The General Anime/Manga Thread

[Cerebrum123]

Are you criticizing Mel?!?!?!

No, I was pointing out to rogue06 that a cartoon can do fine without many voice actors.

If you should be mad at anyone, be mad at him.

[Teallaura]

No, I was pointing out to rogue06 that a cartoon can do fine without many voice actors.

If you should be mad at anyone, be mad at him.

Oh, okay.



Oh, Rogue, a moment, if you please....

[rogue06]

Ever watch Looney Tunes?

No, I was pointing out to rogue06 that a cartoon can do fine without many voice actors.

If you should be mad at anyone, be mad at him.

That's just one program. It gets a bit distracting when you hear the same half a dozen folks (at least so it seems) over and over again and again on show after show. It's like having the same handful of actors starring in every movie.

[rogue06]

Oh, okay.



Oh, Rogue, a moment, if you please....

comeandgetitff.gif

[Cerebrum123]

That's just one program. It gets a bit distracting when you hear the same half a dozen folks (at least so it seems) over and over again and again on show after show. It's like having the same handful of actors starring in every movie.

My point being that the number of voice actors isn't really the issue, it's the talent. What they should do is get some people like Jim Cummings, Tara Strong, and Grey DeLisle.* With them, there would be a great deal of variety. Just look at Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers, a lot of the voices were done by Jim Cummings(Fat Cat, that Professor, and a few other major characters), he even took over as Monterey Jack after a few seasons.

Possibly add in Dan Castellenata, and the guy who does the voice for Robin in Teen Titans.

[Teallaura]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]516[/ATTACH]

You wish...

[draw2much]

The only problem I have with dubs is that they seem to rely on entirely far too few voice actors.

I've pondered this for a while.

Look at the voice actor quality you get with Made-for-English cartoons. It varies from Good to Fantastic. (Any of the DC TV cartoons--Justice League: Unlimited, Superman, Batman Animated, etc--have fantastic voice acting.) Especially since the 1990s, most Western TV* animations have good quality voice acting. There are still some stinkers, but most voice actors do a very good job (considering the scripts they're working with, lol).

Now look at anime dubs. There are some technical hurdles voice actors have to over come when dubbing foreign films that makes it difficult, but that doesn't account for so many middling voice actors. It's more likely because they have a very small budget for voice actors and can't afford anything better. Some companies have a small budget because they just don't care about the quality (looking at you 4Kids) but others (like Funimation) can't afford to hire more or better voice actors. (In case anyone is unaware, anime in North America has been dying as a business for the last 10 years.)

The very rare exception is the Studio Ghibli films. I'm sure Chrawnus will disagree, but since Disney took over distributing their films to Western Audiences, the voice acting has been good to great. They don't try to copy the Japanese voice actors, rather they try to match voice actors with the characters in a way that makes sense to a Western Audience. Howl's Moving Castle sounds fantastic in English and original Japanese. They are different, but the difference isn't because one has a better quality than the other. Rather, it's a matter of cultural perception of how certain characters (archetypes?) ought to sound.

I wish Anime could be treated like any other cartoon. I feel like if it was, the English voice acting would be significantly better. But as it is, anime is predominately a niche market. Only a very few titles ever make it to a wider audience, and even then the companies bringing them over don't make a whole lot of money. (It's similar to how gaming companies have one game that makes millions of dollars and they use that to make other games, with the other games often only breaking even.)

*Movie animation has, as far as I'm aware, always had excellent voice actors. So I'm not counting them.

[JonathanL]

The very rare exception is the Studio Ghibli films. I'm sure Chrawnus will disagree, but since Disney took over distributing their films to Western Audiences, the voice acting has been good to great.

I'm not going to disagree. If the fact that Disney is distributing Studio Ghibli films to Western audiences also means that the company is responsible for hiring voice actors for the dubbed versions I have no problems imagining that the quality of the voice acting would be far higher than usual*.

































*Though having said that, I would still choose to watch the films in the original language.

[Teallaura]

So, anyone else newly addicted to Attack on Titan?

[rogue06]

So, anyone else newly addicted to Attack on Titan?

I was awhile back when I watched it on Crunchy Roll.

[JonathanL]

So, anyone else newly addicted to Attack on Titan?

I'm following the manga, waiting for the next season of the anime.

[TimelessTheist]

I'm watching Black Butler, myself.

[Teallaura]

I'm following the manga, waiting for the next season of the anime.

Cool - I couldn't find the manga but did find the spin off from 70 years previous. Waiting for the next installment - any month now...

[JonathanL]

Cool - I couldn't find the manga but did find the spin off from 70 years previous. Waiting for the next installment - any month now...

Did you search for Attack on Titan or Shingeki no Kyojin? If you're using one of the online readers I think you'll only find the main series if you search by the Japanese name.

[Teallaura]

Ah, that was the problem - thanks!