Non-Japanese Voice Actors, Are they getting better?

IvIajoi2n · 2010-05-27T18:38:05+00:00

I've been watching Anime for awhile now and the English VAs seem to be picking up the slack quite a bit, while i will agree there are certainly some shitty English Dubs i can't say all Japanese voice actors know what they're doing either. I'm pretty sure there's a handful... no there's probably a ton of diehard fans out there who pretty much go by the law anime will for all time sound better in Japanese, but for the other people i'm curious to hear your input on if you think English VAs have made an improvement. Have you seen any dubbed Animes that you believe are outright more appealing then their Japanese counterparts? Are there any specific voice actors that have impressed you? After I got over my initial-weeaboo phase that i think pretty much all Anime fans go through when they're first getting into it i've started to grow accustomed to non-japanese VAs. At the beginning of it i pretty much watched everything in Japanese and avoided dubs like the plague. However i've noticed a few dubbed Animes that pushed ahead of the pack, i'll bring up a few of them here. Overall however i will agree that most animes still sound better in Japanese (Because most animes take place in Japan). Black Lagoon - I watched it in Japanese first and English second, the first thing i noticed is Revy almost comes off as a tsunedere in the Japanese version, i loved the hell out of the dubbed version of this Anime they really added alot of character to this anime. Baccano! - This one is kind of up in the air, i think the turning point was the Italian characters (Gandors etc. etc.) which in my opinion sounded alot better in English. This is one of the areas Japanese VAs will be at a disadvantage because as far as i know there's no Japanese-Italian Gangster accents. Hellsing Ultimate - Alucard aside (German VA is the BOMB, for obvious reasons) i actually liked most of the VAs they chose for this Anime, since it's supposed to take place in the UK it feels more natural to give everyone a British accent. I'll end with these videos, [color=red]keep in mind i'm not saying this single Anime comparison represents the state of the entire industry.[/color] Hellsing Ultimate Spoiler: [color=darkblue]Major's Speech English DUB[/color] [color=darkgreen]Major's Speech German DUB[/color] [color=darkred]Major's Speech Japanese DUB[/color] [color=darkgreen]Japanese/German/English DUB[/color][/b]

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umnut

15 years ago

Generally speaking, Anime is best dubbed in Japanese, but sometimes (rarely) there can be an English dub to compete in terms of quality... example: Hellsing.

As for the german VAs of Hellsing, I'd say they suck except maybe for Milenium, which is quite fitting actually.

Pennlocke

15 years ago

I agree that the Miyazaki films were excellent, and especially DBZ. I also retract an earlier statement I made about the english dub not being able to capture the sultriness in Horo's voice and character, Funimation did a good job with that. Regardless, I still enjoy her Japanese VA a bit more than her English one. Lawrence's english dub is decent as well. I will still hate Amati though, regardless XD

Back on topic, I think they are slowly getting a bit better, there are still many terrible dubs out there.

Croannick

15 years ago

Are they getting better? You mean better compared to a few years ago. Oh fuuuuuck no. Worse. A lot worse. Black Lagoon was good, but...most of the other shows are getting worse.

gizgal

15 years ago

imnotyourdude wrote...

I worked at Funimation Studios last summer for an internship for about 2 months (thanks to my old nextdoor neighbor who actually use to babysit me now being a producer for Shin-chan and other random things) and really got to know the guys working behind the scenes there. I can tell you they actually worry about feedback they get from fans, etc. on sites like ANN and random blogs.

The thing is you have to realize that there are only so many voice actors out there in the world, and on top of things there are only so many who are willing to do anime dubs. Considering the solid difference in proportion to how many VAs (seiyu w/e) there are in Japan, it's difficult to cast a clear cut equivalent of what one would expect the character given budget restrictions and lack of choice.

It's really upsetting to me, personally, because the people working their are very passionate about it. I'm not really sure how other companies like 4Kids TV (Pokemon VA = shit) or Viz (fuck Inuyasha dubs) work out, but Funimation is struggling to get by and even enforced a hiring halt in order to cut budgets even more. The best thing you can do if you actually want to see quality dubs is support the buying of US DVDs/Blu-rays even if you don't actually like the dub for the anime. They have the japanese audio tracks available. The more money they have, the better licenses they can purchase, and the more people they can hire. Leave feedback too, they read it. It's one of the reasons they got Spike Spencer back for the Rebuild of Evangelion movies (and Allison Keith).

Huh. Nice to hear they're concerned.
But again, the economy seems to be the problem... I know there are tons of VA hopefuls all over, but it seems like it's a matter of getting hired/found/etc. And then if the dubs aren't allowed to keep hiring like you said, the problem is just heightened... bummer.

Ponmaster

15 years ago

Have you seen any dubbed Animes that you believe are outright more appealing then their Japanese counterparts?

Cowboy Bebop and ROD the TV come to mind

Are there any specific voice actors that have impressed you?

Steven Jay Blum, and Johnny Yong Bosch

kazetoame

15 years ago

They've gotten way better in my opinion....though I still enjoy listening to English dub of Devil Hunter Yohko which bad but in a good way you know...BITCHIN! Funimation produces quality dubs in my opinion. One of the perks to buying their dvds, from example Ouran High School Host Club, it was the commentary for some of the episodes, particularity the episode with Kasanoda. Christopher Sabat and Travis Willingham spent sometime counting how many times they showed the peeing fountain among other things and the outtakes, OH FUCKING GOD were they hilarious..."Mori likes seashells," "Did my nose just whistle?," Though some of the best were from J Micheal Tatum as Kyouya. Bandai doesn't do that bad either, Code Geass was handled very well, I happen to like Bosch's play on Lelouch (though I admit, Jun Fukuyama really brought the character to life) Hellsing is awesome as always.

Though the Studio Ghibli films do have the best dubs, but then again DISNEY the huge as company that has money, is bringing them to English speaking shores. (I LOVED Christian Bale as Howl!!)

Thankful that days of choosing either dub or sub vhs are over, long live DVD/Blu-ray! I'm going to go buy some anime tomorrow, Fullmetal 1-13 here I come!

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