The Hindi Dub Cast of Kaiju No. 8 Take You Inside The Studio
by Adriana Hazra,
We started with a chat with Adnan Shakeel, who portrays Reno Ichikawa. He spoke of how he got started in the industry and used the fandubs he made in his school days as a portfolio when he first began auditioning for professional voice acting roles. We also spoke to Rushikesh Punse (Kafka Hibino), Nyssha (Kikoru Shinomiya), and Vidit Kumar (Soshiro Hoshina) about what it was like to create the Hindi dub, their creative processes, and the creative flow in the dubbing studios of Kaiju No. 8.
ANN: I've heard from dubbing artists recently that the industry has changed a lot post-lockdown. Some voice actors have setups in their homes and no longer work closely with each other in the studio. Is that how Crunchyroll produced the Hindi dub of Kaiju No. 8?
Nyssha: The process during Covid was because we were in lockdown, but we had to continue working in media, entertainment, and news. All of these don't really stop. But Kaiju No. 8 was entirely recorded in a studio. We had a proper process. We had auditions, and once the voices were selected, we all went through to get an idea of what we would dub. We have to be a little prepared with anime because there are variations in characters. Our director gave us amazing character sketches, and that's how we continued the flow.
ANN: What do you think is the best part about this way of recording, and how is it different from recording at home?
Rushikesh Punse: When working in the studio, it's a lot easier for us to dub because we have the character in front of us. We get direction from seeing the visuals, unlike in a home setup. If we work in a home setup, we face problems like white noise. But in the studio, we don't have to worry about that. Sometimes, we get the director's input when he hears our performance and says, "Take this dialogue like this or perform like this," and we can adjust accordingly.
It's also more convenient because the sound engineers are there to give you technical support. In home setups, I've had to manage the sound levels and noise reduction. You are not only a voice artist; you are also a Recording Engineer, a director, a scriptwriter, and so on. You are doing multiple things at the same time, so it was much easier when we went back to working in a studio. It helped the creative process.
Nyssha: These characters were opened to auditions, at least mine was, and once I was selected, I was given a character brief. Even though I had some idea about the role that I tried to find out in advance, it was only when I went there and actually saw the scene that I got an idea as to the variations or the colors that the character had. From then on, it's like any other dubbing work. It's a creative process that keeps flowing because we don't know the entire story in advance or have all the episodes to refer to. Since we have to go episode by episode, there's no easy way to prep in advance, which is why it's easier in the studio. The process of building the character, of giving it more colors, is creative. With our director's and engineer's guidance, we have multiple opinions so that the best can come out. Dayal, our director, was awesome at bringing out the character, which made our jobs easier.
ANN: As far as tsundere are concerned, Kikoru is a pretty complex character who changes her demeanor a lot depending on the situation or what character she's speaking to. Could you tell ANN's readers how you prepared to portray her? How did you convey consistency in her character when she's switching between her different moods and mannerisms?
Nyssha: That consistency was actually a challenge for this show because her switches and variations were not just in character. It was body language, and her [sound] levels would also change massively in the performance, so maintaining that was obviously quite a task. In fact, there was an incident in one scene when she was fighting the Kaiju and she's also got a lot of mental talk happening. There was this constant flow of reactions while she was fighting. One second, she's screaming, then she comes back down, and very silently, she was like, "Yeh kaise hua?" (How did this happen?) because she was surprised with herself that she managed to defeat that Kaiju. Someone called out to me in the studio, saying, "How did what happen? It was absolutely fine." They actually couldn't catch that I was dubbing for the next line because I suddenly went from being extremely larger than life down to very simple, real, and conversational. So these things would happen often when we were recording because of all the shades [of her character] she would show.
ANN: Is there any structure you go by where the main characters' dialogues are recorded first, and the rest of the cast members can work off that? Or does each cast member go in blind?
Adnan Shakeel: We record separately. Like every other artist, you work independently, but a director is always there to guide you.
Rushikesh Punse: There's no structure in that sense. The recording schedules are planned according to people's availability. If I'm not available, Adnan can dub his parts first.
Nyssha: If the other artists' lines have already been recorded, we get the counter for the scenes. We need to match their dialogues as well.
ANN: Would you say that is different from performing a scene with another actor?
Nyssha: It's a layer harder reacting to the counters because you don't have the other person in front of you. You also don't have room to move around. Anything we do in the recording booth will be caught on the mic. So, there are a lot more limitations, but it's the exact same process with some more distinctions.
ANN: What were your favorite scenes to record?
Rushikesh Punse: I have a lot of favorite scenes, but one in particular that I discuss often is the second episode where Reno and Kaiju no. 8 are outside the hospital. As Kaiju no. 8 is running ahead and Reno is running behind him, Kafka is unable to understand what is happening in his body. Kafka is confused. I feel that that scene is pretty unique, funny, and different. I enjoyed performing that scene the most overall.
Adnan Shakeel: Mine would be the same as the one Rushikesh-bhai described. The scene where they are running out of the hospital really shows the bond between the two characters. It's a good basis for the relationship in future episodes. The most important thing in the scene was the comedy—where you get to play with the characters and the lines. The creative process flows so that we can convey the humor of the situation to the Hindi audience.
Vidit Kumar: I think my favorite scene would be where Hoshina had a battle with one of the Kaiju, and at the end of the episode, he was reenacting the whole battle alone. He remembered the whole stance, every move that he made. That was unique because you learn about his character through that scene. You realize that this dude isn't the vice-captain by fluke. He knows what he's doing.
Nyssha: Mine was the very first introduction scene of Kikoru where she meets Kafka—where Rushikesh has done the Hindi voice—and she tells him how he's parked in the wrong spot but says it in a crass way "Eh uncle, gaadi hataa!" (Hey uncle, move the car!) His reaction conveys how bad he felt like, "She called me an uncle?" That scene where she's being nasty, she's being like super... you know the word I can't use in an interview. [laughs] It was really funny.
ANN: Shonen protagonists are a lot different now than they were back in the day. They're older and don't exude the same optimism and enthusiasm. Kafka Hibino is an adult character with a realistic outlook on life but still exudes confidence and an air of leadership. So, when you portray this character, do you draw on any of your personal experiences, whether in your professional or personal life?
Rushikesh Phunse: Mostly, I've seen shonen characters are teenagers or eighteen to twenty-year-olds. At the beginning of Kaiju No. 8, Kafka Hibino is thirty-two, one of the oldest characters I've seen. I feel like the series demanded—and the character demanded—that he be a character that doesn't give up. I think the age limit for the Defense Force was thirty to thirty-two. He is determined to prove he can do it and won't give up until the end. He feels that "I can do it. I can try to pass the exam. This might be my last try, but I still have to try."
The biggest place his age comes into play is when he finally joins the Defense Force. His experience, all the work that he'd done up to that point, the cleaning, getting to know about Kaiju in the process, it led to him knowing every vein in a kaiju's body. All that experience comes in handy somewhere or the other while he's in the Defense Force. I don't think shonen characters need to be teenagers or twenty-four or twenty-five. I feel that his age was perfect. I've spent a lot of my life going after my own achievements, so I could definitely relate to that while playing a character like Kafka, who doesn't give up. A big part of his drive was to prove to his childhood friend that he could achieve his dream, and that was one of the parts where I felt the character.
ANN: When you portray a Japanese or Korean character in Hindi, do you try to Indianize them or bring in more of the original cultural flavor to the Hindi dub?
Rushikesh Phunse: Whatever country's character we're dubbing, we try our best not to dub everything literally. We try to make sure that the audience understands the intent, but we also add an Indian flavor to it. If we were to translate everything literally, it wouldn't be fun for the audience. It'll feel like it was made for a Japanese audience.
ANN: Same question for Ms. Nysha. Would you say when you're portraying an American or Japanese character, you try to make them more Indian?
Nyssha: Yeah, definitely. It's more Indian in the sense that we don't want to lose the flavor of what has already been created. Whether it's Japanese or American, or even if I'm translating something from Hindi to Telugu in a dub, I have to match the language and the energy of the language. When it comes to flavor, we don't want to take it out of the show entirely. We know it's a Japanese show. The Indian audience knows it's a Japanese anime. It's not like they're expecting it to be something that has suddenly come out of, maybe, Bombay or Bihar. There are these occasions when they've spoken a sentence in their language—in Japanese—and we understand what they mean because of the English subtitles, but putting it literally in Hindi might not give you the same feeling. If I were to say, "I can't have my cake and eat it too." and then translate the same thing to Hindi, it wouldn't make sense. So, in those scenarios, we have to be more creative. We have to play around and see how the Indian audience will connect. Would it be something famous from Bollywood that might connect? Would it be a line from some meme that would connect? You know, even something that is trending.
ANN: Would that be something that you and the director try different versions of?
Nyssha: In Kaiju No. 8, there were so many possibilities in which we could have created the Hindi version of all these characters. To narrow it down, we obviously had to keep trying multiple ways to make that same dialogue sound more like that character, less like a script, or less like something the Japanese voice is saying. So, there were multiple takes and multiple conversations. Like I said, it's a creative process.
Vidit Kumar: I feel the script sometimes comes with some of these options. Depending on the scene and what the character is doing in the scene, we can improvise based on that. Also, I'll give you an example. So recently, I dubbed an episode where Hoshina is saying a line that we had improvised that went, "Kya hum iske chhakke chuda sakte hain?" (Colloquialism that loosely translates to "Can we beat them?") In the scene, Hoshina is doing like a six symbol, like how in cricket matches the umpire does the six symbol. So, based on that visual, we improvised that line even though the script had something completely different.
ANN: Would you mind telling our readers what the script originally said?
Vidit Kumar: I don't think I remember it properly, but it was something normal. It was probably, "Hum toh isse haraa hi denge!" (We can surely beat them!)
ANN: So finally, Mr. Adnan, I would like to ask how you started in the industry.
Adnan Shakeel: I'm not from Mumbai; I'm from Delhi. I had a home set up, and I used to dub trailers and upload them on YouTube. From there, I realized the potential of my voice and my creativity. I got to know about my passion. Once I started dubbing trailers, I learned about artists working in Mumbai. I didn't know about the industry, but once my interest started to develop, I completed my 12th standard, and I came here to Mumbai.
ANN: Then, was your experience working in fandubs beneficial when auditioning? Could you send it to the directors or studios?
Adnan Shakeel: Yeah, I used to send them in. It was like a sample for me, so when I approached studios, I used it like a portfolio. It helped me show off my potential when I was trying to get work.
Aside from its Hindi simuldub, Kaiju No. 8 is releasing with Tamil and Telugu dubs as well. The anime is also inspiring a video game for PC and smartphones.
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