Fresh from subscribing to Crunchyroll, I find myself wondering why every female character voice actor uses a cutesy, young teen or pre-teen voice. The male voice actors seem normal and the dubbed English female voices are as well. I have subtitles turned on with the original audio in Japanese. Every single female voice actor is directed to use the same timid, teeny-weeny manner of talking.
From watching NHK shows with my morning coffee, I’ve learned that almost all anime artists and directors are men. The same goes for manga. The ‘Manben’ series highlights some women, sure but most of the very talented people are men. Even in the ‘Anime Manga Explosion’ episode ‘Girl Band Anime’, the music was created by men. A woman directed the movie ‘Bocchi The Rock’ but men wrote the songs.
This takes us to the anime audience. Maybe it’s 50/50 male/female, I don’t know but if a significant number of females watch anime, what do they think of how their own voices are represented? Right now I have more questions than answers but if you know anything about this, let me know in a comment below.
So far, I’m loving anime. The episodes take me away from my stresses and often give me a vague picture of what life in Japan is like. By the way, there’s a little thing in almost all conversations in anime. It’s like a grunt, just a single voice note that signifies some emotion. It might sound surprised or a negative reaction and it always seems to be at the end of a chat. Have you noticed this? Everyone around the world thinks Canadians say “Eh” all the time, which isn’t true. So is this grunt something similar? Or is it common in Japanese conversations.
I don’t speak Japanese but I am interested in learning some of the language. What I’ve noticed is how the delivery is not linear, I mean the tones used. There must be more to Japanese than just the words, I think. A lot of it is in how the words are said. I watched an older Japanese movie about the Yakuza, I think from the ’60s. In it, the rough, tough criminal men spoke in deep guttural voices, almost all the time but definitely when they were angry or making a point. They didn’t shout, at least I don’t remember that, but used a very deep tone. I can’t help but compare North American or European movies to those from Japan and it’s the voices that I find most interesting to compare.
That’s it for today. It’s 2025 today, New Year and new hopes and dreams for everyone. Let me know what you think about this in the comments.
Cheers!
Brian Mahoney
January 1st, 2025