On the subject of deep voices...

[vspirit.livejournal.com]

I was reading the comments on the first dubbed episode stream when I came across a couple of comments about how American males, as a norm, don't have deep enough voices. The younger ones, anyway. This sparked an interesting thought in me head.


Most of you probably already know this but FukuJun doesn't actually have a naturally deep voice. He had to force it for the role of Lelouch. In a recent interview (links of the video provided at the end of the post), he revealed that when he was first approached about the role, he was sweating bullets and was all, "WTF? You /know/ my voice tends to be on the high end of the scale right? You've heard my other roles, right? Whyever did you pick /me/?" to Taniguchi, the director (in the polite way that the Japanese are brought up to speak, of course, but that's more or less the essence of what he meant), but he didn't have any other choice cos this was a huge career-defining opportunity and the director backed him into a corner by first humbly implying that he's a pro so he should be able to handle it and then bowing while pushing the script to his side of the table and going "Please". >.>;; Good thing it worked out. ^.^

However, it kinda led me to think that when he went for the auditions (if he went for any, that is, sometimes VAs are picked based on their portfolio...but I imagine there's still an audition to see if they'll really work), he most likely actually auditioned for something else. Suzaku, maybe. Or Rivalz. Or Ougi. That, or he /was/ picked based on his portfolio of mostly higher-pitched characters and the strange inkling that Taniguchi may have had that if he were to deepen his voice, it'd work perfectly for the kind of Lelouch he had in mind. He /was/ rather confident and insistent when the actor himself was doubtful.

Before this role, FukuJun's never used deep voices for all the other characters he's ever done. Not that I know of, anyway. Now he uses it every once in a while. Only thing is, he has a huge range for high voices but for low voices, he only has two. Which is why everytime he uses it with other characters, you tend to either think Lelouch or Zero.

Which brings me to the point of this post (yeah, finally). Maybe that's what the director was hoping when he selected JYB but it didn't work out quite as well, unfortunately. That, and I don't think he had a very long list to choose from to begin with cos, to my knowledge, stock VAs in the US tend to be a small group so constant recycling is inevitable.

For what it's worth, I feel at least they've made an effort. But my final verdict remains: American anime localizers still have a long way to go.

Anywayz, here are the links to the videos of FukuJun's interview like I've promised. Crossposted (albeit a few days ago) to fukuyama_jun, so I'll just copy and paste my post:

[start copy&paste]
Anime Giga - Fukuyama Jun interview 1/4
Anime Giga - Fukuyama Jun interview 2/4
Anime Giga - Fukuyama Jun interview 3/4
Anime Giga - Fukuyama Jun interview 4/4

Summary:
Quite a revealing interview. You get to find out what spurred his choice in career, what were the early days of his career like, his thoughts during a job, and the like. It basically gives a pretty clear idea on what Fukuyama-san is like as a person.

From what I could glean, Fukuyama-san himself seems to me very humble and forthcoming with information about his past, his ideals and principles. He also shares quite a bit of wisdom he'd gotten from experience. Plus, you'd also get an idea on what his family is like (interesting bunch of people, imo. Kansaijintte yappa omoshiroiwa! Eheh.).

Anyway, it's a very entertaining and enlightening watch. You'd most likely enjoy this if you're a fan.
[end copy&paste]

Comments

[rainbow-cnxn.livejournal.com]

I forget where I read this, but I seem to remember that after casting people for the roles, the seiyuus were shocked that Tanaguchi wanted Lelouch's voice to be deeper than Suzaku's. As a result, both Fukuyama Jun and Takahiro Sakurai had to try extra hard to fit a voice role that was outside of both their normal ranges--FukuJun had to strain his voice into the low register (he said he hurt his back doing Lelouch's voice >_>), and Takahiro had to strain to reach the boyish high(er) pitches for Suzaku.

I think it was something about showing how the two characters were both being someone they weren't? I guess they hoped that the strain of their fake IC personalities would come out in their improperly matched voice roles.

[inulovinkit.livejournal.com]

Have to give the man props for doing all that so we can have our sexy Lulu voice, though. <3

[vspirit.livejournal.com]

hmm...yeah, you're right. my memory's slightly skewed it seems. listening to to the interview again, it seems more like he was flabbergasted and then panicked when asked by the director to go lower...and then lower still, to the point where his limit was stretched, cos he's never done a character like this before. That's when the director pulled the "you're a pro so just do it" (complete with the humble air and smile set) line on him.

sakurai though...i'm surprised. while he's able to pull of the deep, low and majestic tone with seemingly no effort at all, i've had the impression that he's also able to do the youngish tone with possibly not quite as much effort as was implied. he's /had/ quite a bit of boyish roles in the past (one of his first ones was one) and he didn't sound like he's straining in any of them. it didn't come as a surprise at all to me when I found out he's the one doing Suzaku.

[vspirit.livejournal.com]

Never did manage to watch that one but I think I can imagine. I reckon it'd be somewhere along the tone of voice he used for characters like Ekou in Karas and various characters in BL dramas where he played the mysterious dominant character. Dunno what he sounded like as Sasori since I've never watched Shippuuden. I love what he did for the Kusuriuri in Mononoke, though. Both character and voice are to die for, IMHO. One of his best works yet, which I think he sorely deserved to have gotten an award for.

[jusrecht.livejournal.com]

Ahh, I agree. Kusuriuri is especially awesome. I really love the way he dragged his voice and somehow managed not to sound weird doing it..

But the character which left the deepest impression in me is still Yamazaki Susumu from Peacemaker Kurogane. It's the first time I heard Sakurai and instantly fell in love with his first line. Which is something like 'hmph' XD

[mystic-fate.livejournal.com]

"it seems more like he was flabbergasted and then panicked when asked by the director to go lower..."

Ohhh what part of the video is this in? xD

[vspirit.livejournal.com]

That was actually contained within his answers to the very first two interview questions, in part 1.

Watanabe: When speaking to you like this, you sound really friendly and genteel. Did you have to go out of your way to sound the way you did in Code Geass?

FukuJun: Well, it's actually something the director required. He didn't want something that I'd normally do and requested for me to go as low as I could.

Murai: But I imagine that you would've had a hard time adjusting your voice to sound like it did...

FJ: Well...yes. As you know, my voice is relatively high by nature and because of this, the roles I've normally had all this while were mostly youngish which suited my voice and vice versa. So, being asked to adopt this deep, evil sounding tone was something so far out of my imagination, I was pretty much lost and totally panicking inside for a while there. I had no idea what my limit was. At the end of the day, though, I think it's more a matter of acting than it is a matter of voice quality so I ended up focusing on that aspect instead.

That's what they're saying between 5:28 to 6:22.

[sapphynashi.livejournal.com]

:o Interesting. And now I have something new to add to my piles of Lelouch and Suzaku analyses. XD; Wow, a hell of a lot of thought really does get put into the themes and characterizations of this series.