Seiyuu discussion

[Westlo]

Originally Posted by Fencedude

...wow. I am...totally not feeling this show.

Also Omigawa Chiaki has actually managed to become more obnoxious sounding. How has this happened?!

hah, was just reading j1m0ne blog and she went on her lol.

I don’t know (and I don’t want to know) how many cocks Omigawa Chiaki has sucked to get where she is or how many Yukichis Music Ray’n are stuffing down producers’ throats to get their seiyuu employed, how dumbass agencies are looking at the ￥ signs and fast-tracking hopelessly out-of-depth teenagers even if they posses the talent of a farting mongoose, how more than 60% of shows are moe crap that only requires seiyuu to produce voices as freakishly high-pitched as possible, preferably while inserting random nyaas and nyaans into every other sentence, how some of the best seiyuu from just 3-4 years ago are already being sidelined (Nakahara Mai, Saito Chiwa, Ueda Kana etc etc) in favour of the kids. Heaven help us if Taketatsu Ayana is supposed to be one of the best young things the industry can offer.

This season is a good example of how annoying the whole situation has become, with voice acting in some autumn anime so atrocious that I’d be willing to watch Cantonese dubs just to escape Omigawa’s voice (alternatively, I guess I should just stop watching Shaft anime).

ouch lol

[Suwako Moriya]

Originally Posted by Westlo

hah, was just reading j1m0ne blog and she went on her lol.

*Reads quoted rant from full version of post* You know, I'm fine with people not caring for certain voices. However reading a rant like that, it tells me not to really bother visiting the blog in question. Sorry, but comments like that never impress me.


Also, why do I get the feeling about the following? That this isn't the first generation of seiyuu and it won't be the last one considered "inferior to the experienced" by a segment of fandom.


Note again, I won't deny she has potential to be annoying. The very fact her voice is distinctive increases that potential quite a bit. In fact, it seems more often than not distinctive voices border between being interesting for some and annoying for others.

[something]

Originally Posted by Suwako Moriya

*Reads quoted rant from full version of post* You know, I'm fine with people not caring for certain voices. However reading a rant like that, it tells me not to really bother visiting the blog in question. Sorry, but comments like that never impress me.

j1m0ne is a really bitter person. I tolerated it initially because she was posting some really insightful articles about the seiyuu industry but now she's put most of that aside and just complains about shit mixed with frequent Sphere fangirling (which is fine, I like those seiyuu, although she always mentions that they suck at singing nonetheless). I pretty much only follow her for seiyuu pictures on her wintermelon soup account and even those I could probably get from the other ones I have on my feed reader.

...but I still have to share her Omigawa dislike.

Anyway hashihime is a much more satisfying English-language seiyuu blog to follow, even if the coverage can be a bit narrowly focused on just a couple seiyuu (e.g. Yuuki Aoi, not that I'm complaining).

As for Soredemo... given that Fence isn't feeling it and I'm tired of Omigawa and the only group tling it is a bunch of trolls I categorically refuse to support, I might end up passing entirely unless another source comes along.

[Westlo]

Originally Posted by Suwako Moriya

Also, why do I get the feeling about the following? That this isn't the first generation of seiyuu and it won't be the last one considered "inferior to the experienced" by a segment of fandom.

Of course rookies are inferior to the experience people, that's bloody common sense, You won't seen the Miami Heat drafting 5 new players next season and benching Lebron, Wade and Bosh will you? That's effectively what happens in the anime industry every couple of years.

In 2010 the only leading female role Rie Kugimiya has had the entire year is Shana in the Shana S OVAs, which are a continuation of a previous role anyway. In 2009 she didn't have a single lead role that was not a continuation of a prior series. If Toradora was casting this year Rie would not have landed the role of Taiga, even though she was utterly perfect for it it would've gone to Ayana or Aoi or someone else who would've done an inferior job. I don't expect Rie to land a brand new lead female role again...

How about Saito Chiwa.. her work rate in 04-08 is much higher than the last few years.. even though she voiced Hitagi the lead female of the best selling tv series of the decade. She's gotten one lead female role since in Sigyn in the Break Blade movies.. not exactly the sort of reaction you would expect from someone who just voiced Hitagi is it? It would be like giving the reigning MVP a mid level exception instead of a max contract.

Ayako Kawasumi's only new lead female role this year is Tomoni from Ladies Vs Butler and that's a shared lead role anyway, how depressing. Speaking of depressing.. is this fucking right?

2010

* B Gata H Kei (Kazuki Kosuda)
* Mayoi Neko Overrun! (Shimako Murasame)

That's it for Noto over the entire year? Wow just wow at least 2011 has Reaching You sequel and the role of Mago's major villain if they animate a second season for the Kyoto arc.

I mean it's cool if you like the new girls and you always need new blood but the way the anime industry just cycles through is ridiculous. Ayana's got a lot of lead roles this season.. do you think the planets aligned and she "won" so many lead roles in the same season? How naive, her agency pushed her. Anyway in 3-4 years time she'll stop getting lead roles unless she reprises a character and she'll be forced into supporting roles like Rie (kugi and Tanaka) have been pushed into. And those two will end up like Satsuki Yukino now who's barely even heard of.

If Jun and Miyano and Yuuchi Nakamura stopped getting lead male roles than anime would be worse off, but it happens on the female side all the damn time. I'll say Hirano made the switch at the right time... why stay in a business that punishes you for sticking with it.

[Fencedude]

Originally Posted by Westlo

And those two will end up like Satsuki Yukino now who's barely even heard of.

Who, randomly, is in this show.

Anyway, nurturing new talent is important, but Taketatsu Ayana and Yuuki Aoi having a half dozen major roles this season is ridiculous, even though I quite like both.

[HitokiriShadow]

Originally Posted by Westlo

Of course rookies are inferior to the experience people, that's bloody common sense, You won't seen the Miami Heat drafting 5 new players next season and benching Lebron, Wade and Bosh will you? That's effectively what happens in the anime industry every couple of years.

It's also what the Japanese idol industry and what U.S. teen idol industry do. Also, keep in mind that a lot of these seiyuu, such as Kugimiya, haven' been around for just "a couple of years", they've been working for nearly a decade or more. I think Kugimiya's first role was in 1998. If recent seiyuu like Tomatsu Haruka, Yuuki Aoi, Toyosaki Aki, and Taketatsu Ayana have career lengths like the big names of a few years ago, we'll still be hearing them regularly in 2018.

And while lead roles are important, I don't think you can just completely ignore the other major roles. For example, Kugimiya Rie may not have any "lead" roles this season, but she plays a major character in Samurai Girls (granted, that character could get sidelined in future episodes). Besides, the side characters are often (especially in harem-ish shows) better liked than the lead.

In 2010 the only leading female role Rie Kugimiya has had the entire year is Shana in the Shana S OVAs, which are a continuation of a previous role anyway.

The lack of Noto Mamiko this year makes me sad. She's had about three roles the entire year, and that includes her character in Index. But then, she's never been a particularly busy seiyuu, and that her characters often don't get many lines was a punchline in one of the Index-tan shorts.

[Suwako Moriya]

Originally Posted by Westlo

Of course rookies are inferior to the experience people, that's bloody common sense, You won't seen the Miami Heat drafting 5 new players next season and benching Lebron, Wade and Bosh will you? That's effectively what happens in the anime industry every couple of years.

Yes, I realize it's bloody common sense. Hence forth part of the reason for my assumption/expectation in the first place. The only real mystery is whether it's a case of "inferior, but still good" or "inferior, and also bad" or you get the idea.

Originally Posted by Westlo

I mean it's cool if you like the new girls and you always need new blood but the way the anime industry just cycles through is ridiculous.

As much as I may like the idea of having new voices added to the pool, I also like the idea of retaining voices. So I'll concede that the cycle does bother me a bit. As We gain one thing and lose another.

If I had my way, some voices would be in anime forever. However that desire on my part is both unrealistic and selfish. After all, these seiyuu are mortal and some may want to move on from voice acting.

[Fencedude]

Not going to bother requoting stuff from Westlo (don't update your post after I respond! Thats just damn inconvenient for me!), anyway, while I'm sympathetic to the larger point ("Seiyuu I like aren't getting more roles"), you are phrasing it in a very "NEW VERSUS OLD" form that is, well, incredibly non-productive, and largely obscures the point that the seiyuu you want to hear (Kugimiya, Noto, Kawasumi) were in the same position themselves when they were new. There was a while you literally could not turn around without stumbling over a Kawasumi Ayako character, and by god I remember people bitching then about how these new seiyuu are taking over and blah blah blah. Its very "GET OFF MY LAWN!", and rather petty.

So yes, it is an issue, but its not actually a new issue. And by and large the quality of anime seiyuu is pretty high. Some are better than others, but most of them get a lot of roles because they actually are good at it. There are, of course, exceptions *cough*OmigawaChiaki*cough*, but I'd be hard pressed to name more than a few commonly used seiyuu who I didn't think have the chops for it.

[something]

Originally Posted by Westlo

If Toradora was casting this year Rie would not have landed the role of Taiga, even though she was utterly perfect for it it would've gone to Ayana or Aoi or someone else who would've done an inferior job.

Replace Toradora! with a slightly earlier Kugimiya lead role and Taketatsu/Yuuki with Kugimiya and I bet people were saying the exact same thing back then. So, big surprise, nothing new.

I mean it's cool if you like the new girls and you always need new blood but the way the anime industry just cycles through is ridiculous.

To a point I certainly agree. But that's got nothing to do with the current crop of seiyuu suddenly and inexplicably being, according to some, fundamentally inferior than any previous crop of seiyuu (which I think is bullshit).

Sawashiro Miyuki, my absolute favorite seiyuu ever has only two roles at the moment to my knowledge: both continuing series, with (so far) minor roles in Fairy Tail (one of Hirano's only remaining seiyuu gigs as well) and one lead role that severely wastes her talents on the annoying Lag in Tegami Bachi. Does that suck? Yeah, that kinda sucks.

Of course it's about agencies pushing Yuuki, Taketatsu, Toyosaki, Hayami and other currently hot seiyuu. It's the same way they pushed Noto and Kugimiya and Sawashiro and Nakahara and Hirano in their day, when people complained about them as well. Goes to show how things change now that Kugimiya can be respected as a talented industry veteran rather than "that annoying new chick who only does tsunderekko blah blah blah".

It's almost like a female seiyuu can't get critical acceptance until she falls out of favor with the marketers... but whatever. I guess in a couple years we'll be talking about what a shame it is that the talented veterans Taketatsu and Hayami aren't getting roles anymore because [New Seiyuu 1] and [New Seiyuu 2] are getting half a dozen jobs a season. And the same cycle will repeat a few years after that.

This cycle sometimes sucks if your favorite seiyuu starts getting passed up or finds other work (Sawashiro, Hirano, Noto, Hirohashi, Kugimiya most notably for me), sure. But as long as the younger new (or rather newly popular in most cases) seiyuu are enjoyable I can only get so worked up about it. Yuuki Aoi is an absolute treasure, a god-tier gift to the industry who has already earned a spot in my MAL Favorite People list (which is a top 7, of which I use all 7 spots for seiyuu). Toyosaki, Tomatsu, Hanazawa, Hayami, Kotobuki are all incredibly satisfying and fun to listen to for me, and plenty more besides.

If I could change one thing about the cycle it'd just be to slow it down. Hirano Aya being a virtually retired seiyuu veteran is insane when you consider her big break was only in 2006.

[Fencedude]

Originally Posted by something

Sawashiro Miyuki, my absolute favorite seiyuu ever has only two roles at the moment to my knowledge: both continuing series, with (so far) minor roles in Fairy Tail (one of Hirano's only remaining seiyuu gigs as well) and one lead role that severely wastes her talents on the annoying Lag in Tegami Bachi. Does that suck? Yeah, that kinda sucks.

She's in Arakawa too.