Forum - View topicAnswerman - Can English-Speaking Fans Critique Japanese Voice Acting?
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5316 |
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There are 3 behind the scenes I have seen that relate to this
1, Ghost in the Shell: The actress for Motoko said they were told to act like it wasn't Anime. Yet the final result still felt like it, only very monologue. 2, Redline: The gentleman who played Frisbee was really going for it, and the director kept telling him to calm down, he told them that was how a director he worked for liked him to act, and they had to tell him that's not how it works(or something like that I haven't seen it in awhile) 3, I don't know if this was a case of great voice acting, but in a behind the scenes to One Piece, the woman voicing Chopper actually had tears as Chopper was crying. |
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Alkeia
Posts: 24 |
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Please do not spread misinformation around on the seiyuu industry. As someone who answers questions that many with no knowledge will likely read, it is your duty to properly inform so that one who knows nothing may get an accurate idea of what it is you are talking about.
That being said, this article is full of balogna. One of the first points you bring up, about cues and timing, is quite vague. In the original making, animation is matched to a seiyuu, and not the other way around, due to the process of animation. English dubs often end up more unnatural sounding because they do have to be matched to the timing set by the Japanese seiyuu. The way you put it sounds as if seiyuus time their voice to the animation. You say several well-known directors go out of their way to get live action actors or unknowns, but there's really only a few that do. Ghibli is probably one of the most notorious for it. Often times directors and producers want A-list seiyuus because it boosts popularity and sales. At times they want to advocate new talent as well, and other times it's because they can't afford A-list. They don't come cheap, and it's for a reason. Exaggerated actions in acting, whether it be voice-related work or live action, is a given. Emphasizing mundane actions is a way to capture the viewer's attention. Your second paragraph is aimed at bad voice acting, but that's up to the skill of an individual and not the entire medium and industry in itself. In all languages, there will be bad voice acting, that's a given. A seiyuu being unable to use distinct voices is a lack of voice training and any real skill. Regardless of skill, everyone has their off days. You say "most anime fans" only care about the voice matching the image, and I have to wonder who you mean by that. The seiyuu fandom is a thing of its own, and a lot of people will watch just because so-and-so is doing the voice work, not because of the image. Many fans, myself included, care about who is cast as who, and whether the seiyuu themselves are any good or not. The way western viewers and Japanese viewers perceive things is entirely different, and you can't jumble all anime fans across the world into one small boat. That being said, some seiyuus are more popular for their image and who-knows-what rather than their skill, but it's still not a terribly big problem (yet). Your point about a good chunk of voice acting not sounding "convincing as realistic acting" just brings us back to an earlier point about exaggeration in acting. English dubs are actually arguably more "cartoonish" and over-the-top than Japanese. Japanese voice acting has very recognizable standards to anyone who has listened to enough of it. Of course, all of this depends on the show and role. To me it seems as if you're looking down on the industry and medium as a whole, as you're over-simplifying all issues and tying them to a narrow-minded conclusion. All aspects result from differences in animation process, culture, standards, and more. You can't narrow it down to simply the medium. A good example of a seiyuu being able to perform two stark contrasting roles would be Maaya Sakamoto in her work as Haruhi Fujioka from Ouran High School Host Club and Ciel Phantomhive from Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler). As these are both fairly popular titles in the West, I feel it's a relatable mention. A-list seiyuu often have quite a huge range from low to high, and give distinct inflection for different roles. It's one of the reasons for their huge popularity (and why they cost so much to hire). Takahiro Sakurai is especially notable for this. If you've ever watched a season where he plays multiple roles, you can hear quite the difference watching them back to back. Drama CDs are another gateway for seiyuus, and also a real show of their skills, as they have no animation to back up their acting. It's purely reliant on their skills to get the message and emotions across. Visual Novels and games are another example, and often times a seiyuu will admit that game voice work is harder than anime. Bringing to life a still image or a sprite with limited expressions is another show of individual talent in the industry. In the end, voice work quality relies on the individual, not the medium. |
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DuelGundam2099
 Posts: 533 |
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This is pretty much the reason I never judge acting be it a movie, tv, game, or animation, the yard sticks have no consistency to them. With every other basic critique (plot, characters, writing, visuals, sound, etc) even if I don't agree I at least know the general bar/"rules" they stand by. I've seen people talk in a variety of different manners, ages, and emotional spectrums, everything appears and sounds natural to me (talking is found in nature isn't it?
 ). I'm one of those few people that could see a Shamylan movie completely seriously like The Happening (even though no critics, not even the Nostalgia Critic, have noted that movie is a homage to 70s disaster movies and that is why that is why the way it was.... And Europe liked it up for some reason, who knew that genre was popular with over there?), monotone and "ideal vocabulary" does not bother me, I know its fiction and I've seen people talk like that. My standards for acting are really really simple: 1. Don't stutter lines unless it is otherwise necessary and 2. Stay in character. Kids that sounded like Episode 1 Anakin Skywalker? You're reading a post of one now. 
Also
What craftworld does this one hail from? 
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Paiprince
 Posts: 593 |
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Even if you don't know a single thing about Japanese, bad acting is still universal. Go watch any low budget OVA and you can tell a few don't even try. I like to present Mars of Destruction as evidence A of this. It has a lot of issues going for it, but the highlight imo is the seiyuu's "excellent" performance.
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Looneygamemaster
 Posts: 192 |
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The only anime to use this process (that I know of) is Akira, Red Garden and parts of Only Yesterday. All other anime is dubbed, even in Japanese, because it's cheaper. |
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8461 Location: Penguinopolis |
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The truth is, of course, that unless you're versed in Japanese (and heck, even if you are, you might not), you can't really tell whether Japanese performances are good or bad with any solid confidence. But if you've watched enough anime in Japanese, you can pick up on patterns and subtleties in performances that give you a good idea. Which is why while I can be pretty emphatic about my opinions of the superiority of a Japanese performance over an English one, given my decades of experience watching anime in Japanese, it does have to be taken with a grain of salt.
I do, however, speak English, and understand the language, and I can certainly tell which English dub performances are terrible with far more confidence. So unless it's a case of the Japanese performances AND the English ones sucking, I'm liable to prefer a Japanese version based on a combination of the aforementioned factors. Not that I'm opposed to English dubs as a rule, mind you. Is it a fool's paradise? Possibly. But even if I was fluent in Japanese, I would still be subject to the subjectivity of the interpretation of nuances. |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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It is not that english dubs always suck and japanese (or spanish) subs are always great, but the simple truth is that both japan (and mexico) have a dubbing industry more than 50 years old, because we have been dubbing foreign films and tv series since before most people here were born. Meanwhile in the USA you have rarely dubbed anything (and the cartoons you dub are adjusted by animators, because most actors never learned to lip sync) because most people consume only english language films and tv series (and everything else is very niche so most of the time it is subtitle only because there is no market for a dub). So given the small (and fragmented) talent pool, it is harder to attain the levels of quality we take for granted in other countries. But I hear that the full metal panic english dub is considered better even by the japanese and if netflix continues to pump money into dubbing, who knows (we used to kick the usa in soccer and look now). About the original article, I hear that just about the same happens to people that learn to read music sheets, the can no longer enjoy music when there is a mistake. I for one, hate when singers suck air thru their mouth, since I used to do it (due to a nasal obstruction) and became very self conscious about it. |
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TheAncientOne
 Posts: 1871 Location: USA (mid-south) |
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You appear to be implying that anime voice work in Japan is done in the same manner as most western animation (where the voice acting is done first, and the animation follows). If so, you are quite mistaken. It is quite rare for the voice work in any anime to be done before the animation. If the production is behind, Japanese voice actors sometimes only have kinematics or even storyboards to work off of, but if the production is on schedule, they are voicing to nearly complete animation of the episode in question. The advantage they have is that (hopefully) the scene has been properly timed for their dialog. |
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Alkeia
Posts: 24 |
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With the exception of the first couple of episodes and a series with enough staff members, animation production is usually off schedule. They more often voice to storyboards and rough than to complete animation. So more often than not, the animation ends up made to match them. The longer a series runs, the worse it's schedule usually gets. Low-budgeted and low staff productions especially. |
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DuchessBianca
 Posts: 562 |
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Sorry didn't want to quote the whole post but you did make good points and i come in peace but I have to ask when will the pool of American va talent not be considered small? Fragmented I completely agree, the va talent is split between union/non union, west cosst, east coast, in house, outsourced etc .. a huge mess at times but as mainly dub watcher I feel like there's never been more english va in the business. It seems like every new sentai or funimation dub cast announcement new va's are starting their careers, there seems to have been dozens and dozens of new va that are in the industry starting these past few years. I certainly have no clue how large other countries va pools are and mean no harm but I feel like some people just focus too much on the big names who are everywhere and never remember the tons of smaller names that are new va so always feel like it's the same handful of va's dubbing everything.Though of course using those smaller named more would probably be to the benefit of the companies  haha
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Kougeru
 Posts: 5527 |
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Oh lord, I barely know any Japanese and I'm guilty of this. It makes certain subs (mostly CR subs) upset me greatly at how they decided to translate things. They so often change meanings to really bizarre ways that ruin scenes. For example in Kancolle there's a scene spoiler[where a girl is mourning the probable death of a friend. She gets a hug and she says her "mune" hurts. The subtitles had it as "My arm hurts!" From her being hugged. I assume it was meant as a double-meaning from the hug that the person was squeezing too hard and caused physical pain on her chest, but also that her heart as hurting from the probable death of her friend. Changing it to "my arm hurts" was completely awfu and unwarranted for any reason at all.] I understand the need to make things more suitable for western audiences, but that should be (IMO) kept to dubs and not subtitles. People watch subtitles tend to be the ones that want a more pure experience. Back on topic: " That's a major reason why so many people just can't deal with watching a dubbed anime, even if it's a really good dub." My response to this is that I rarely hear good dubs anymore. Most the best dubs in terms of capturing emotion, believable performances and overall a more genuine sound, seem to be from the late 90s early 00's. I do agree that people's inner voices probably do make JP acting sound better than it really is and there's many popular seiyuu that I find to be "Bad" since they honestly sound the same in every show they're in. But then we have extremely diverse seiyuu like Chiwa Saitou and Yukari Tamura that have proven time and again that they are top tier that no dub can come near. Their time in voice acting school, years of experience, and raw talent are just obvious to me at this point. Overall, I think the problem of dubs vs subs is less that Japanese are "better", and more that the dubs are just bad on average in overall acting ability. Last edited by Kougeru on Fri Feb 26, 2016 9:47 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Kougeru
Posts: 5527 |
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I wouldn't know much about that, but I would assume if it's very common they would account for delays to begin with. But I do know that you're 100% right about them voicing to rough draws and storyboards pretty often. I honestly thought this was done intentionally so that they could easily edit the mounts to match the voice. |
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Doodleboy
Posts: 296 |
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For a show like FMA it can partially be the dialogue style. I remember listening to the series while doing homework in college and noting that the dialogue is pretty unnatural. It's shonen dialogue made more to be read in the page then to be spoken.
One show that stood out recently in the voice acting department was the main performance in Sound Euphonium actually. The main character stutters, mumbles to herself, she varys her tone, grunts. Kind of enhanced the series. Which is a heightened nostalgic setting but a setting still aiming for a degree of naturalism. |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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IMO there are two milestones: 1) When you recognize new voice actors of yesterday as the new big names in the dubbing industry. I still recall how the first work of megumi hayashibara was an scene in maison ikkoku (where she voiced an unnamed school kid). 2) When (sadly) the day comes for a voice actor to die and you see a list this long (he died relatively young at 57).
Even if the animation studio blunders and they do the voice acting using rough "animation", the allocated time for the japanese voice actor to say his/her lines is always on the script, they will NOT send the animation back to the key or inbetween animators to modify it to the voice actor recorded dub. |
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kazenoyume
Posts: 425 |
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It is sometimes hard to judge, but I will say that I am admittedly surprised by OP's statement, because Paku Romi's work as Ed (in both series, despite not being a fan of the first one), is some of the best voice acting I've ever seen, in any language.
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