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Gundam's Tomino Thinks Young Voice Actors All Sound the Same
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
Yoshiyuki Tomino, the opinionated creator of the Gundam franchise recently lamented the state of anime's voice acting industry in the September issue of Bandai Visual's Beat Magazine. Fresh from casting his upcoming Gundam: Reconguista in G anime television series, Tomino said, "All of the young voice actors had been contaminated by currently trendy anime. All of their voices sounded the same to me, so the first order of business was to break them of those habits."
According to Tomino, current voice acting adds too much flare and he was looking for actors whose voices sounded natural. “But those are habits they pick up in the normal course of their careers, so it's something that often they just can't do,” Tomino said. He offered a backhanded compliment for his starring voice actress Yu Shimamura, stating he was proud in how her performance changed by episode two.
The director also reached back in time to retcon his approval of Syd Mead's mechanical designs in Turn A Gundam. This is especially awkward, since Turn A Gundam is not Mead's only design work in the Gundam franchise. He also contributed to last year's Gundam Build Fighters, although there's no word if he's returning for Gundam Build Fighters Try in October. Tomino stated he was too starstruck by his respect for Mead's previous work to express his criticism at the time.
“I've come to realize that asking Sid Mead [to do mechanical designs for the series] was a mistake,” Tomino said. “I was already a fan of his preexisting works, so I gave him free rein to do as he wanted. Actually, somewhere along the line I felt like there was something a little off with the designs he'd submitted, but by that time things were too far along to change their trajectory.”
For more Tomino rants, check out his opinion on Attack on Titan.
[Via Rocket News 24]
Image © Rico Shen used in accordance with Creative Commons license
