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I can't promise to elevate the tone of this thread as some would like, but I can give it a shot.
You may know me, accurately, as the guy obsessed with anime. One of the sources of this obsession is the extremely high quality and range of voice acting on display in even the most everyday of series, at a level which just doesn't compare with the voice-over work familiar from English-language cartoons. Voice acting in Japan isn't a backwater for performers who don't make it on TV or movie stars adding marquee value to family films; it's a fully-fledged, ultra-competitive entertainment industry with its own agencies and acting academies, crossovers in the direction of talk radio and pop, and star status and prestige for the most successful performers. More pertinently for this thread, it's also the domain of a large number of men and women, for the most part of modest appearance and demeanour, yet possessed of some of the most deliciously exciting voices I've ever heard. In the interests of propriety I'll mention a performer I've admired for her range and distinctive style rather than ability to give me the aural horn*:
Satsuki Yukino is someone everyone from the Bleach anime thread is very familiar with, even if they don't know her name or face, playing as she does the formidable and vivacious Yoruichi Shihouin. As Ai Tanabe in Planetes she drove me up the wall with her inflexibility and naivete; as Kaname Chidori in Full Metal Panic! and Saki Kasukabe in Genshiken she makes me laugh like a madman. Any show that I now start to watch and recognize her savoury, direct tones automatically gets a bonus point and a higher chance of becoming a favourite.
tl;dr = Pecs, hah. The larynx is where it's at, baby.
*Just don't ask me about Marina Inoue, Tetsuya Kakihara, Tomokazu Sugita, Aya Hisakawa, Hiroshi Kamiya, Yu Kobayashi or about a hundred others.... |
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