The number of new seiyuu in Japan has been low in recent years, and according to longtime sound director Yukio Nagasaki, it has to do with how the industry concentrates a lot more on veterans than newcomers.
Veteran sound director Yukio Nagasaki has worked on City Hunter and the Love Live! series, and recently talked about the “dangers” that the voice acting industry is currently facing amid an anime boom with big hits such as Kimetsu no Yaiba and Jujutsu Kaisen.
Nagasaki explained more in an interview with MagMix:
Yukio Nagasaki: “As a result from shifting the postrecording from group recording to individual recording due to the spread of the Coronavirus, the total hours spent with each voice actor has become much shorter. As a result, there’s been more time to schedule veterans who were previously difficult to book due to their popularity, so most of the requests have been concentrating on them. On the other hand, opportunities for new voice actors to see the light of day has drastically decreased.”
Furthermore, Nagasaki explained that there’s a “rank system” in the industry that is used to reward seiyuu and pushes them to go further. In the past, new voice actors started their careers at the lowest rank of “junior,” which essentially guarantees more opportunities after the first three years.
However, due to the pandemic, many voice actors who debuted three years ago have yet to see many opportunities with companies capitalizing on the veterans.
As for the rank system, it’s an agreement between the Japan Actors Union, Japan Voice Producers Federation, and the Japan Performing Arts Management Association that guarantees a minimum wage for the actors. The system is determined by various factors, such as ratings for TV broadcasts and movie screenings.
Recently, there’s been a series of sexual harassment accusations in the Japanese industry, in which famous directors have allegedly requested physical relationships in exchange for casting. However, according to Nagasaki, it would be difficult for that to happen in the voice acting industry:
Yukio Nagasaki: “If one were to cast a person without skills for that reason, it would be difficult to break that relationship, and they would have to use that person across multiple works. I’d be too scared to do something like that because that would only put my ability as a director and producer in question. Furthermore, the anime casting method currently used by the production committee isn’t only decided by the sound director, but there’s also the director and such. It is decided by the consensus of producers within the companies. It is not a kind of system that could be abused for one’s personal intentions.”
Uhh, isn’t that an obvious result when your industry doesn’t (and cannot) grow because there are only so many TV animes per season with a finite amount of screen time? At some point, the market is saturated, only quality will permit a rise in status of an individual.
“Only quality will permit…”
neck yourself immediately, your stupidity needs to leave the genepool. Look no further than the US where absolutely talentless people are perpetually hired purely because these niche markets are controlled by cliques.
The only people who manage to break into them, are the people who create their own fame regardless of their talent — youre not being hired because youre good, youre hired because youre internet famous. Ashley Burch, Alejendro Saab, that chick who voices the blonde slut in the dub for that new cosplay anime, Christina Vee? Literally fucking talentless, hired purely because they made friends with much more famous people who wanted to work with them over working with new talent.
I don’t know who these people are, never heard of them before. Their status is non-existant. If you actually find someone who adores their work, just make the old man smile meme face. Everyone knows english dubs are a complete disaster and only acceptable if you can’t read.
Meanwhile, in Japan My Dress Up Darling was basically the dubbing debut for both main character’s seiyuus and it proved to be a great choice. Real quality can steamroll the talentless veterans, the real problem is that there’s never been any VA talents in the US compared to other countries since people with acting skills became regular actors to earn a much higher salary. You reap what you saw.
The US voice actor market is basically ruled by casting couch producers
Would you stop using ‘dub’ and ‘great choice’ in one sentance? It looks so stupid
The upside of this, is that there’s excellent talent in Japan for indie productions. And there are many – I’m sure you can make a living. But good luck de-throning the big names when they’re such workhorses that not only do the big anime but the small anime, games, VNs, everything.
Japanese VAs do have more of a rockstar status and are even used to promote the game/anime they participate in. Rookies not getting their chance because of that is a shame, but also understandable. The women who want to get into the industry can always use the alternate path of getting a 3D model and become V-Thots.
Probably doesn’t help also that theres a huge obsession with sequels at the moment and they always reuse the same people(No issue with that). But when everything a sequel theres very little else for newcomers.
The new seiyuus need to build their portifolio and show their talent in other channels like Youtube Niconico, etc…
This thing of trying to join an agency right from the beginning, without a portfolio, will make you have no margin to negotiate your salary.
Today there are seiyuus who have done the opposite way. They entered the industry in the past, but saw that their earnings were decreasing and decided to start their own business by opening channels in the sites I mentioned above or by lending their voice and getting paid without intermediaries, increasing their profits.
This thing of being recruited by an agency and being very successful is a thing of the past. Those who have established themselves will stay there. With the technology that exists today, you have to use your creativity to attract public and profit.
Anime/game industry as a whole is a messy place, devs/animators are also treated like dirt so really it’s just bad all around not just for seiyuu’s.
Its a cutthroat industry because you have a million different animes in a season. Most just work for themselves on their own terms and just release it to the media outlets.
Meanwhile its not a problem in the America because the top media corporations own most of the shows but the drawback is much longer time for new seasons.
I am personally appalled if you don’t think this also doesn’t happen in America too. Just because the employees sign a non disclosure agreement to never discuss their ongoing work. Makes sense because upcoming actors/actresses won’t wanna risk being fired.