Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

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Inkei9001
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Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

Post by Inkei9001 » Thu Feb 02, 2023 6:40 pm

I am literally shaking.

I saw a video today on YouTube of Ryo Horikawa doing an English voice for vegeta generated by AI and it sounds almost good enough to be real and dare I say better than any English dub performance for Vegeta.

There was another video of Masako Nozawa doing english dub for Goku and while it didn't sound as good as the Ryo Horikawa Vegeta english voice, it was still crazy.

What would be everyone's estimations on the probability that in 5-10 years Toei and/or Sony could soon rely on such technology to cut the costs of dubbing Dragon Ball and other anime? I know it may be a contentious topic so let's try to keep it civil, everyone.

(tw: trolling/clickbait/memeing) The videos in question:
Ryo Horikawa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI61k_Vy6X8
Masako Nozawa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxect5yGRJ8

I have it on good authority that some of the official English dub cast are already worried about AI dubbing making voice actors redundant...not a joke. But the official cast member(s) in question are saying 20-30 years rather than my guess of 5-10 years.
Last edited by Inkei9001 on Thu Feb 02, 2023 6:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

Post by MasenkoHA » Thu Feb 02, 2023 6:49 pm

Yeah it still sounds artificial af. I wouldn't be worried anytime soon

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Re: Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

Post by Inkei9001 » Thu Feb 02, 2023 6:51 pm

MasenkoHA wrote: Thu Feb 02, 2023 6:49 pm Yeah it still sounds artificial af. I wouldn't be worried anytime soon
Must be placebo.

Can you honestly say if you had never heard of AI voice generation and you didn't know who Ryo Horikawa was...that you'd think this is artificial "af"? Cap

And while you're not worried, like I say, some of the significant official English dub VAs are

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Re: Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

Post by jjgp1112 » Thu Feb 02, 2023 8:33 pm

Inkei9001 wrote: Thu Feb 02, 2023 6:51 pm
MasenkoHA wrote: Thu Feb 02, 2023 6:49 pm Yeah it still sounds artificial af. I wouldn't be worried anytime soon
Must be placebo.

Can you honestly say if you had never heard of AI voice generation and you didn't know who Ryo Horikawa was...that you'd think this is artificial "af"? Cap

And while you're not worried, like I say, some of the significant official English dub VAs are
That didn't sound the least bit natural. Like the Ryo Horikawa one was a step above Microsoft Sam and the average deepfake but if that has you "literally shaking" then I dunno man, you need to listen to more people talk or something. And the Nozawa one? Yeah, no. That was a typical deepfake
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Re: Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

Post by TheGreatness25 » Thu Feb 02, 2023 8:42 pm

Not gonna lie, they both sound really, really bad. The Japanese voices sound great when speaking their native tongue with their speaking patterns. This just sounds pretty awful.

And yeah, let's just put all voice actors out of business. Why stop there? Why not use AI for the Japanese version too?

It'll be great when every job is replaced by some form of AI except for the occasional person who has to maintain them (until they get AI that maintains AI). Then we'll all be sitting around so proud of what we created when we have no jobs, no money, no purpose. Anyway, too deep--for now, I'll just say that I thought that sounded terrible.

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Re: Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

Post by Metalwario64 » Thu Feb 02, 2023 9:34 pm

I am beyond tired of all of this AI stuff. Not to mention the implications in terms of art. I'm not one who's excited for these things really taking off in the future.
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Re: Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

Post by Shaddy » Fri Feb 03, 2023 5:50 am

Even if an AI can sound "accurate", that's never going to be the same thing as actually giving a good performance, and these clips do a good job of showing just how far off a voice can be taken when it's fed clips of one language and forced to interpolate them to another. They have the tone of Horikawa and Nozawa, but none of the enunciation.

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Re: Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Fri Feb 03, 2023 8:49 am

Yeeeeeeahhhh...that barely (and i mean barely) sounded anything even remotely close to how Horikawa or Nozawa actually sound like in reality. It's like someone trying and failing to do impressions of their voices if they were to learn and be able to speak English fluently as a second language in addition to their native tongue.
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Re: Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

Post by Inkei9001 » Fri Feb 03, 2023 9:50 am

Chris Sabat voice synthesis with AI tech from 2021-2022 (tw: broadcast audio situation):
https://vocaroo.com/15QHJIGVG0Mx

Ryo Horikawa voice synthesis with AI tech from this year:
https://vocaroo.com/1gQTPSHBtBHX

Surely you guys can see why I'm literally shaking (in fear). Only delusion, cope or pure technological illiteracy can be reasons for not being impressed and scared by this tech's current state let alone where it will be in 5-10 years.

And yeah, these don't sound exactly like Horikawa or Nozawa... the technology is not actually focused yet on listening to Japanese people and converting their voice for usage in English; so, whether these are 100% replications of Nozawa and Horikawa's voice is not the matter in question. It's the fact that the results are as good as they are right now (in the tech's infancy, used in a way for which it wasn't built), surely anyone with the most basic familiarity with technological progression can get a sense of how far this will go. Hyperbolic critiques like "this is only a step above microsoft sam" from people who still regularly use forums in 2023 sadly won't make futuristic technology any less of a reality :pensive:

Here are some crazy impressive non-DB ones I've seen people post on twitter and discord:

Dumbledore in Harry Potter 2030 reboot (tw: jk rowling character):
https://vocaroo.com/18hc1jZUEXL4

Hitman - New mission for Agent 47:
https://vocaroo.com/1iYiyN3rCJJn

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Re: Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

Post by MasenkoHA » Fri Feb 03, 2023 10:09 am

At the risk of sounding rude....have you ever heard an actual person talk....ever?

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Re: Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

Post by sangofe » Fri Feb 03, 2023 10:14 am

Inkei9001 wrote: Thu Feb 02, 2023 6:40 pm I am literally shaking.

I saw a video today on YouTube of Ryo Horikawa doing an English voice for vegeta generated by AI and it sounds almost good enough to be real and dare I say better than any English dub performance for Vegeta.

There was another video of Masako Nozawa doing english dub for Goku and while it didn't sound as good as the Ryo Horikawa Vegeta english voice, it was still crazy.

What would be everyone's estimations on the probability that in 5-10 years Toei and/or Sony could soon rely on such technology to cut the costs of dubbing Dragon Ball and other anime? I know it may be a contentious topic so let's try to keep it civil, everyone.

(tw: trolling/clickbait/memeing) The videos in question:
Ryo Horikawa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI61k_Vy6X8
Masako Nozawa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxect5yGRJ8

I have it on good authority that some of the official English dub cast are already worried about AI dubbing making voice actors redundant...not a joke. But the official cast member(s) in question are saying 20-30 years rather than my guess of 5-10 years.
They resemble a little bit but they lack a lot of emotion and energy, and they're not really that close in voice timber.

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Re: Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

Post by Inkei9001 » Fri Feb 03, 2023 10:24 am

MasenkoHA wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 10:09 am At the risk of sounding rude....have you ever heard an actual person talk....ever?
This line would be the slightest bit funny if it made any sense.

We're talking about dubs and voice acting...are you telling me voice acting for a children's cartoon is how you think people talk in real life? You might need to get off internet forums and hear real people talking and you'll see how voice actors dub a children's cartoon versus how "actual people talk" are two very different things and it isn't the latter in discussion here

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Re: Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

Post by jjgp1112 » Fri Feb 03, 2023 10:54 am

Inkei9001 wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 10:24 am
MasenkoHA wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 10:09 am At the risk of sounding rude....have you ever heard an actual person talk....ever?
This line would be the slightest bit funny if it made any sense.

We're talking about dubs and voice acting...are you telling me voice acting for a children's cartoon is how you think people talk in real life? You might need to get off internet forums and hear real people talking and you'll see how voice actors dub a children's cartoon versus how "actual people talk" are two very different things and it isn't the latter in discussion here
Whether we're talking about "children's cartoon acting" or how "actual people talk," these things you keep trying to shove down our throats sound like neither. They don't sound like words coming from a human. Period.
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Re: Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

Post by Inkei9001 » Fri Feb 03, 2023 10:58 am

jjgp1112 wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 10:54 am /quote]Whether we're talking about "children's cartoon acting" or how "actual people talk," these things you keep trying to shove down our throats sound like neither. They don't sound like words coming from a human. Period.
Shove down your throat? My guy, whether you choose to click a thread and then click on links is totally on you. Wanting to blame others for your own actions is a typical "moment"

And yeah... I mean, I'm surprised reading comprehension ain't among the forte of people who have spent enough time on forums to rack up 5000-8000 posts, but the point of this thread isn't "why haven't we started replacing VAs yet with AI?" and is about, could this become good enough in 5-10 years to do so. If reading comprehension was your thing, you might've figured that no one is saying what you're hearing right now is good enough just yet to get rid of voice actors. Though AI horikawa still sounds better than Sabat's vegeta bc Sabat's vegeta is that lame :shrug:
Last edited by Inkei9001 on Fri Feb 03, 2023 12:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

Post by Majin Buu » Fri Feb 03, 2023 11:50 am

The Nozawa one only vaguely sounds like her in tone.

And to answer the topic question- no. AI isn't replacing actual human voice actors any time soon based on that, foreign dub or not.

That being said: With some fine tuning and an actual human performing it, you might have a pretty good English Goku. This may be a hot take, but considering I can hear something of Nozawa in there at all tells me that this wouldn't be a completely bad starting point if you were theoretically looking to recast English Goku to sound closer to Nozawa. Like, it could provide a (very) rough draft of sorts for what the character sounds like in English that the casting people could use as a basis for finding an English voice actor that could fine tune it into something close that works.

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Re: Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

Post by Inkei9001 » Fri Feb 03, 2023 12:06 pm

Also, scratch the 5-10 years.

It looks like AI art (despite only really kicking off barely 6 months ago) is already making its way into replacing human artists in anime:
https://twitter.com/80Level/status/1621486161456934913

Some folk seem to think companies care about what's going to maintain quality? Nah lol, we went from gorgeous cel animation to crappy digipaint anime and then from crappy digipaint to now (still fairly crappy) CGI anime. Companies are about efficiency and using new tech when it's "good enough" to drastically cut costs. They're not gonna pull internet nerd moves like "uhm aktually to me this still sounds artificial" and not use it lol.

People who think their senses are very good at catching what's fake/artificial are prone to reddit moderator syndrome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0VsHkdPFA0

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Re: Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

Post by fleahop » Fri Feb 03, 2023 9:02 pm

Inkei9001 wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 12:06 pm Also, scratch the 5-10 years.

It looks like AI art (despite only really kicking off barely 6 months ago) is already making its way into replacing human artists in anime:
https://twitter.com/80Level/status/1621486161456934913

Some folk seem to think companies care about what's going to maintain quality? Nah lol, we went from gorgeous cel animation to crappy digipaint anime and then from crappy digipaint to now (still fairly crappy) CGI anime. Companies are about efficiency and using new tech when it's "good enough" to drastically cut costs. They're not gonna pull internet nerd moves like "uhm aktually to me this still sounds artificial" and not use it lol.

People who think their senses are very good at catching what's fake/artificial are prone to reddit moderator syndrome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0VsHkdPFA0
Eew. Stop.

They do sound artificial, they are incapable of conveying appropriate emotions, they also cannot properly do any nonverbal vocals (which I don't know if you're aware but that is important). It's just not feasible. People can forgive a lot, but this is not one of those things. Humans pick up on the tiniest of variations in sound, especially when it's the voice of another person. Cartoon animation blunders we can forgive, but what you're suggesting is like ignoring the auditory equivalent of the uncanny valley.

Why you're so insistent to pursue this in such a hostile manner is beyond me. Chill.
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Re: Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

Post by ATA » Fri Feb 03, 2023 11:25 pm

Those two voice clips sound awful. Sounded like Alexa or Siri. Dubbing by humans will never go away.
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Re: Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

Post by MasenkoHA » Fri Feb 03, 2023 11:48 pm

ATA wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 11:25 pm Those two voice clips sound awful. Sounded like Alexa or Siri. Dubbing by humans will never go away.
At the very least not anytime soon.

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Re: Could foreign dub casts be a thing of the past?

Post by Jord » Sat Feb 04, 2023 9:08 am

MasenkoHA wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 11:48 pm
ATA wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 11:25 pm Those two voice clips sound awful. Sounded like Alexa or Siri. Dubbing by humans will never go away.
At the very least not anytime soon.
Except that major companies such as Disney are already AI as VO for smaller projects with Aladdin's VA as an example. This will only increase in the future as technology improves.

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