Would you prefer replacing the VAs or having AI voices of them?

[JulieYBM]

God, voice doubles would be awful. Just let a new actor do their own thing, for the love of goodness.

[Hellspawn28]

No thanks considering that AI voices sound awful. Most of them, they sound robotic or people smoking 50 packs of cigs. Al can't do human emontions like humans do. Human voice actors are not going anywhere anytime soon.

[Civic]

God, voice doubles would be awful. Just let a new actor do their own thing, for the love of goodness.

Why? For a lot of people, a certain voice IS the character. If it changes, it can really take you out of the show.

A perfect example of it being done well is Uncle Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender. The original voice actor (Mako) passed after the 2nd season and his understudy completed the final season using an almost flawless imitation of him. Same thing happens for other long lived characters like the Warner Bros characters (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc.) and old school Disney (Mickey Mouse, Goofy, etc.)

[JulieYBM]

God, voice doubles would be awful. Just let a new actor do their own thing, for the love of goodness.

Why? For a lot of people, a certain voice IS the character. If it changes, it can really take you out of the show.

A perfect example of it being done well is Uncle Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender. The original voice actor (Mako) passed after the 2nd season and his understudy completed the final season using an almost flawless imitation of him. Same thing happens for other long lived characters like the Warner Bros characters (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc.) and old school Disney (Mickey Mouse, Goofy, etc.)

Uncle Iroh's replacement actor was not good. His voice was grating and he tried far to hard to replicate Mako instead of just playing to her own strengths.

Bugs and Daffy shouldn't be copies of Mel Blanc, either. New actors should do their own thing.

When it is finally time to recast Gokuu they should let a new actor do their own thing for their own projects as Gokuu. Asking for voice mimics is just going to get in the way of a good performance.

[Shaddy]

The thing is, you can say "geeks need to accept change" all you want, but I honestly think in abstract it's okay to want art to appeal to your comfort zone. Especially in an ongoing series that doesn't hard-reboot all the time, consistency is a value people care about a lot. Voice doubles can and have done great performances in a myriad of different media over the years and that's fine. Yes, it's bad for roles to get typecast such that a character's performance cannot grow or change, but it's not harmful on the face of it to keep things consistent.

But, "on the face of it" doesn't describe neural net voicework, which has two problems:

1. It generally sucks. Computers can mimic, but they can't act. The biggest strength I've seen for AI voice generation is as a supplement to media that already contains the voice being mimicked, for the specific purpose of adding or changing a few lines. Even then, you have to really work to make it sound half-decent, and it totally can still stick out to people.

2. It's automation, and like all automation, capitalism makes it evil. It usually violates the consent of the actors in question involved by even making it, but even if it doesn't, the persistence of the technology means that the company receives literally infinite work if the voice license is considered perpetual, until it enters public domain I suppose. You literally cannot give the actors fair compensation for this, even if it did not also steal the jobs of any other theoretical actors on a given project. The only ethical use of algorithmic voice generation is non-profit use, and even that's a little sketchy because of what it normalizes by existing.

While I agree it's good to be able to step out of your comfort zone, you can't guarantee a new version of a given character is going to fit or be universally-liked, and it totally can be jarring. This doesn't need to be an either/or thing.

[Civic]

Uncle Iroh's replacement actor was not good. His voice was grating and he tried far to hard to replicate Mako instead of just playing to her own strengths.

I mean... Greg Baldwin's entire purpose was to replicate Mako. He was his understudy.

We'll have to agree to disagree about the quality of his performance.

When it is finally time to recast Gokuu they should let a new actor do their own thing for their own projects as Gokuu. Asking for voice mimics is just going to get in the way of a good performance.

Why, though? Why does it get in the way? If someone is hired to replicate an existing voice, I don't understand how it impacts their performance in any way.

[JulieYBM]

Why, though? Why does it get in the way? If someone is hired to replicate an existing voice, I don't understand how it impacts their performance in any way.

Voice shit is hard. Now, combine trying to mimic someone else with having to actually act and create a good performance while matching lip flaps.

It also inevitably comes across as an entirely hollow performance. All when you could just hire a good actor for their human contribution to a project and not how best someone mimics the voice of a completely different actor. Nobody goes around trying to fully mimic stage actors or screen actors, why do we need to mimic voice actors? Especially when it's voice actors that should have been replaced fifteen years ago as it is.

Like, heck: new casts are brought in to voice in new adaptions of older properties all the time. There's even recasts between the CD drama and the animated adaption sometimes, too!

[8000 Saiyan]

Just replace the voice actors.

AI voices are so unnatural.

[Cure Dragon 255]

God, voice doubles would be awful. Just let a new actor do their own thing, for the love of goodness.

Why? For a lot of people, a certain voice IS the character. If it changes, it can really take you out of the show.

A perfect example of it being done well is Uncle Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender. The original voice actor (Mako) passed after the 2nd season and his understudy completed the final season using an almost flawless imitation of him. Same thing happens for other long lived characters like the Warner Bros characters (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc.) and old school Disney (Mickey Mouse, Goofy, etc.)

Uncle Iroh's replacement actor was not good. His voice was grating and he tried far to hard to replicate Mako instead of just playing to her own strengths.

Bugs and Daffy shouldn't be copies of Mel Blanc, either. New actors should do their own thing.

When it is finally time to recast Gokuu they should let a new actor do their own thing for their own projects as Gokuu. Asking for voice mimics is just going to get in the way of a good performance.

I know that feminism and so on are important but the actor that replace Uncle Iroh was a man. I know this is probably just a tiny mistake but misgendering is wrong even on guys.

[ABED]

It's not a dogmatic issue. Sometimes it's appropriate for an actor to emulate another. Matthew Lillard's performance as Shaggy sounds remarkably like Casey Kassem. Sometimes copying another works fine.

[eledoremassis02]

Why, though? Why does it get in the way? If someone is hired to replicate an existing voice, I don't understand how it impacts their performance in any way.

Voice shit is hard. Now, combine trying to mimic someone else with having to actually act and create a good performance while matching lip flaps.

It also inevitably comes across as an entirely hollow performance. All when you could just hire a good actor for their human contribution to a project and not how best someone mimics the voice of a completely different actor. Nobody goes around trying to fully mimic stage actors or screen actors, why do we need to mimic voice actors? Especially when it's voice actors that should have been replaced fifteen years ago as it is.

Like, heck: new casts are brought in to voice in new adaptions of older properties all the time. There's even recasts between the CD drama and the animated adaption sometimes, too!

There is a micro industry based off of soundalikes that have saved a lot of productions. People are trained, and the whole point of acting is to become a character. In some cases that character evolves into its own thing (FUNi in-house). Its just the good ones end up being ignored when the bad ones become glaring and in your face.

In the DBZ world we have Christopher Ayres replacement out of necessity of continuity. Then we had Bang Zoom wich was a weird imitaion. I'd say FUNimation had much more justification while Bang Zoom didnt because it wasnt consistant (their King kai was good!).

In Nozawa's case, she is Goku. That voice is in the same league as Bugs and Mickey. It's apart of who the character is and that would be a rather drastic change. Lets also be honest, we might not see another famale voice actor take the roll if they recast.

[JulieYBM]

Why? For a lot of people, a certain voice IS the character. If it changes, it can really take you out of the show.

A perfect example of it being done well is Uncle Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender. The original voice actor (Mako) passed after the 2nd season and his understudy completed the final season using an almost flawless imitation of him. Same thing happens for other long lived characters like the Warner Bros characters (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc.) and old school Disney (Mickey Mouse, Goofy, etc.)

Uncle Iroh's replacement actor was not good. His voice was grating and he tried far to hard to replicate Mako instead of just playing to her own strengths.

Bugs and Daffy shouldn't be copies of Mel Blanc, either. New actors should do their own thing.

When it is finally time to recast Gokuu they should let a new actor do their own thing for their own projects as Gokuu. Asking for voice mimics is just going to get in the way of a good performance.

I know that feminism and so on are important but the actor that replace Uncle Iroh was a man. I know this is probably just a tiny mistake but misgendering is wrong even on guys.

I don't sleep and I have multiple health issues, you're lucky I'm not making more typos.

[ZodaEX]

Uncle Iroh's replacement actor was not good. His voice was grating and he tried far to hard to replicate Mako instead of just playing to her own strengths.

Bugs and Daffy shouldn't be copies of Mel Blanc, either. New actors should do their own thing.

When it is finally time to recast Gokuu they should let a new actor do their own thing for their own projects as Gokuu. Asking for voice mimics is just going to get in the way of a good performance.

I know that feminism and so on are important but the actor that replace Uncle Iroh was a man. I know this is probably just a tiny mistake but misgendering is wrong even on guys.

I don't sleep and I have multiple health issues, you're lucky I'm not making more typos.

You should really get some sleep my friend.

[Kuwabara]

If actors ever start opting in to AI generated vocals for official projects and get residuals for it, it wouldn't really matter what any of us think. I could also see this technology reaching a point where specific voices could be layered on top of real performances recorded by people experienced in direction/ADR. It would be extremely hard to tell the difference, perhaps some would even argue for this being a new form of voice performance entirely. All I can say is, enjoy 100% authentic voice acting while it lasts.

[Hellspawn28]

I still doubt AI voices can do emotions like anger, sadness, happiness's, etc. Machines don't know what emotions are and can use them like humans are. Maybe in a 1000 years from now, but not in our time life.

[Khushi]

Nowadays, AI voiceovers are so natural sounding too.
Sometimes its difficult to differentiate between what is real and what is AI. Although people are using AI a lot but I don't think it will replace VA's for games, animes or movies.

[MasenkoHA]

Nowadays, AI voiceovers are so natural sounding too.
Sometimes its difficult to differentiate between what is real and what is AI. Although people are using AI a lot but I don't think it will replace VA's for games, animes or movies.

Those are the go to examples you want to use for "AI voiceovers are so natural sounding?"

[Hellspawn28]

If this is the best AI can do, they have a long way to go. AI voices sound so blocky.

[Shaddy]

That's not the best AI can do.

Nevertheless, whether it sounds pleasant isn't really the argument here. At least, I don't think it should be.

[DB1984]

Like I said before, I find AI scary AF. Bill Gates says "The age of AI has begun".

Is this what you want? I don't.