What It’s Like To Be A Voice Actor Who Works In Anime

Some of these include your favourite characters in popular anime like Ken Kaneki (Tokyo Ghoul), Marco Bott (Attack on Titan), Karma Akabane (Assassination Classroom), Neito Monoma (My Hero Academia) and Yu Ishigami (Kaguya-sama: Love Is War). That’s just a small sample of Austin’s impressive voice acting resume though (seriously, check out his IMDB)!

According to Austin, he had finished college and was in a full-time day job for eight years before he decided to make the switch to voice acting. During that time, he was active in theatre work, which led to him getting a local agent that then booked him auditions for Funimation, a company that specialises in the dubbing and distribution of anime.

Of course, there are exceptions to this with anime and cartoons like Looney Tunes, for example, where they’re looking for a cartoonish style. But for the most part, the greatest tool you can have as a voice actor is your own natural speaking voice because it’s unique and the industry is always looking for something new. 

In one of Austin’s first solo sessions, he played a side character in Season 2 of Black Butler. The character has a Cockney accent and according to Austin, he did one of the vowel sounds wrong. It didn’t get noticed though and even made it to air!

The way it works is that in the voiceover booth there will be screens set up — one will have the animation and the other will have a Word document or Excel spreadsheet with dialogue. You’ll then watch the scene and go cue to cue, attempting to match your speech with the character’s mouth movements.

With dubbing anime, you’ll most likely be working with a mostly finished product, which can help stir up emotions in comparison to other kinds of acting. Austin said, “When you’re in a film or on stage, you don’t have that swelling orchestral music that’s in these anime scenes, which voice actors can then use to stir up emotions. It allows you to be in the moment. I see what the Japanese actors already did, what the context of the scene is, what the music is telling me and it allows me to react naturally with my dialogue.”

It’s why directors are so important in voiceover work. They’re responsible for navigating the voice actor and ensuring that the ebb and flow of dramatic scenes work because they’re the ones putting all the pieces together.

According to Austin, Funimation likes to work cue to cue, meaning that a voice actor will watch the scene in Japanese first. The Japanese track will then be removed and the voice actor will have to try and match the character’s mouth movements.  

Comparatively, other studios do what Austin calls “the J method”, where they’ll press play and a voice actor will start speaking over the Japanese track. They’ll run through an entire episode and then go back and try and fix what doesn’t sound right.

Austin said, “When I say memorise lines, I mean right there in the moment. I have 30 seconds — sometimes it’ll be a big monologue and you’ll be going back and forth between the screens. You try to get an idea of what the line is so you can say it while monitoring the flaps. Generally, you get 30 seconds per cue and they want to get through, if they can, 30-35 cues in an hour. It’s a very technical and laborious process because not all cues are equal and some will have to be redone. It’s a skill that you develop on the job.”

When Austin was younger, he would try and get into what he calls the “mode”. He would do a bunch of vocal exercises and if the scene was particularly demanding, say a torturous scene, he would try and tap into those emotions beforehand. Nowadays he doesn’t find that helpful and instead focuses on staying present, sensitive and aware of both the scene and the character, as well as having his voice prepared and loose.

Usually, the voice actor and director will first listen to the Japanese track because they want to honour that first and foremost. Then, it’s a matter of figuring out what the English version of that is. The voice actor might suggest something and the director will tweak it until they land on a voice that both parties are happy with. According to Austin, this exact process is what happened when he was cast as Yu Ishigami for the English dub of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War.

In other instances, a voice actor will be cast in a role because of their natural speaking voice and will therefore use it to determine the character’s sound. They will then use tone and vocal placement, which are informed by the intentions of the character, to inform the consistent sound of a character.

Keep in mind that voice actors are usually involved in multiple projects — and with anime production increasing rapidly due to worldwide interest, that means hours spent in voiceover booths recording lines. 

Austin recalled a moment when he was voicing Accelerator in Season 3 of A Certain Scientific Railgun, which — after an intense day of voiceover work — resulted in his voice breaking. “There was this one scene that just broke me and you can even hear my voice breaking in the scene, but we just had to get it that day. I’m pretty sure there are certain sounds I can’t make after doing that.”

Contracting the Omicron variant of COVID-19 affected Austin’s vocal range too, even though his symptoms weren’t severe. He said, “Ever since then, there are certain violent screams in my range that are getting cut off.”

According to Austin, it’s a little bit trickier to do this, but you develop experience while on the job.

Austin said, “Acting has always been very important to me, so it’s a joy to get to participate and it’s a joy to know that people appreciate it. You get to talk to fans and hear that these things resonate with them.”