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Why don't US Voiceactors do anykind of singing in most anime?


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yuna49



Joined: 27 Aug 2008
Posts: 3804
PostPosted: Sun Apr 30, 2017 11:02 am Reply with quote
Naftali Poritz wrote:
Your saying that the American Fans don't want the songs dubbed?

If I were an American fan of AKB48, I'd want to hear them sing, not some bunch of Americans. Anime fans might have a different opinion. (Apparently there's not much overlap between AKB fans and anime fans in Japan, though there might be more among foreign audiences.) Switching soundtracks can help, but since many of the songs are used as backgrounds to other events (e.g., episodes one and two), that would mean switching to subtitles to follow the story.
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getchman
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 30, 2017 11:03 am Reply with quote
yuna49 wrote:

I've never watched the dubbed version of AKB0048 and was surprised to hear that any of the songs were dubbed. But I just watched the dub of the rescue scene in episode two and, sure enough, there was an English version being sung. I find this surprising since one obvious purpose of this show was to sell AKB48 records and the like. American fans of the group would know and prefer the songs sung in Japanese by actual AKB48 (or the ancillary groups) performers. I wonder who actually sung that piece, a group of Americans recruited by Sentai, or the AKB48 performers singing in English. The latter seems unlikely since their English is too unaccented.


That doesn't sound like English to me. Just to be sure, I just watched that scene in both languages on my BD disk. Song sounds the same. As far as I am aware, the only songs in English are Nagisa's poor attempt at an audition in ep 1, Mimori trying to cheer up Kanata in ep 4, Takamina singing "River" while Cheiri works on the song choreography (dont remember the ep) and Yuko singing at the giant industrial fan when the girls follow her on her day off in a later ep. everything else is in Japanese
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yuna49



Joined: 27 Aug 2008
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 30, 2017 11:07 am Reply with quote
getchman wrote:
As far as I am aware, the only songs in English are Nagisa's poor attempt at an audition in ep 1, Mimori trying to cheer up Kanata in ep 4, Takamina singing "River" while Cheiri works on the song choreography (dont remember the ep) and Yuko singing at the giant industrial fan when the girls follow her on her day off in a later ep. everything else is in Japanese

That makes sense. I can see dubbing solo performances in a few cases leaving the ensemble work in Japanese.
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Naftali Poritz



Joined: 25 Apr 2017
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 30, 2017 5:42 pm Reply with quote
I think there were some more scenes of English voice actors singing in AKB0048 than you described.

The second season had very few, mostly Yuko singing at the fan, but the First season had more instances.

I know episodes 1, 2, bit of episode 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, and 11 of the first season had some instances of English voice actors singing parts of the songs in English.

Love Live had no instances of any English VA singing whatsoever, which I don't know why compared to the other.

You think only fans of the Idols would watch this? Chances are, the fans may not want to watch the episodes in English anyway. In that case, they switch to the Japanese track.

In an English dub, I want there to be consistency, where the Voice actor playing the character would also do her (sometimes his) own singing.
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getchman
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 30, 2017 6:12 pm Reply with quote
sure, understandable, but again, that's entirely dependent on what the Japanese licensors will allow. Their show, their rules. we don't like it, tough.
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Touma



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PostPosted: Sun Apr 30, 2017 6:53 pm Reply with quote
Naftali Poritz wrote:
In an English dub, I want there to be consistency, where the Voice actor playing the character would also do her (sometimes his) own singing.

That lack of consistency is the thing that bothers me most when the songs are not dubbed. I find it very jarring and distracting to have a character who speaks English suddenly start singing in Japanese. It just takes me out of the show for a while. It is especially bad because I have never heard anybody in the show give an explanation for why the character is singing in a foreign language.
Cat Planet Cuties had a dubbed song that was sung by the whole cast.
Heaven's Lost Property had two dubbed songs.
Haruhi had two dubbed songs by Wendy Lee that I thought were really great. All shows were better for it, in my opinion.

I think that it is worth mentioning, if it has not been yet, that the music is much more important to the anime in Japan than it is here. For some anime a majority of the profit comes from music.
I think that it is posible that some of the Japanese creators just do not want us messing with their songs and possibly "damaging" them.
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Naftali Poritz



Joined: 25 Apr 2017
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 30, 2017 8:41 pm Reply with quote
I agree completely with Touma.

The issue doesn't seem to be with just Idol anime series, but many anime titles as well. I even noticed that for some reason since the summer of 2016, Funimation seems to be dubbing songs in singing scenes less than they have always been. Are more Japanese licensors cracking down more than ever before, and not allowing any type of negotiations to purchase the rights to dub the songs (or at least have the US Voice actors sing them) in anime?

Are these Japanese people in charge of the companies very strict and firm when it comes to music, often viewing the songs as completely precious, priceless artifacts?

I can never see the decisions being made during dubbed recording sessions and script writing, because they consider it classified information.

I have to put up with this anime cli·ché all the time, invoking both the Non-singing Voice and The Song Remains The same tropes.

This seems to only be an anime thing. I don't think the US companies impose the same restrictions internationally with its songs in animated series.

I wonder how Bang Zoom entertainment decided to dub the songs in Haruhi Susumiah and Yuki Yuna Is a hero, but decided to not do the same for the other series it dubbed?
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Naftali Poritz



Joined: 25 Apr 2017
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PostPosted: Mon May 15, 2017 9:21 pm Reply with quote
I wonder why I'm not getting anymore responses to this post?

Why do US voice actors not have any singing roles in anime and instead use the recording of the original vocals from japan no matter what language the song is in?
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Akane the Catgirl



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PostPosted: Mon May 15, 2017 9:31 pm Reply with quote
Naftali Poritz wrote:
I wonder why I'm not getting anymore responses to this post?

Why do US voice actors not have any singing roles in anime and instead use the recording of the original vocals from japan no matter what language the song is in?


I told you this before when you asked about why most video games aren't given English dubs. I will tell you this again.

I wrote:
Short answer- it's too expensive.

Long answer- dubbing is very very expensive. It not only costs more money to buy, but costs more money to produce. Anime is not the juggernaut here in America than it is in Japan. It's still very much seen as a niche thing enjoyed only by nerds. The rare exceptions to this view are the kiddy stuff like Pokemon and Yo-Kai Watch that air on children's networks. It's also the reason why there aren't that many dubbed anime openings; the people in charge of distributing these series simply cannot afford to take risks. As such, a dub is only made if the licensors and dubbing studios can guarantee that profits can be made. Or, more specifically, they won't lose money on.
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Mr. Oshawott



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PostPosted: Tue May 16, 2017 12:23 am Reply with quote
I agree with Naftali Poritz that the U.S. companies should try a bit harder to negotiate with Japanese music companies to get English versions of songs featured in English versions of anime shows, but if the latter won't offer a more lenient, less pricey contract or simply say "no" to having the songs covered, then it's out of the hands of the former and we'll have to live with it.

Edit: Alright! 5900 posts! Smile
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Naftali Poritz



Joined: 25 Apr 2017
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PostPosted: Tue May 16, 2017 11:41 am Reply with quote
Mr. Oshawott wrote:
I agree with Naftali Poritz that the U.S. companies should try a bit harder to negotiate with Japanese music companies to get English versions of songs featured in English versions of anime shows, but if the latter won't offer a more lenient, less pricey contract or simply say "no" to having the songs covered, then it's out of the hands of the former and we'll have to live with it.

Edit: Alright! 5900 posts! Smile


I am surprised that NA licensing/dubbing companies are not putting all their effort to negotiate with the Japanese music companies to be permitted to make their own cover of the songs for the English dub.

Often, even if the song was in English anyway to begin with, they still don't let the US Voice actor do a cover version of the song for the dub.

I don't know why Funimation is recently having trouble securing permission to do covers of insert songs in singing scenes for the English dub track in the past year or two? They use to not have much trouble doing so in the past. Are they just not making as much effort like they used to, or have Japanese music/production companies started to get stricter and crack down, and are refusing to negotiate anymore? Why would back in 2009-2012 they would give funimation permission to do covers of songs in singing scenes, but now they no longer do so all of a sudden?
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Akane the Catgirl



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PostPosted: Tue May 16, 2017 11:48 am Reply with quote
Naftali Poritz wrote:
Mr. Oshawott wrote:
I agree with Naftali Poritz that the U.S. companies should try a bit harder to negotiate with Japanese music companies to get English versions of songs featured in English versions of anime shows, but if the latter won't offer a more lenient, less pricey contract or simply say "no" to having the songs covered, then it's out of the hands of the former and we'll have to live with it.

Edit: Alright! 5900 posts! Smile


I am surprised that NA licensing/dubbing companies are not putting all their effort to negotiate with the Japanese music companies to be permitted to make their own cover of the songs for the English dub.

Often, even if the song was in English anyway to begin with, they still don't let the US Voice actor do a cover version of the song for the dub.

I don't know why Funimation is recently having trouble securing permission to do covers of insert songs in singing scenes for the English dub track in the past year or two? They use to not have much trouble doing so in the past. Are they just not making as much effort like they used to, or have Japanese music/production companies started to get stricter and crack down, and are refusing to negotiate anymore? Why would back in 2009-2012 they would give funimation permission to do covers of songs in singing scenes, but now they no longer do so all of a sudden?


I don't know how many times I (or anyone else) have to keep telling you this, but it has to do with MONEY. Dubbing is very, very expensive. It costs more to buy, and it costs more to make. Songs are no exception. Even if you're able to go through the legal tape to acquire a song to dub over, the license itself is pretty much unaffordable. Anime over here is not the juggernaut it is in Japan, and I fathom the only reason there were a ton of dubbed openings and endings was because of the companies riding off the success of the mid-2000's anime boom via Toonami and such. Now stop asking this question, please.
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Naftali Poritz



Joined: 25 Apr 2017
Posts: 30
PostPosted: Tue May 16, 2017 2:45 pm Reply with quote
I am not taking about openings/closings. I'm just upset that the US Voice actors don't get a chance to do any singing in anime regardless of context, and length. They are not casted with the intent on doing any singing.
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Akane the Catgirl



Joined: 09 Oct 2013
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PostPosted: Tue May 16, 2017 4:09 pm Reply with quote
Naftali Poritz wrote:
I am not taking about openings/closings. I'm just upset that the US Voice actors don't get a chance to do any singing in anime regardless of context, and length. They are not casted with the intent on doing any singing.


That's because the majority of them aren't singers. I can name some US voice actors who do some singing (Johnny Yong Bosch has his own band, Vic Mignogna sung the DN Angel Opening, Cristina Vee has a Youtube Channel where she sings covers), but it's not necessary. Add in the legal tape and money issues, and you can see it's just not practical to ask these actors to sing. Would I like some consistency? Sure. But reality is cruel and you just have to deal with it.

I should mention, though, that the Space Dandy dub actors did their own singing for the musical episode, and that Stephanie Sheh did some singing in the second Little Witch Academia movie.
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Alan45
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Joined: 25 Aug 2010
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PostPosted: Tue May 16, 2017 7:38 pm Reply with quote
@Naftali Poritz

To sum up, they don't translate songs for several reasons:
1. Translation is a problem. In addition to carrying the meaning of the original the words have to fit the music. If they changed the meaning to fit the music, or the music to fit the words it would cause major complaints.

2. Licensing is a major problem. As has been pointed out, it requires separate negotiations and possibly additional payment. In some cases it may not be possible

3. Some voice actors can't sing, changing the casting just to get someone who could sing may compromise the character otherwise.

4. As Akane the Catgirl has noted above all of these take time and cost money. if the extra cost can't be recouped based on prospective sales it could turn a dub show into subtitled only.

Ultimately the bottom line is that US companies seldom dub songs simply because they don't have to. Dub enthusiasts are basically a captive audience. If the US licensor doesn't care to dub songs (or can't because of Japanese objections) the potential buyer has no place to go. Honestly, if the absence of dubbed songs is a deal breaker, you really weren't that into the show anyway. Song dubs comes under the heading of "nice to have" if the licensor runs into obstructions it is very easy to leave out.

Basically you are stuck. I suppose a fan could dub the songs and put out an unapproved version, but, well good luck with that. You could, of course, boycott any dub that doesn't also dub songs, but the less people buy of dubs, the less they make. That sort of defeats the purpose of the boycott.

You have been told most of this before. Apparently you are not willing to accept anything that doesn't agree with your preconceived ideas. Is there any explanation you would accept?
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