Ask John: Does America Have a Small Number of Voice Actors?
Question:
I don’t watch a lot of anime, but I do watch Cartoon Network’s block of animated series called Adult Swim. I have noticed that from one show to another (Bleach, FLCL, Cowboy Bepbop, Samurai Champloo, Code Geass, Blood Plus) I hear some of the same voices. Is there a small amount of voice actors that do anime? If so, why?
Answer:
There are a number of reasons why the pool of English language voice actors for anime is relatively small, and especially small for anime broadcast on American television. While there may be countless American anime fans that dream of being a professional voice actor, very few of them ever succeed, due to a lack of determination, or talent, or opportunity. Furthermore, actors that do perform voice-overs don’t always remain in the field because the work is sporadic. While pay for voice acting may be good, earning a good wage for only a few hours or days of work at a time isn’t as reliable as a steady position with a steady income. From the perspective of a studio and producer, working with experienced actors is more efficient and economical than working with inexperienced actors in order to gain a range of voices. After all, the primary purpose of foreign language dubbing is to make anime more palatable to consumers, not to create a commendable parallel artistic work. Voice actors and dub directors and producers certainly take pride in their work, and strive for perfection. But ultimately the goal of an English dub is to create something that stimulates sales and contributes to the animation’s profitability – not to create an admirable but expensive and time consuming to produce alternate language track.
Unlike Japan’s large pool of professional voice actors, America has a relatively small number of anime voice actors because there’s not enough anime to dub to support a large number of actors. Japan produces hundreds of anime series annually, and all of them need voice actors. Only a fraction of those productions reach America, and increasingly these days there are fewer of them which require English voice actors. AD Vision was forced to close several of its dubbing studios. An increasing number of anime series are being released in America subtitled only – either due to cost considerations or because the shows are such niche titles that adding English language tracks won’t generate enough additional sales to offset the cost of producing a dub.
Article revised May 18, 2009
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Every once in a while, when I’m watching a DVD from a favorite anime of mine that was released a few years back, I wonder: “Hey, whatever happened to…” and proceed to check an online database or two to see what s/he’s been up to. (Specifically, I was watching BLUE SEED, and in search of Amanda Winn-Lee and Jason Lee)
And more often than not, there are large gaps in work–years at a time–where they’re absent. Or on other occasions, you’ll see a voice actor/ress active for six or seven years and then comoletely stop anime voice over work.
Check out these videos, its an interview i recorded at EXPcon with Steve Blum (Spike, Mugen, Vincent Valentine), Beau Billingslea (Jet, Barret), and Johnny Yong Bosch (Vash the Stampede). It was a Q&A mostly about their voice acting! Its quite entertaining and informing about the voice acting world of anime.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qj3QFe3bm8&feature=channel_page
This response was sent to me via personal e-mail:
Plenty of anime on Adult Swim has had union actors in non union productions, and productions that were fully done non-union. There is no rule that shows that air on TV must have SAG actors (foreign shows that have non SAG actors air on network TV, and cable channels), and there are multiple examples on Adult Swim itself of shows that were non-union productions including- Shin Chan, Super Milk-Chan, Bleach (a non union production that uses some union actors, and leaves some actors uncredited), Blue Gender, Case Closed, Death Note, Evangelion, FMA, InuYasha, and others, but I don’t see the need to name off every show I can find about it.
In response, I’ve removed the following paragraph from the article:
Furthermore, while English dubbing producers for anime are free to employ whomever they choose, dubbed anime broadcast on network television must adhere to established national entertainment industry rules. That means that English dubs broadcast on Adult Swim must exclusively utilize actors who are members of the Screen Actors Guild. That further limits the pool of professional talent available and willing to participate in the production of the dubs of anime that show up on Adult Swim.