MERREL DAVIS

In North America voice acting is oft thought of as a “lesser” form of acting, and it lacks a level of public prominence and appreciation other forms of acting have. That’s unfortunate since there are so many versatile actors who primarily do voice-over work, like the prolific Billy West or Phil “oh I remember that guy!” Lamarr. Despite the large body of work most voice actors have, voice over work has largely played second fiddle to other forms of acting.

The culture of voice acting in Japan, however, could not be more different. The vocation of voice actor, known as a seiyū in Japan, is exalted to the level of movie star. Most seiyū work across a wide variety of mediums including commercials, anime, movies, television shows and video games. Given the high level imported movies from English speaking countries, there is plenty of work to go around.

Prominent seiyū are the focus of popular magazines like Voice Newtype. Think of them as the Us Weekly, of voice acting. Full with pictorial spreads, and a behind-the-scenes television show.

With all this in mind, I present to you a Japanese language clip of from the third Season episode of The X-Files, “Pusher”.

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This short clip is copyright 20th Century Fox. I claim no copyright, and am using this clip for fair use, informational and discussion purposes.

The seiyū playing Dana Scully is Keiko Toda. Even if you don’t understand the language, her tone and intonation are strong and wrought with conviction. As Scully runs to hit the fire-alarm, we hear Toda add elements of flight and struggle to her voice.  These light touches create a believable character – an element that is sometimes lost when English voice actors are playing translated roles.  Speaking of roles, Toda has played characters across the board including Thomas The Tank Engine, Nikita in the movie La Femme Nikita and Sally in the Disney/Pixar film Cars.

The voice of Fox Mulder is played by prolific seiyū Juurouta Kosugi. Well known in anime circles, Kosugi played Fernand Mondego in Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo and Akio Ohtori in Revolutionary Girl Utena. On the live-action side Kosugi once played the role of Dylan in the 90′s version of 90210.

One can only hope that the North American market wakes up to and appreciates the special role voice actors play in telling stories. I’d like to see more seasoned and versatile voice actors taking roles in high budget CGI animated films instead of big name screen actors, a sentiment I know is shared by Billy West^[1]. With the next wave of web animation storming the internet, I also hope to see a renewed vigor in voice acting as web-tv takes over our viewing habits in the next ten years.

[1] On numerous occasion Billy West has stated his displeasure of actors who don’t understand “sonic performance” and “just play themselves” in big movies that  “spend zillions on visuals, and then have this totally fucking flat-lining voice track.” You can read West’s whole interview with the A.V. Club here.