Why does anime often sound the way it does?

While many anime dubs have fantastic voice acting with lots of care put into the shows by directors and actors alike (and dubs these days do contain a variety of acting styles), the nature of the dubbing process can sometimes result in reads that sound more stilted or over-the-top. Additionally, English dubs sometimes suffer from a few pitfalls that don’t always translate well into other media such as Western cartoons or cinematic video games.

Matching lip flaps

Because the show has already been animated around the original Japanese performances, dubbing actors do not have any freedom when it comes to pacing. As opposed to an original animated (“pre-lay”) cartoon where the animation is done to the voice track, the visuals and mouth flaps are already set in place and must be matched exactly. This can sometimes result in a read not always sounding as “natural” as it could, especially if actors have to redo a take slowing down or speeding up in order to better fit the lip flaps. The nature of matching flaps can sometimes result in a more stilted or even a more musical cadence.

When an actor always has to focus on making sure they’re matching sync to picture, the reality is that they must balance both the creative aspect and the technical aspect of the performance, meaning the performance can’t 100% take center stage. If an actor delivers an amazing heartfelt performance but it doesn’t fit the lip flaps, minor adjustments can be made in editing, but if it’s too far off, they’ll need to record another take.

Pauses and breaths

If you’re recording without timing restraints, you can pause and breathe when it naturally makes sense to do so in a line. But in anime, you’re limited to pausing exactly when the mouth closes and opens, meaning not only might there be a long run-on line where you don’t get to take a breath, but there may be a line where you are forced to pause in an awkward place because that’s when the character’s mouth does. The differences in sentence structure between Japanese and English can mean that a pause taken in a perfectly normal place when the character is speaking Japanese ends up sounding horribly awkward in English. In dubbing terms, this is often referred to as a “hitch” and can be marked in a number of ways, sometimes with a carat (^). Script adapters will usually try to write the line in a way that makes the hitch as natural as possible, but sometimes there’s no getting around it.

Script adaptations

Timing constraints affect the English dubbing scripts as well. While many ADR writers put a lot of care and effort into the scripts they adapt, there’s only so much you can do when – for example – the end client wants something as close to the direct translation as possible, but there’s no way the direct translation is fitting lip flaps as-is. It’s not always possible for the script to flow in a “natural, conversational” way when so much is dependent on matching the existing timing and the meaning doesn’t always translate the same way in English. Or, there can be certain phrases or expressions that work well in Japanese but sound awkward in English (think 仕方がない/”it can’t be helped”, or いただきます, a customary phrase said before a meal that has no real English equivalent but is often adapted as “thank you for the food”.)

Script adaptation is an art in and of itself, and a great adapter can make an anime script hardly feel like you’re watching a dub from another language. But there are many cases where the adapters aren’t given enough time, the client insists on more clunky translations, or someone’s newer and just playing it safe. If the line itself doesn’t sound natural, usually the performance of it won’t, either.

Context and flow

In anime, it’s fairly common for actors to only see the portions of the scenes their character is involved in. While the dubbing director will usually give the actors at least a brief overview of what’s going on in the rest of the episode, the isolated nature of the recording process (each actor records their lines individually as opposed to playing off their castmates) means that characters speaking to each other in the same scene don’t always sound like they’re actually having a conversation.

Depending on the studio and director, sometimes each individual line (“loop”) may be recorded one at a time in order to refine the timing or performance, especially if a particular line has tricky sync. However, when this line is part of a longer “run” of lines all said by the same character, the performance won’t always flow naturally from one line to the next, and may sound slightly disjointed or choppy. These days however, it’s more common for actors to record multiple “connected” lines as a run.

Cultural differences in performance styles

In general, the original Japanese performances in anime tend to skew bigger and over-the-top. The animation and mouth flaps often support these performances too, to where a more low-key conversational read might sound strange or jarring compared with the exaggerated visuals (think shows such as Dragon Ball Z, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure or One Piece.) There is typically more emphasis placed on matching original Japanese performance (by both anime fans and clients) nowadays than there was in the early days of English dubbing.

Earlier trends in dubbing

Much of the modern-day generation of anime dubbing actors grew up listening to their predecessors in the 90s and early 2000s, and dubs of that era tended to skew towards exaggerated, more “cartoony”performances (with a few notable exceptions, of course.) Many of these actors were inspired by these early dubs and influenced by those performances when deciding they wanted to get into voice acting for anime. And because copying what you hear can be an effective way to teach yourself how to emulate those skills, it can be hard especially for newer actors to break out of that mold of what they’re traditionally used to hearing anime dubs sound like.

tips for a more grounded read style

The biggest key to grounded reads is to focus on being authentic and believable in the moment. However, if you’re getting feedback from a coach or director that you sound “too anime” and aren’t sure how to address that, here are some tips to help break you out of that rut.

Bring down your projection.

The baseline for vocal projection in anime dubs and JRPGs tends to be higher than say, an AAA video game. Sometimes the projection can be done subconsciously by actors who are trying to match the read given by the original actor in the Japanese version. Other times, more “vocal support” might be requested by a director or engineer. Often, the reason for this is that in anime, the M&E (short for “music and effects”) can be quite loud and overpowering in a scene, and if the actor isn’t loud enough, simply raising their volume in post can make their line sound out of place within the scene, or even introduce unwanted noise.

However, if you listen to on-camera actors talking in a live-action TV show or movie, you’ll notice they’re not shouting at each other unless the scene necessitates it (for example, they’re at a party and having to project over the crowd). They just sound like normal people (or in fact, may even sound like they are mumbling.) So if your goal is “conversational”, part of this means not projecting your voice too loudly unless there is an actual reason for it in the scene. “To me it reads the same as dialing it back. Dial it down from an 11 to a 5/6. I’ve had years of practice from theatre, but to describe it would be to sit with it more, think/wander, be imperfect, whereas anime reads tend to be more laser-focused and going from beat to beat,” says Brittany Ann Phillips. (We’ll cover more on “dialing it back” in terms of the emotions of the read in a later section of this article.)

Now of course, there will be some scenes that call for projection even in more grounded styles of media! These could include situations where the character is calling to someone else far away, in battle, or even just a moment of heightened emotional intensity. Think of this note in terms of baseline projection for more conversational scenes.

ANIME vs. NON-ANIME AUDIO SAMPLES: “What are you doing in my realm? I never asked you to come here in the first place.”

Relax your enunciation.

Actors who come up in anime and JRPG circles tend to have “good diction” pounded into them since Day 1. Clarity tends to be highly emphasized in these projects, and it’s not uncommon to be asked to redo a line because “we didn’t quite hear the T at the end of the word ‘right’” or “the ‘sts’ sound isn’t coming through clearly enough on words like ‘beasts’ or ‘ghosts’.” If any word sounds slightly muddy or words are run together too much, you’ll likely be asked for a retake. After getting a lot of these notes over time, it’s easy to get into the habit of overemphasizing consonants when acting and making sure every syllable of every word is said clearly and loudly enough.

However, in real life, people generally don’t speak this way. Think about how you sound when just talking to your friends or family—-you can still be understood, but chances are you speak in a slightly lazier and more casual manner than you do when reading out loud. For example, a phrase like “I don’t know” may come out more like “Iunno”, a phrase like “probably wouldn’t want to” becomes “problywouldnwanna”, etc. There’s of course a healthy balance, as even with more “conversational” reads it’s important that the audience can still understand you, and obviously if you flub a word you’ll need to redo it regardless, but if you find yourself focusing very closely on diction, this may be one of the reasons your reads are clocked as sounding “too anime”.

Learning and practicing good diction is still essential in voiceover, so it may seem odd to take everything you learned and essentially throw it away. Don’t worry: your training and practice will still serve you well in ensuring you can clean up your reads and enunciate well when needed, but turn it off when you don’t.

ANIME vs. NON-ANIME AUDIO SAMPLES: “You say they’re ghosts, right? You can see them too, can’t you?”

Avoid overemphasizing specific words too much.

Another trait that’s often associated with the anime speaking style is the tendency to “punch” certain words in a sentence. To better illustrate this concept, try taking this line and reading it two ways out loud using the emphasis indicated in the text:

Overexaggerated speech: “I DON’T think it’s very SMART of us to DO such a dangerous THING.”
Natural speech: “I don’t think it’s very smart of us to do such a dangerous thing.”

Now, this is of course exaggerated for learning purposes, and you’d rarely ever actually be asked to read the line the first way! But it really does illustrate how forcing emphasis on too many words takes you from sounding like a normal person to an over-the-top shounen protagonist! Unless you are specifically directed otherwise, read the line naturally and let any emphasis fall where it may.

ANIME vs. NON-ANIME AUDIO SAMPLES: “I don’t think it’s very smart of us to do such a dangerous thing.”

Flatten out your speaking cadence.

With anime voice acting, it’s easy to fall into certain speaking patterns, namely those that sound too “musical” or even sing-songy. These speech patterns are a dead giveaway of what many casting directors think of as an “anime sound” and may be detrimental if they’re specifically NOT looking for that sound.

Kim Morton explains that when casting, “I am genuinely looking for more grounded reads. Specifically, I’m looking for undertones. Can you carry two emotions at once, can you bury an emotion in a more casual read, can you let an emotion influence a line that wouldn’t usually carry that emotion, can you speak without falling into patterns, stuff like that. I put a lot more emphasis on the ability to deliver casual conversation than to give big emotional beats.”

In a Twitter thread by an actor/former casting director about “real vs anime” reads, voice actor Kaiji Tang offers a very valuable perspective: “Generally ‘real’ is shorthand for We want you to sound like you’re speaking to a real person and not matching flaps. Folks who do anime tend to develop an “accent”, purely from the muscle memory of constantly fitting story telling music to lip flap. It’s hard to break the habit depending on how much anime you do, and some folks don’t even hear the accent in their reads anymore. Anime acting requires you to sharply slope music constantly to fit the localized American storytelling into Japanese lip flaps, so you become a bit more focused on getting the story of the read right rather than the naturality.”

If you find yourself often defaulting to these certain cadences in your reads, one exercise that you can try with yourself is to first speak the line in a completely flat manner with no inflection, just to get yourself “out of the read”. Then, try another take where you slowly add a bit more inflection but force yourself to do something different or even completely opposite from what you did for your initial read. You may find that you open your eyes to new ways the line can be interpreted.

ANIME vs. NON-ANIME AUDIO SAMPLES: “I’m so excited that we’re going to the school festival! I can’t wait to see all my friends!”

Don’t stress too much about voice print or achieving a technically “perfect” sound.

Anime and localized media in general tends to favor clean and clear voices, especially for younger protagonists. This can mean that actors work hard to meticulously avoid any gravel/texture/rasp in their voices. If an actor’s voice cracks while yelling, they may be asked to retake the line until they are able to get a clean and technically perfect take.

Because voice print may be heavily considered in casting for localized media (as you’re often – at least to some extent – vocally matching the actor from the original language), a lot of emphasis can be placed on maintaining vocal consistency, especially if you’re doing a voice that’s quite different from your own. If you’re suspected of getting “off voice” too much, the director might play your reference file to make sure that you’re staying in character and not straying too far back into your own speaking voice. This makes sense from a technical perspective as clients want to make sure that the character sounds consistent throughout all of their speaking lines.

But (noticing a theme here?) this is far less of a thing in real life. As humans, our voice pitches naturally rise and fall based on all sorts of circumstances. If someone is highly emotional, or if they’re shouting urgently, their voice may crack, and that’s normal. So if the goal is to “sound like a real person”, don’t obsess over keeping your voice in the exact same spot vocally on every line (although you obviously don’t want to stray so far that it starts sounding out of character), and just focus on the emotions your character is feeling in the scene. “I think some of it comes down to focusing less on the voice and reminding yourself that the acting should be front and center, and [that] our experiences in life can allow us to bring depth to those performances. It’s like the old saying goes, lead with good acting and the voice will follow,” says Jeff Burns.

Another trick that can help, if the read calls for it and it feels natural to you, is to add “pre-life” (sighs, breaths, “um”s, “uh”s, or other nonverbals) at the start of or between sentences. When you think about it, real people aren’t always articulate with their thoughts, and this sometimes comes through in film and TV acting styles. People may stutter, pause while they think of what they’re trying to say, add filler words, etc. Obviously, this is a luxury one doesn’t have in anime because of the need to match lip flaps, so allowing yourself these little moments (where it makes sense to – don’t force it!) can move you distinctly away from what might be considered an “anime” sound. “For me, I’ll approach the material the way I imagine it being filmed on-set; is this a moment done in close-up – intimate, or from a distance? I’ll often allow myself more stuttered, naturalistic pacing and non-verbals, since one thing dubbing definitely doesn’t allow for is setting your own pace for the dialogue,” says Alex Weitzman.

A note some directors will give is “it doesn’t have to sound pretty”. Let raw emotions come through in your read. Allow yourself to embrace imperfections and be human.

ANIME vs. NON-ANIME AUDIO SAMPLES: “You won’t get away with hurting them any longer! I’m gonna destroy you! *charging forward effort*”

Avoid exaggerated displays of emotion (this is a big one).

On-camera actors’ mannerisms and expressions are often subtle, because they know the camera will pick up their intent without the need to hammer it in, as opposed to anime which will “highlight stakes to 11” as pointed out by Richie Tavake. Their spoken dialogue is more subtle also, as they are able to use their facial expressions and body language to supplement the emotions their character is feeling.

Even though you won’t be able to rely on these physical cues as a voice actor, if you’re struggling with over-emoting, remember that even in an animated medium, the visuals will still carry a lot of the story. You don’t need to hammer the viewer over the head with every emotion your character is supposed to be feeling, just as we don’t exaggerate our emotions this way in real life. If you’re in the headspace of your character, trust that the intent of your lines will come through. “Some shows call for a specific exaggerated tone, and a lot of others don’t, but all need to be believable,” says Bunny Dark.

Remember that less is often more – for example, in a scene where a character is crying, the instinct of many actors is to ham it up. But choosing moments to fight back tears or let one’s composure slip can be more impactful than sobbing the entire way through.

Studying live-action shows or movies can help you to reframe how you can show emotion in more subtle ways. Kamran Nikhad explains, “I’ve always viewed it as coming at it from a more naturalistic, restrained kind of read. In anime, your emotions are often laid bare, where everything feels heightened. Whereas with a more naturalistic approach, you dial the emotion back, much like you would in real life. A lot of people aren’t excitable or gruff in real life. When we speak casually or formally, there’s seldom that heightened tone we often hear in anime.”

For an amusing example of how this can even apply in the Japanese language as well, check out this comedic video by a Japanese voice actor/content creator on the difference in styles between anime speech and real life speech.

ANIME vs. NON-ANIME AUDIO SAMPLES: “It’s hopeless. Everyone’s probably gone by now. I tried so hard to save them, but I couldn’t.”

Talk TO the other character(s) in the scene, not AT them.

One note that actors sometimes receive is that it sounds like they are “performing” the line rather than authentically communicating. Part of this is likely because voice actors usually record their lines independently as opposed to a play or film where they have scene partners to bounce off of. It can also happen when the actor or voice director approaches the recording on a “line by line” basis rather than considering the full context of the scene.

Remember that in a scene with other characters, you are not speaking into a void—you are conversing with them, just like you would with a friend in real life. It may help to picture another person in your head and imagine you are talking to them while saying the line. Think about the message your character is trying to convey as opposed to worrying about how you sound technically.

ANIME vs. NON-ANIME AUDIO SAMPLES: “What were you hoping to gain by taking over the world? Was this all part of your evil plan? Or were you just trying to hurt me?”

Throw out preconceived ideas about how nonverbal efforts should “sound” when voice acting.

In anime, certain nonverbal efforts become almost “formulaic”, with a classic example being the “Anime Gasp”. According to Erin Nicole Lundquist, “While there is a stereotype to an “anime sound” which many modern productions have moved away from, there are still expected tropes and efforts that are unique to the anime genre that don’t appear in other arms of voice work. An example of this is the difference between a live action or video game “gasp” and an anime “gasp.” It is expected in anime dubbing that you will give that “cough-gasp” that is so common place in anime that it’s the expected reaction whereas in the live action dub you will want to make the gasp sound as true-to-life as possible.”

Gasps aside, anime in general tends to favor “clean” and high-energy effort sounds. What you do with the sound will of course depend on who your character is and the context of the scene, but some things to play with to break yourself out of the “anime rut” on efforts might be to experiment with a little less projection, or if the scene does call for high energy, make it sound a little more gritty and real rather than technically clean and perfect. Think about the sounds of a real-life street fight and how they would differ than those of an anime battle with magical powers!

Use breath work to your advantage where possible, but let it be natural—one hallmark of “bad anime acting” is exaggerated breaths without any real reason for it. But emotionally motivated breaths, when used sparingly, can add depth to your read.

ANIME vs. NON-ANIME AUDIO SAMPLES: *gasp* That level of power is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. All right… let’s go. *punch efforts x2*

Listen to real people talk.

As silly as this may sound, sometimes it’s the simplest solution! If you’re watching a lot of anime and playing a lot of JRPGs, it can be easy to pick up those speaking styles and habits when acting. This isn’t always a bad thing, as it can help you with learning and exploring different archetypes (“good actors borrow, great actors steal”) but sometimes it helps to go back to square one.

Here’s a common example. If you are an adult looking to voice child or teenage characters, your first instinct is probably to alter the pitch of your voice to “sound younger”. Let’s use the example of young boy characters. For masculine voices, the instinct is to pitch one’s voice up higher, which often results in an unpleasant falsetto sound. For feminine voices, the instinct is often to add texture/gravel, but this can hurt one’s voice if done incorrectly. But if you listen to real kids talk, girls don’t always have high-pitched voices and boys don’t always have raspy voices! Listen to how your younger siblings or neighbors talk, or if you’re not around any kids or teens in real life, go on YouTube or TikTok and watch vlogs. This can work for any age range you are trying to match—-if the goal is to sound natural, the best way to achieve that is to listen what people in that age range actually sound like. Remember, chances are a 16-year-old in anime is going to sound very different from a 16-year-old in a live action movie!

ANIME vs. NON-ANIME AUDIO SAMPLES: “What’s the point of doing homework, anyway? It’s so boring. I wanna be going on adventures!” (2 versions – girl + boy)

closing concepts

If all this sounds overwhelming, don’t worry! It can take a lot of time and practice to dial in “conversational” read styles, and it’s unlikely this will happen overnight. But by keeping the above tips in the back of your mind, it can help you break out of reads that may come across as overacted or even slightly dated.

Do remember that “natural and grounded” doesn’t necessarily have to mean “boring, flat, or devoid of uniqueness”.

One of the issues with the constant insistence that reads and voices must sound “natural” is that human voices come in a variety of pitches, tones, and cadences. Some people naturally have a high and young-sounding voice, a more animated speaking style, and/or certain inflections and pronunciations based on where they grew up, and that doesn’t automatically mean they sound “anime”. While it’s important that actors’ reads must stylistically match the tone of the project and the rest of the cast, casting directors should also take care to not automatically disregard those with less common voice prints.

Lily Emil Lammers points out that comments in casting sides like “no put-on voices” can be confusing to transgender, non-binary, or otherwise gender-nonconforming voice talent. “Many trans actors work hard to achieve a voice that feels more like them; is that put on? If not, is it put on when they do a voice that matches someone’s perception of their AGAB [assigned gender at birth]? Is it put on when I answer the phone and my voice pitches up? Should I only audition with my “natural voice”? Okay… then what is my natural voice???” Kim Morton adds that if your voice tone doesn’t happen to match the tone a casting director is seeking, they “can decide your voice sounds forced, even if it IS natural. It can be a bummer to think about, so I kinda try not to during auditions and just give my best.”

Note that heightened acting styles have their place, aren’t necessarily bad, and sometimes just come down to the style and tone of the project.

Ultimately, good acting comes down to believability, and whether or not something sounds believable can vary based on the character and medium. There are some styles of projects where flat or overly “grounded” reads would simply be a mismatch with the visuals and animation and feel out of place. Sometimes, what would classify as a traditionally “anime read” can be fun and totally work for the style of the project!

“For me personally, I take it with a grain of salt because it really does seem to mean something different to every actor and every casting director. As others have said, anime has a HUGE variety of styles. I also have yet to see an anime that fully uses film-style reads, mainly because… it doesn’t work?” notes Lily Emil Lammers, who has studied and auditioned for both voiceover and on-camera projects. “A good actor can do both, and knows when to.”

Follow your instincts first and foremost.

At the end of the day, much of the time when “non-anime” is noted in an audition side, it means that they don’t want reads that sound forced, overexaggerated, or unnatural in terms of line deliveries. There’s even a saying that “grounded just means they want good acting!” The basic acting 101 tools, like authentically connecting with the character and scene, will help put you on the right track.

Don’t get so hung up on trying to avoid an “anime” sound at all cost that you send out an audition you feel sounds off or doesn’t match the style of the project. For example, sometimes JRPG auditions will have this note, but still cast performances that are animated and high-energy. This article is aimed to help give you more tools as an actor to dissect where you might be falling into certain habits, and how to break them when a read specifically calls for it.