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Answerman - Why Is Anime Dialogue Recorded After Animation Is Done?


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#861208



Joined: 07 Oct 2016
Posts: 423
PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 11:15 am Reply with quote
This one show I like has the mouth movements completely out of sync with the voices in a pivotal, emotional scene, and it's sort of painful to watch. Of course, I'm talking about the TV version that's on Crunchy, and it might have been fixed for discs, but Sentai's DVD release of the series is even harder to watch because the subtitles are awful and you can't turn it off. ... it didn't get a dub, but having no dub is better than having a Sentai dub.
I need to look for the Japanese BDs...

The show is one of the most brilliant things ever and it deserves a high quality release, dub, sequel, etc., but barely anyone watches it.


Last edited by #861208 on Mon Jul 10, 2017 11:16 am; edited 1 time in total
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ptj_tsubasa



Joined: 04 Feb 2009
Posts: 129
PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 11:16 am Reply with quote
Also… it's the animation staff that ultimately creates the show. Would we really want them to give away their creative freedom and the flexibility of the script and directing just so that the voice actors could finish their work early?

Sure, voice actors can be creative people too, and at times we can get funny improvised lines like the impromptu opera singing in Monsters, Inc. But giving voice actors TOO much creative freedom sounds like a potential disaster.

You can also look at this the other way. Why do fans of Western cartoons place so much emphasis on animating all the syllables one at a time, to the point where it's a common joke that anime "has bad lip sync"? For me something like Family Guy looks actually a bit creepy.
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#861208



Joined: 07 Oct 2016
Posts: 423
PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 11:17 am Reply with quote
ptj_tsubasa wrote:
Also… it's the animation staff that ultimately creates the show. Would we really want them to give away their creative freedom and the flexibility of the script and directing just so that the voice actors could finish their work early?

Sure, voice actors can be creative people too, and at times we can get funny improvised lines like the impromptu opera singing in Monsters, Inc. But giving voice actors TOO much creative freedom sounds like a potential disaster.


That's not it at all.

For example, look at any of the singing scenes in Starmyu. The lips match (because it's to the song) and it looks great.
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 11:19 am Reply with quote
Whenever you see making ofs, the Voice Actors are always looking at what seems to be a rough storyboards
https://youtu.be/P17l7VlWBE8?t=30m21s
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mrakai



Joined: 30 Oct 2003
Posts: 40
PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 11:33 am Reply with quote
It doesnt seem as common now but back in the "old days" you could count like 1/2 a beat after the animation started for the dialog to kick in.

This was because in the group recording sessions (where most or all actors sit together and record, another difference from western voiceover), the actors would be sitting back and then would lean forward to start speaking into their (sometimes shared) microphones.

I imagine in today's world of everything digital they can adjust this more easily so it's not as obvious.
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whiskeyii



Joined: 29 May 2013
Posts: 2242
PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 11:34 am Reply with quote
Yeah, and Shirobako seemed to have instances where the not-quite-down-animation was used for voice work. Then again, that show about voice actors that aired recently (the name totally escapes me) had the actors all doing their lines to finished work, so I guess the process varies with how far behind or on top of schedule a studio is.
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Sahmbahdeh



Joined: 05 May 2015
Posts: 712
PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 11:48 am Reply with quote
I seem to recall an interview with a voice actress working on ufotable's F/SN: Unlimited Blade Works anime that said one of the unusual things for her as an actress was she recorded her lines first, and then the staff animated around it, instead of vice-versa. That really stuck out to me when I read it, as there really is simply a different understanding of how this usually works between eastern and western animation.
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
Posts: 3767
PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 11:55 am Reply with quote
whiskeyii wrote:
Yeah, and Shirobako seemed to have instances where the not-quite-down-animation was used for voice work. Then again, that show about voice actors that aired recently (the name totally escapes me) had the actors all doing their lines to finished work, so I guess the process varies with how far behind or on top of schedule a studio is.


You're probably thinking of Seiyu's Life (Sore ga Seiyuu). It's actually the show the thumbnail is from.
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silentjay



Joined: 12 Dec 2003
Posts: 303
PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 12:00 pm Reply with quote
ptj_tsubasa wrote:
Also… it's the animation staff that ultimately creates the show. Would we really want them to give away their creative freedom and the flexibility of the script and directing just so that the voice actors could finish their work early?

Sure, voice actors can be creative people too, and at times we can get funny improvised lines like the impromptu opera singing in Monsters, Inc. But giving voice actors TOO much creative freedom sounds like a potential disaster.




Wow... just... wow...
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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 12:13 pm Reply with quote
You can see the cost factor at work in early seasons of some American pre-lay shows, too. For example, the first season of Family Guy approximates the mouth movements a lot of the time, and didn't improve until it later received a higher budget.

Overall, I don't mind that anime is done in the order that it is. After all, dubbing into other languages works in large part due to the fact that most lip flaps are simple open and close animations that don't appear to form distinct words on screen. From the commentaries I've listened to, it does present an added challenge to adapting the script when a character's mouth makes a distinct movement since now the word choice also has to incorporate something that fits.
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Shay Guy



Joined: 03 Jul 2009
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 12:15 pm Reply with quote
Sahmbahdeh wrote:
I seem to recall an interview with a voice actress working on ufotable's F/SN: Unlimited Blade Works anime that said one of the unusual things for her as an actress was she recorded her lines first, and then the staff animated around it, instead of vice-versa.


Yeah, Kana Ueda, about two years back.

Akira is also said to have voicework recorded before animation, and I read somewhere that Kou Matsuo likes to do the same.
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John Thacker



Joined: 28 Oct 2013
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 12:16 pm Reply with quote
ptj_tsubasa wrote:
Sure, voice actors can be creative people too, and at times we can get funny improvised lines like the impromptu opera singing in Monsters, Inc. But giving voice actors TOO much creative freedom sounds like a potential disaster.


The director can always tell an actor to knock off the ad libbing in the booth if it isn't working. Some ad libbing is brilliant, of course, like Robin Williams in Aladdin. They certainly didn't start by a committee deciding that they would animate William F. Buckley Jr.
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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 5821
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 12:17 pm Reply with quote
#861208 wrote:

The show is one of the most brilliant things ever and it deserves a high quality release, dub, sequel, etc., but barely anyone watches it.


Is there a reason you have not named the show you are talking about. It seems you have went out of your way to not name it.
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Lord Geo



Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 2532
Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey
PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 12:22 pm Reply with quote
As others have indicated, not all anime has voice overs done with "finished" animation. An "AfuReco" version of an episode, as it's called for the purposes of voice recording, can have all degrees on completion when it comes to animation, depending on the specific scene. A pivotal moment might be fully animated, for example, while a simple conversation scene might just be key frames or even just pencil tests, and other scenes might just be the storyboards because they are likely going to be properly animated last.

Granted, some shows might have the luxury of having mostly finished animation when it's finally time to record VOs, but Justin's point still stands that anime production doesn't generally have the budget or time to bring in the actors to voice their lines to nothing but storyboards & the like, & then make the animation to work around the lines being delivered.
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Dalek-baka



Joined: 03 Jan 2013
Posts: 42
PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 12:28 pm Reply with quote
Sahmbahdeh wrote:
I seem to recall an interview with a voice actress working on ufotable's F/SN: Unlimited Blade Works anime that said one of the unusual things for her as an actress was she recorded her lines first, and then the staff animated around it, instead of vice-versa. That really stuck out to me when I read it, as there really is simply a different understanding of how this usually works between eastern and western animation.
If I recall they did something similar with Kemono Friends - they had some rough sketches/shapes of what is going in said scene. Which allowed them to get some improvised bits - Toki's song, scene where penguins introduce themselves (actress who played Hululu forgot to do it and they just left it).
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