Monday, March 23, 2009

The Art of the Dub

Who says English dubs have to suck?

Acting, like with any profession, is something you get better at the more you do it. It's true with any form of acting, including voice acting. The VAs in Persona 4 I can recognize are definitely more seasoned now than in the past.

Yosuke, the girl-crazy guy friend of your character, is voiced by Yuri Lowenthal. (Geeze, how many roles does he get these days!? He's gonna appear on Entertainment Tonight at this rate.) I've noticed he's more nuanced now than a few years back. Compare his Sasuke from the earlier episodes of Naruto to either his Simon from Gurren Lagaan or Yosuke, and you'll see what I mean. He even sounds better here then he did in Persona 3, and P3's dub was no slouch either.

Also, there's a character in P4 named Adachi, who is played by Johnny Yong Bosch. One of his earlier voice roles was Vash the Stampede from Trigun. He was pretty good as Vash, (I prefer his voice over the Japanese version) but in his later roles, he sounds much more natural, like when he was Renton from Eureka Seven, or Ichigo from Bleach, or Itsuki from Haruhi Suzumiya. He sounds on the mark in P4 also.

And another example, I had to look up sources for this one, because this actress didn't catch my ear until now. Another character in the game is Yukiko, a shy, elegant girl, who is played by Amanda Winn Lee. She was the English voice of Rei Ayanami in Evangelion, and was the first English voice of Etna in Disgaea. Honestly, neither of those performances impressed me, (Besides, no one can top Michelle Ruff as Etna. No one.) but her take on Yukiko . . . so good! Then again, when did the first English dub of Eva come out, 1997? And P4 came out in 2008, right? It doesn't surprise me that she's gotten better in that time.

Just about everyone sounds great. Even the voices I can't recognize sound great. Oh, also, my favorite character so far is Kanji. He is played by Troy Baker. He does a better job playing Kanji than he did Yuri from Tales of Vesperia, and TOV's dub was excellent. Yeah baby.