vocal qualities across languages

[BasharOfTheAges]

Since this forum does seem to have enough of an international presence for comparison, I figured i'd ask a question that has bugged me for years.

I'm sure most of you are familiar with the 1980s era whiny, childish tonal quality most American voice actors use for their characters in English anime dubs... The kind that makes you almost feel guilty or childish yourself for listening to it... Well, i was wondering, is this a purely American thing? Or do Japanese seiyuu sound the same to native speakers of their language? Also, I've heard other dubs in languages like Spanish and German - is that same annoying tonal quality of their voices present? What I'm trying to figure out is if such (for a lack of a better word) immature and poorly-acted voices are actually character qualities or are they symptoms of the over-the-top cartoon VAs of the 1980s and 90s, or simply a lack of talent that dubbing studios seem to eat up.

Thoughs? (or more importantly) Answers to the above questions?

[Scintilla]

Does this also apply to good dubs (like RahXephon, FLCL, Hellsing, etc.)? Because I can't say I really hear it.

[Cornwiggle]

I remember how horrible the old dubs used to sound. They sounded like they were trying too hard to me. Luckily now there are much better dubs, but I guess there was just a lack of talent for people who wanted to do anime in the 80s? They probably just thought of it as a cheapo cartoon. Like how actors on kiddie shows know they can't act for crap, but know it's just being watched by a bunch of people who don't know better anyway.

[BasharOfTheAges]

Does this also apply to good dubs (like RahXephon, FLCL, Hellsing, etc.)? Because I can't say I really hear it.

No, not to the higher-budget ones. And it did get better for a while, but with the current liscensing whirlwind it has crept up again - especially with child and teen characters.

[Qyot27]

I don't really think it is character qualities, I think it's a mass of different things - over the top VAs, bad talent, bad direction, terrible scripting, etc. Throw all those in a pot together and you're not exactly going to get gold.

And although English is my first language, I did study German for 7 years. Granted, I've had limited exposure to German dubs (the first three Star Wars movies and a short clip of School Rumble's dub), but I didn't really pick up on the childish quality in the speech, although the linguistic differences between the languages does cause a bit of skew in what pitch the dialogue is spoken in. What I noticed as being common between the Star Wars dubs and School Rumble is that it was spoken in a higher tone than the original English or Japanese, but as for the acting being bad I can't really say - we didn't get too much exposure to films or TV shows which were going to be held up as shining examples of good German acting, unless Run Lola Run/Lola rennt is in there somewhere.

[Otohiko]

Strangely, I rarely have problems with non-English dubbing. At least I don't recall complaining about any of it, hmm.

Unless it's those cheap Russian single-actor voiceovers (and those are worth it for the entertainment value)

[Lyrs]

The more I know of a language, the less appealing the dubs for that language becomes.

[BasharOfTheAges]

The more I know of a language, the less appealing the dubs for that language becomes.

In terms of translation accuracy, or the actual vocal qualities of the preformers? I'm focusing on the later here, but i'm not quite sure someone learning a language would be able to successfully comprehend vocal tones of that langauge well as it's native speakers... It's more of a cultural understanding. Case in point, Central and South-American Spanish sounds different than the language spoken in Madrid. As someone that studied the language very briefly in highschool I can tell you those tonal differences are easy enough to pick up, but i'm not so sure about more subtle variences on a language that wopuld be imparted on you in youth(even if you couldn't mannage to put that much into words yourself, you know it to be there). I seem to be sidestepping the issue, but I've yet to recienve native japanese or other language speakers spicifically mentioning the qualities they find in the voices i've brought up... I've no doubt i'll find an on-topic responce eventually though.

[Lyrs]

American English (AE) is my second language. My first is a tonal language of "Chinese" descent so I'm familiar with the tonal aspect of the language differences. <insert>

As you've already pointed out, the two well known problems with anime imports or any cross-language imports tends to be translation and dubbing. My experience with translation tells me that the vocabulary of the language is usually not the problem. AE is capable of handling the transitions of ideas, thoughts, and facts into written form. Also, given its evolving nature, AE will adapt or adopt words into its mix. Tsundere, as mentioned by <viral>, has become an adopted word among many of the anime populace inside and outside of Japan.

So while the languages are fairly effective, the problem lies with the translators and their knowledge and understanding of both languages. <That's not to say we should be ungrateful for their attempt, they do a great service in giving anime the chance to be popular.> The ability to grasp the presentation and produce another language's identical synonym for that concept can be and most often is difficult. My own experiences in translating often leaves me with that "just beyond touch/the horizon" feeling.

And then there is the problem of dubbing, which I wont' touch for now.

[Otohiko]

It's a cultural thing, really. To me it's associated more with English culture than English language; the sort of exaggarated expressivity you're talking about is probably unnatural-sounding in the language because of the codes of modesty that exist in the language. In Japanese, for example, I think there's a more comprehensible distinction between the language drama/acting and reality (whereas I think in English language culture it's far less pronounced, if it's there at all), and so you can have that exaggarated expressivity in Japanese that doesn't quite work in English.

There's other languages where I think this sort of exaggarted expressivity works well, on the other hand. That's my impression of Russian (my first language); I don't actuall yrecall anime dubs and someone can maybe prove me wrong there, but I don't remember any professionally-made movie/cartoon dubs into that language that I didn't like, whatever culture they came from. Because Russian tends to be more broadly disposed to expressivity.

I've done a bit of research on this; I think one of the issues is just that English models of expressivity favour understatement, which doesn't work well with dubs of something as over-expressive as most anime.

That's one take on it, anyway.