Despite overseas fan preferences, there’s no doubt that Goku’s Japanese voice actress, Masaka Nozawa, is one of the biggest and most successful voice actors in the business.
She has been noted for the longest video game voice acting career and for being the voice actor who played the same character in a video game for the longest period, holding two Guinness World Records.
Nozawa-san is also the winner of the prestigious Kikuchi Kan Prize in 2023, an award that honors achievement in all aspects of Japanese literary culture.
So, she’s more than qualified to comment on the voice acting industry and its future. But from what she says, Nozawa-san isn’t really happy with it.
Masako Nozawa didn’t hesitate to criticize new voice actors
In a recorded interview with fellow voice actress Fumi Hirano (Urusei Yatsura), Nozawa-san admitted she isn’t too hopeful for the future of anime voice acting because the new generation of voice actors isn’t as original as they should be.
She remarked that they merely copy styles of existing anime and do not strive to flesh out their unique skills and modulations.
As a result, the originality and depth the anime voice-acting industry once had is diminishing.
[Modern voice actors] just watch anime and copy what they hear, so what they do sounds like copy of a copy of a copy. As a result, the depth and breadth of anime voice acting is dwindling rapidly.
Fumi Hirano-san agrees with Nozawa-san’s statement and shares her own advice with young and aspiring voice actors.
Urusei Yatsura voice actress reveals the secret to being an original voice actor
When she was once asked for advice about becoming a good voice actor, Hirano-san said that aspiring voice actors should observe the world around them and take inspiration from different places to build up their repertoire.
But rather, what they really do is copy existing material and replicate exactly what people have been liking in the past. Though fans would love to see consistency in the industry, they would also like to see some sense of originality.
For instance, if all female voice actors copied Saori Hayami, who played Yor from Spy X Family and Shinobu from Demon Slayer, everyone would sound the same.
Though Hayami-san is a fantastic voice actor and has played numerous roles, there needs to be a sense of variety in each voice actor’s performance. Or else, fans wouldn’t be able to distinguish between characters.
Additionally, this isn’t the first time fans have heard the same kind of criticism.
Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki stated back in 2014 that the new generation of animators spends too much time watching anime and not enough observing life. As a result, they lose that maturity and authenticity anime stands for—a replica of real-life events and emotions.
Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball Super are available to watch on Crunchyroll.
