Doing Dubbing

Voice-Over is a difficult field to break into. It takes lots of motivation, determination, hard work, and ability.
-James Arnold Taylor

He’s one of the reasons why I dream of becoming a voice-actress. In fact I’m quite considering that career but I have no background in such industry. Well I’ve delivered a radio report in Broadcast Journalism for our prelim exam. I wonder if that counts.

In my opinion he did a fantastic job with Tidus from Final Fantasy X. Many gamers complained that he made Tidus sound like a whiny sissy. The Japanese voice-actor Masakazu Morita on the other hand portrayed him to be lighthearted and easygoing.

James Arnold Taylor

Tidus

Masakazu Morita

Speaking in a story-like sense, I think it’s only fitting that Tidus be a typical whiny westerner. It plays a vital part in his character development throughout the story’s progress. His voice when narrating sounds reasonably mature and different from his raw character. Those Tidus-haters are just looking for excuses to bash him.

James Arnold Taylor also did the voices of Johnny Test, Leonardo (TMNT) and Obi-wan Kenobi (Star Wars: Clone Wars) thus he clearly is a professional in his field. The celebrities in the voice-acting field though are Tara Strong who voiced Rikku (Final Fantasy X), Bubbles (The Powerpuff Girls), Raven (Teen Titans) and Timmy Turner (The Fairly Odd Parents) and Tom Kenny who did SpongeBob Squarepants and many other characters that can fill this blog.

Since this third-world country has no cartoon and animation industry, the only open door to such a career is dubbing. I personally believe I can pull it off but the local channels dub only in Tagalog and I’m more comfortable speaking English. Of course I’m also fluent in the former but I’m just more “at home” with English.

Plus the local dubbers suck. It’s obvious that most of the cast are gay, not in a discriminatory sense. It’s either the voices are too deep or too light and the dubbers don’t fit their characters. The cast who did Naruto on ABS-CBN sounds like fingers grinding through a blackboard. The Cartoon Network cast is more aggressive and motivated though but can be overacting. Plus the American accent on the Japanese names sound odd… “My names is Nah-roo-TOE Oo-zoo-MAH-kee! Remember it!”

My sister said that if ever I’m gonna march into Hero (our local animé channel) and apply as a dubber, I’m fit to voice a tomboyish supporting character or a bratty little boy. I’d prefer voicing male characters. Veronica Taylor voices both Ash and May from Pokémon.

Veronica Taylor

In the end maybe voice-acting will just be a hobby for me and not a career. I could start as as a disc jockey for some niche radio station.