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Answerman - Why Don't Dubs Cast Real Kids?


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Gemnist



Joined: 10 Feb 2016
Posts: 1762
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 12:09 pm Reply with quote
Isn't it also true that kids have a much harder time reading lip flaps compared to adults? I heard that's why Aaron Dismuke was cast as Al - because Al has no lip flaps.
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Lord Geo



Joined: 18 Sep 2005
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Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 12:11 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Child labor laws are one: kids can only work 18 hours during a school week. That's probably fine for a one-episode role or for a movie, but if their character is a major role in an ongoing series, that can be a pretty tough limitation to work around. Dubbing isn't a major enough production to take kids out of school for any period of time, and budgets are famously very tight, so hiring an on-set tutor to get around such limitations is out of the question.


A perfect example of this would be Anime Midstream's dub for the first half of Matchless Raijin-Oh. That dub did in fact cast a number of younger people for recurring roles, some of which were apparently still in high school when dubbing started. As a result, I'm sure that child labor laws, combined with having to work around the kids' school lives, were a major reason why Midstream only managed to knock out a single 5-episode DVD every year from 2009 to 2013; once the dub was dropped for the second half, Midstream was able to put the last 26 episodes out sub-only the following year.

Sure, it does allow for the dub to sound much more accurate in some instances, but it's just not something that can be relied on.
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catbot158



Joined: 04 Mar 2017
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 12:13 pm Reply with quote
Gemnist wrote:
Isn't it also true that kids have a much harder time reading lip flaps compared to adults? I heard that's why Aaron Dismuke was cast as Al - because Al has no lip flaps.

That's exactly why. He wouldn't have gotten the chance otherwise. Aaron also happened to be related to a crew member at Funimation, so that helped him get the role too.
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Lord Oink



Joined: 06 Jul 2016
Posts: 876
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 12:21 pm Reply with quote
Even if you can't cast kids in America, you can at least cast people (women) who try to sound like kids. So many cartoons these days have kid characters who have voices that don't even attempt to change their 30+ year old voices, like Gravity Falls or the Ducktales reboot. It's so offputting.
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Chiibi



Joined: 19 Dec 2011
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 12:22 pm Reply with quote
I figured it's because boys' voices change so much.

Hey Arnold's title character was voiced by about six different little boys (counting the newest movie) If you watch the show in order, the changes can be a little jarring, somewhat.
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Codeanime93



Joined: 28 Jul 2017
Posts: 599
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 12:28 pm Reply with quote
Inuyasha was another case where in the English dub they actually got a real kids to voice all of Kohaku's lines even though in the original Japanese he was voiced by voice actress Akiko Yajima. In fact the English dub used at least 3 child actors for Kohaku over the course of that series even counting The Final Act.
ADV did it sometimes with dubs for I think Saiyuki, Tekken the Motion Picture. Though this was usually again not the case in the Japanese as they instead opted out with a female voice actress instead.

Also the Berserk movies had a kid voicing young Guts also in the English dub.

And infamously Disney cast Dakota and Elle Fanning as the two little girls in Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro. Two roles again filled by grown adult women in the Japanese dub.


Last edited by Codeanime93 on Wed Feb 28, 2018 9:13 pm; edited 3 times in total
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 12:33 pm Reply with quote
The type of shows that they could do would also be some what restricted right? Magical Arcade Abenobashi has some interesting scenes, and if the Monogatari series was dubbed into English no way would a child actor voice Hachikuji. I would like to see a child actor for a dub of Miss Machiko, a 10 year old year boy being directed to talk about groping an older woman LOL.
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Beatdigga



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 12:35 pm Reply with quote
Back in the day, the guy who made Hey Arnold did an interview about casting kids vs imitators.

By the time the show was done he had gone through three Arnold’s because their voices kept dropping and necessitated recasts.
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EmperorBrandon
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 04 Oct 2002
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 1:01 pm Reply with quote
The questioner is mistaken on School Babysitters. I don't think there are any child VA's in its cast.
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GoldCrusader



Joined: 25 Apr 2017
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 1:13 pm Reply with quote
I wonder if that's why FUNi didn't do a simuldub for School babysitters this season. Would have been probably way too hard.
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catbot158



Joined: 04 Mar 2017
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 1:17 pm Reply with quote
I remember the 1993 OVA Please Save My Earth had a kid in their dub as well. It was a ballsy move, considering that the role required the kid to act like an adult at times and he had to do some pretty emotional stuff. It wasn't the greatest performance, but you gotta give props when a company is willing to cast a child in a difficult voice-over role.
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Kadmos1



Joined: 08 May 2014
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 1:32 pm Reply with quote
What I want to know why do 13+ boy characters sometimes get voiced by women over men? I get that an adult male's voice might not sound convincing enough to play such a character, but with so many young 20-something male seiyuu out there, the odds are some will have the right voice. The one genre I that put as a big no-no for women to play teen male characters are harem shows. If it's about a guy surrounded by tits and ass, then I find it awkward and even unfitting a woman plays that boy. The exception is for his younger self or if he is a gender-bender (this includes being androgynous).
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Fruitsbsk28



Joined: 27 Nov 2005
Posts: 17
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 1:33 pm Reply with quote
The Wolf Children dub needed child voice actors. I grew up with the Digimon dub and even that was way less off putting. The simulcast for Clear Card is another one that comes to mind that I just can't enjoy because Syaoran's voice doesn't match his face.. but that might be beating a dead horse by now.
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Joshua Zarate



Joined: 12 Jan 2017
Posts: 2062
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 1:44 pm Reply with quote
I wonder if the English Voice actress for Pino in Ergo Proxy was voiced by a child or a grown woman who can sound quite convincingly as a young child because I won’t be surprised if it was the former. It really did sound like a little girl was in the booth. If not, then my hearing is way off.
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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 1:44 pm Reply with quote
Even without having to worry about restrictions on how much time kids can work, the added cost of having to spend extra time in the booth would add up fast. I was listening to one of the commentaries for Attack on Titan season 2 last night, and it was mentioned that David Matranga's session was considered fast for the first season because his character spoke so little that his recording for that season was done in half a day. If that is considered fast for an adult, I have to think that kids aren't a realistic option.

Last edited by Greed1914 on Thu Mar 01, 2018 12:45 pm; edited 1 time in total
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