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INTEREST: Ken Akamatsu Comments on Casting POC Voice Actors in American Cartoons, Japanese Anime

That was the early 2010s. As of now, FUNimation is working to rectify on this. BEM, Astra and My Hero Academia so far included BIPOC in major character roles.

True very poor example on my part the game Wargroove would’ve been a far better example since it is still recent

Oh, so Jason Marnocha playing a dark-skinned character, but also had David Dixon who's black playing a white character.

...Could be a well-intentioned casting that backfired a bit.

Greed1914 wrote:

One of the best parts about voice acting is a person's appearance doesn't have to correlate to the character on screen. I've heard more than a few voice actors express that sentiment and say how it helps avoid typecasting because they don't have to look the part. There is also obviously the problem of trying to cast based on an appearance that may or may not turn out to be accurate. What do you do with, for example, a show with a setting modeled after European medieval times, but the characters have Japanese names? Isekais would be a bit a challenge since many of them involve a Japanese person reincarnating with a different appearance. My Next Life as a Villainess involves a Japanese girl reincarnating into a character with a name and living in a setting that would suggest she is closer to European now. What do you do with that other than cast whomever gives the best audition?

Yea that’s great and all but when the English voice acting industry is predominantly white people and very few BIPOC in comparison the BIPOC actors really only get the one line token roles. While the white actors get both the white/BIPOC roles that’s why they get to say “it doesn’t matter how you look to be a voice actor” it’s really funny how it’s really only white voice actors saying that. Voice Actors that are BIPOC don’t get the same chance to audition for bigger roles because they are type casted for one off token characters and yet when a major role that is a character of color they’re not even given a chance at the role. Because it’s easier to go lets get Troy Baker or Nolan North or Laura Bailey and Jennifer Hale to play these characters rather than actually auditioning someone who wouldn’t get that opportunity in the first place.(Note I’m not calling Troy, Nolan, Laura or Jennifer out I used them as examples because let’s be real they are basically in everything) If you followed any BIPOC voice actor on twitter you would’ve seen them talking about this over the last few weeks how they normally don’t get major roles where the character is white or of color and mostly get type casted roles.

I'd say those examples given have more to do with an industry that tends to want to cast big names that are known quantities. That is especially so when studios are spending millions of dollars on a game. Everybody is at a disadvantage compared to a big name.

And I'm not saying there shouldn't be more diversity in the audition process and more open-mindedness when it comes to casting. I am saying that one of the biggest advantages of voice acting is that appearance should not matter. I'm not saying it never does factor into it, and it's a shame when it does. However, I am saying that it shouldn't matter what the fictional character on the screen looks like and should be left up to the people making the choices to cast whomever they feel fits the best, regardless of their physical appearance. Many voice actors would not be what Hollywood would consider "leading-role attractive" in terms of physical appearance, yet that isn't a barrier for that particular type of acting. Much the same way, skin color shouldn't be used as a barrier for casting for a character whose appearance is separate from the person voicing them.

Yea skin color shouldn’t affect voice acting but guess what it does and there’s no hiding that, Voice actors that are BIPOC have said this they don’t get the roles because they are type casted as one off token characters with one line. And there does need to be a change which is happening in small steps but it’s happening so that’s good.

I think you may be missing my point. Typecasting isn't a good thing, and making casting decisions based on the appearance of the character on the screen, whether actual or perceived, isn't going to do anything other than encourage more typecasting. Casting certainly should be more open to all sorts of actors, and voice casting choices should take advantage of the fact that the character on the screen and the person auditioning don't need to look at all similar. I think leaving the field open, regardless of what the actor looks like, stands to make for a more inclusive environment. It's not good that those barriers were and are present (I'm certainly not arguing it hasn't been a problem), but I'm not sure that casting an actor because they share a similar appearance to a character that was created wholly separate from the actor is the way to go about addressing that.

The article was about Akamatsu's comments about the recent trend towards casting/recasting based on appearance. Where anime is concerned, that appearance is frequently just an artistic choice so, to me at least, it seems silly to get wrapped up in what the actor looks like compared to a cartoon character.

"However, I will say that the move to select actors on their race rather than their individual talents appears to go against the path that humanity has walked throughout history."