Poor Voice Directing
Have you ever watched a dub and the voice sounded so out of place that you found yourself distracted from the film and concentrating on the voice? Most of the time bad acting is to blame, but not always. Sometimes the voices are just out of place. For example, consider the dub of GIANT ROBO volume 1. I know several people who think GIANT ROBO is a fine dub, including the producers of the dubbed version; I, however, do not agree.
When I first saw
the dub, I was wholly unimpressed, and I was not interested
in seeing any other episodes. However, when I went home that very night, a
friend popped in his Japanese version for a group of us. Despite the fact
that it was the exact same episode, the exact same animation, and I couldn't
understand a word of the dialog, I found myself caught up in the spirit of
the show. At the time I was pretty shocked that I had such a different
experience, but I just filed GIANT
ROBO into the "dubs suck" file and
went on with my life.Now that I am
in charge of US Renditions, I have a vested interest in
GIANT ROBO
(which was not successful by the way), so I studied
the dub and the Japanese versions in depth (I have now seen episode one
roughly a dozen times). Finally, I came to the conclusion that the direction
was at fault.What is
directing when it comes to voice acting? Voice directors cast the
voices, choose the dialog, give the actors pointers as to how lines should
be read, and generally organize the different components to fit an overall
scheme. For GIANT ROBO,
the voices are slightly miscast and give a
campy, half-serious performance. To me this is 85% responsible for my
disinterest. In the Japanese version, the acting is very serious and
creates a very dramatic atmosphere that is quite appropriate for a story
line where lead characters die left and right. In the campy dubbed version,
the voice acting detracts from the drama and creates a cartoony atmosphere
in which it is impossible to take the drama seriously and thus the conflict
seems pointless. This kills the mood of GIANT
ROBO, and I believe
has caused the loss of about 20% of the potential sales; even worse, a whole
lot of people are missing out on a terrific action drama.How could
this have been averted? Simple attention to the details, the
formula for any Anime. Make sure that all of the actors, not just the
leads, are not only strong voices, but appropriate for the proper atmosphere
of the film.The
hardest part of all: listening to, or watching, your own work with an
unbiased critical eye.
Bad Actors & Inbreeding
These two closely related issues are difficult to separate because when I
say "inbreeding," I am referring to the fact that Anime producers keep using
the same voice actors over and over again, regardless of quality. Part of
this condition is a case of the producer/voice director becoming friends
with actors (which makes objective opinions difficult), and another part is
due to the limited funds and time allotted for casting the production.
This problem is
compounded by the fact that most of the dubbing (65%-75%) of
the American dubs are contracted to two studios: Animaze (Los Angeles) and
Ocean Studios (Vancouver). Since these companies do the majority of the
dubs for Central Park Media(US Manga Corps, Anime 18), Pioneer, Viz, Manga
Entertainment, Books Nippan (in the past), and even a bit of DIC (Sailor
Moon), the same pool of actors shows up over and over again in industry
dubs. This would not be so unfortunate or noticeable if the actors had the
range or the acting ability of their Japanese counterparts, who are capable
of delivering extremely different performances for a wide range of
characters.
For Example:
Amuro Rei (Gundam)
= Tuxedo Kamen (Sailor Moon)
= Furuya Tohru
Nausicaa (Nausicaa)
= Otonashi Kyoko (Maison Ikkoku)
= Shimamoto Sumi
Very few
American voice actors - at least the ones used by Anime companies,
seem to project such a varied range. (For more Seiyuu (Voice Actress/Actor)
info see Hitoshi Doi's fabulous seiyuu database )
As for bad
acting, this is easy to prove - simply listen to ROBOTECH
("OooOooh Rick"), NEW DOMINION
TANK POLICE (especially, and
tragically, the voice of Leona), or my personal nemesis ORGUSS (three
attempts so far to watch Volume 1, and I
never made it past episode two of three...).
These bad
actors overstress emotions and do not even come close to a genuine
performance. Unfortunately, most fans of dubbed Anime don't mind the bad
acting, instead they celebrate the campy-ness of the bad dubs. As long as
this condition prevails there will be little interest in improving the
quality of acting.
Lack of Motivation
Hardest to prove, easiest to deny, but in my mind, lack of motivation is the
number one reason why American dubs are so bad.
First of all,
the Anime companies know that their biggest critics, Anime
Fans, are hardly ever satisfied by dubbing efforts. Therefore, since they
know they can't win, why should they try?
Good dubs
seem to take more time and more money - both valuable commodities.
Will better dubs sell more tapes? Perhaps, but it is very tough to prove,
so why not crank out seven average dubs instead of five really good ones?
Why not indeed? The answer invariably is to crank out the volume so the
company can start selling the videos.
I can't think
of any truly positive motivation technique other than sheer
pride, and money seems to be an adequate salve for that injury so far. If
any of you readers think you have a brilliant idea, I'm hoping the industry
is open to your suggestions.
