Japanese fake voice acting moments?

[Teacup.uwu]

I feel most male seiyuu give more of a performative "on the verge of crying-breaking into tears" it's like a standard. I can't blame them it's hard, you really need to be in your best days 100% to make a listener go "omg he's crying for real" which happens maybe 10% of the time, and Every now and then I come by an obviously fake one that breaks my immersion, instead of picturing the scene of the story it forces the image of the voice actor holding his script in front of the mic onto my head lol *even if i don't know he looks like lol)

 

[nerim-w]

Yeah, sometimes they just immediately break out into a crying fit or start screaming at the top of their lungs. I think some people think that loud dramatic crying/screaming = good acting, but when its unnecessarily exaggerated it takes me out of an otherwise emotional scene. I'd love to see a more realistic take on it, like maybe the VA slowly getting emotional and then trying to hold in their tears, maybe they try to speak and their voice starts wavering or cracking. That could be wayy more impactful imo!

 

[imonusi]

You're right—sometimes the acting feels a bit over-the-top, or like they're just raising their voice for the sake of it. I also prefer the natural-sounding tremors or raspy tones in a voice. That said, I once read a manga-style recording report from a circle where the instructions for each scene and line were incredibly detailed; it's possible the choices weren't entirely up to the voice actor themselves... I was actually surprised by a recent title I listened to because it included the natural sound of inhaling through the nose between lines of dialogue (that soft *sniff* sound)—it felt so realistic. It's a mannerism I do myself, but I'd never really heard it in an audio production before.

 

[Podm953]

Honestly, I feel this so much. There's definitely a "standard crying template" that a lot of male seiyuu fall back on—like, you can almost hear the technique rather than the emotion. It's that shaky breath + strained whisper combo that's supposed to scream "I'm holding back tears," but when it's overused, it just feels like a preset.

 

[oandcksfb]

Oh, that's interesting.
I've never really felt that Japanese professional voice actors were particularly bad at acting. They're very skilled at things like making their voices tremble and conveying the feeling that they're truly crying.
That said, there may be some actors whose performances feel a bit exaggerated, and there are also many non-professional voice actors, often referred to as doujin or amateur voice actors. So I think it's important to make a distinction between them.

 

[Kyouri]

Oh, that's interesting.
I've never really felt that Japanese professional voice actors were particularly bad at acting. They're very skilled at things like making their voices tremble and conveying the feeling that they're truly crying.
That said, there may be some actors whose performances feel a bit exaggerated, and there are also many non-professional voice actors, often referred to as doujin or amateur voice actors. So I think it's important to make a distinction between them.

Same here. I've generally found japanese voice acting to be much higher quality than say, most English voice acting. I figure it's due to the specialized schooling options they have for focus of the art. That said, I think sometimes it also comes down to things like the script writer, the person in charge of "directing", etc. since sometimes I've heard a good performance from a VA, but then in another work, a similar scene has certain qualities about it that make it seem way more exaggerated and I figure it's probably whatever direction the production wanted to go with. So all in all, I think it's definitely a team effort and the quality of the voice acting isn't entirely dependent on the voice actor themselves. I'm sure there's a lot of various things that go into creating works. That's just something that I personally tend to keep in mind though. Also if looking into doujin works, some of those voice actors REALLY putting in those hours and I sort of worry about if they're getting enough rest LOL.

 

[osanajimimi]

No moment comes to mind with the Japanese voice actors, they are usually of good quality and well directed. The moments are well directed. I imagine that for less experienced or amateur actors in indie games, the voice quality may be more of a personal approach, since the team behind is usually smaller. But it is true that at certain times, certain decisions take me out of the immersion.

For example,

Spoiler: Jack Jeanne scene

I love Sochiro from Jack Jeanne but that scene where he screams at the top of her lungs in Mary's performance was both impressive and disturbing lol. I loved what the seiyuu achieved, but I was taken out of the immersion by thinking from a "realistic perspective" of what the audience would have thought about that scene

and that lol

 

[myfrral]

Haha, it's like this! Sometimes it feels like the voice actor suddenly changes their voice during dubbing, such as screaming or crying, without entering a scene of the character to dub, which gives a very uncomfortable and awkward feeling, and is easy to skip the scene. I think voice actors first need to understand a character's story, situation, and experience. The voice actors themselves immerse themselves in the character's emotions, step by step, layer by layer, gradually allowing players to experience the character's emotional changes without appearing so abrupt.

 

[藍色水珠]

I've heard some fan-made voice actors deliver somewhat awkward and unrealistic performances when a character's emotions suddenly shift.

For example: a soft sob → a choked sob → a desperate sniffling sound, then suddenly erupting into a frenzied shout, the transitions are somewhat imperfect, with strange pauses (giving it a fake crying feel).

It's common for female voice actors to be able to voice underage male characters (before puberty), and you get used to it after a while; it doesn't necessarily have to be a male voice actor. With experience, they will improve.

我聽過角色情緒突然轉變時，同人聲優有點尷尬的演技，不太真實。例如：低聲啜泣哽咽聲拼命吸鼻子的聲音，冷不防發狂大吼大叫，過程有點銜接不完美、奇妙的停頓（假哭感）
常見女聲優都能配音未成年男角（還沒經歷變聲期）聽久也習慣，不一定要男聲優。
隨經驗累積，會進步的。

 

[starlight7]

I don't think I've come across any moments like that with pro VAs, I've been constantly amazed at their performance. Some doujin VAs do sound a little awkward at times, but I think that's been pretty rare too.

 

[burrito]

anime voice acting is intentionally reactive depending on the mood, i usually overlook on performances from animation since most seiyuus are already at professional level. although for vn's or audio only dramas i tend to nitpick since it's more focused for listening