it's not usually the case, but it happens. In Saiki K., there's an episode where there's an uncredited minor role that seemed to be voiced by a VA who also voiced a character with a relatively more important role.

I don't know why they don't hire more VA's, but it makes sense if a VA voices two or more minor characters in an episode because it's cheaper that way.