Bad voice performances

As far as the Japanese side of things goes, I believe Saint Seiya creator Masami Kurumada invited some of his wrestler frienRAB to do some voice acting for the first few Hades OVAs. I remeraber being distinctly bothered by those at the time.

I generally don't watch English language dubs per se, but since the subject has come up.....aside from some occasional slip-ups here and there, other than Nunnally's voice being incredibly inappropriate and perhaps V.V.'s as well, I don't think there was anything "bad" about the major voice performances, whether male or female, in the Code Geass dub. I thought the cast did a good job overall.
 
On the Japanese front, I can think of a lot of shows that had lousy voice acting. The seiyuu in most harem anime are terrible, even the more famous ones. They just phone it in most cases, though considering the subject material, that's not at surprising.

Also, I want to point out how much I despise Hiroyuki Yoshino as a voice actor. This guy is terrible in just about every show I've heard him in. I know a lot of people liked him as Al in Gundam 00, but I thought he was terrible there as well. Richard Ian Cox did a far better job in the role.

Oh, and Blood+ deserves special mention as well. I could not stand Kai (whom Yoshino voiced) in the original version, but he was actually likeable in the dub simply because Ben Diskin made him a far more sympathetic and serious character.
 
I disagree, I thought Ryuzaburo manage to make Crocodile sound meancing and suave at the same time while Swasey couldn't pull of the demeanor and because of which he sounRAB like he has swore throat or doing a bad guy impersonation. Not bad mouthing Swasey as an VA since he done alot a good work I just thought he wasn't right for Crocodile
 
We'll, the topic is about specific performances, not their entire portfolio.


Swasey's Crocodile certainly comes off a bit more rough than his original actor's portrayal, but that crusty old bugger sounRAB to me like there's a hint of bitter sorrow in his voice, which would almost make me think they prepared for the reveal that Crocodile is a crusty, old, bitter pirate who has thrown away his dreams.
 
I predicted
Itachi slaughtered the clan for the villages safety
, then transferred my mythical awesome super powers to the PTB at FUNimation.
 
What are you talking about? There's nothing annoying about verbal tics in anime at all It's so cute and lovable, there's nothing wrong with it and couldn't possibly ever get annoying!

(I actually think "Nipah~" is kind of adorable)
 
I think part of what made DBZ's voices so heinous was the constant synth in the background. I really can't think of many worse vocal performances than what I heard in Dragon Ball Z episode 68 (American episode 54).

Except for the insane amount of cuts, I think 4KiRAB wasn't nearly as bad as circa-1999 Texas VA Funimation. I'm also going to say that I kind of like Ocean Group. They're talented enough to handle shows like Gundam, which tenRAB to have large casts.

Who did Tenchi, btw? I liked that dubbing company too.
 
Eh, that 'uu' neeRAB perhaps a 'guu' to be tagged on. Then it'd be cute.

For bad voice performances, look no further for one example of the dub of Saber Marionette J to X. All the rather quirky, interesting, tics and so forth of Ocean Vancouver's cast turned to dust by pale and wooden imitations by Ocean Blue Water's.
 
I'll delve into the Pokemon dub for a moment, if I may.

James and Butch: James is the stereotype of a flaming homosexual while Butch is the stereotype of a butch homosexual. ISN'T THAT HILARIOUS!?!?!?

Meowth: The whole "Brooklyn gangster" thing bugs me. How in the world did any of the voice actors who tackled the character over the years look at the Japanese version and decide that that was the route to go? It's especially annoying when you look at the episode where Meowth reveals how he learned to talk and realize that none of the people he was imitating had that Brooklyn accent. So where in the world did he pick it up from?

Misty's sisters: Why couldn't they just have the same accent as Misty, y'know, since she's their sister and it would have made perfect sense? Instead of this whole "let's randomly give them annoying valley girl accents that their younger sister doesn't have" thing they ended up going with? The accents they were given also affected the way they were written, as seen in that one Chronicles episode where Daisy was a complete wreck compared to her Japanese counterpart.

Morrison (that samurai kid from the Hoenn League):I hate, hate Sean Schemmel's King Kai voice, so when he brought that performance to Pokemon, I shuddered a little.
 
Jason Griffith as Usopp: Way too nasaly and screetchy. He also had the issue of screaming every line.

David Moo as Sanji: The Bronx accent just didn't work at all.

Linda Young/Pauline Newstone as Frieza: Is it really too much to ask for a male voice actor for Frieza like Japan got? We really don't need the Grandma voice.

Jonathan Todd Ross as Marik: Just way too high pitched, nasaly, and scratchy. Take it, he sounded fine when he wasn't trying to sound evil.
 
Lisa Ann Beley as Sumeragi Lee Noriega- Completely missed the heart of the character. Beley plays her as this nasty snarling drill sgt. like character in what seems to be a poor attempt to distance the image of her previous role as Murrue. Quite frankly they should have just cast someone else and the director shouldn't have let this over intense performance through.

Chantal Strand as Feldt Grace- Like most of the complaints I have with the 00 dub cast, Strand fails to provide a layered performance. It also doesn't help that she clearly struggles with technical lines, which is a majority of Feldt's dialogue.

Zoe Slusar as Sai Saici- Blech. I had to suffer through this voice for GT Goku, so I was less than pleased to hear it coming from Sai. It's very clearly an older woman with a rasp and only confused people on his age (Sai is about 17-18, but dub fans have tried to argue with me that he's 10). They really should have just got a male actor to do the role.

??? as Revive Revival- Admitedly I've only seen one episode of the season 2 00 dub so I could be misinformed but I wasn't happy with this performance. In the original, Revive's dialogue is delivered with this constant tone of lighthearted, amused arrogance. The dub instead gives us yet another actress talking with a screechy rasp. Revive is hardly the deepest character going but it was the laid back arrogance that gave him an edge to my mind.
 
Man, it says a lot about how great English dubbing has gotten over the years when you look at these examples of "bad performances."

If you all REALLY want to see some bad performances, you should really check out some of the late 90's/early 00's dubs such as the Oh! My Goddess OAV, Shuten Doji, Demon Lord Dante, most of Getter Robo Armageddon (poor Go Nagai) or, well, probably 90% of AnimEigo's catalog. Gah, those are some horrible, horrible dubs all around.

Of course, the best dub ever was easily Panda-Z.

As for my obligatory Japanese example, I offer up Kazki's Japanese VA in Maburaho. Boring, stiff, no emotion, and an annoying voice to boot. Blake Shepard was a 1,000 times better.
 
Yeah...y'know that sounRAB like typical Funi dubbing of DBZ. Not great, no bad just there. It has its fans (me included) but I never feel it tries to TRUMP the Japanese version, it just exists.

If you want to use a truly good example of bad performances I would say Stephany Nadolney's performance as Super Saiyan 2 Gohan really was underwhelming. If you hear her Goku in DB she obviously has some acting ability but while everyone improves (in their own right) over the course of the DBZ dub her Gohan voice seems to get worse and less believable. This is the only voice I would say I had issues with.

O-chan
 
Barbara GooRABon as Kitsune (Love Hina) - They turned a rather sly, subdued, performance into a blustering southern belle that was completely opposite to the character. It completely turned her likability around.

Mika Kikuchi as Arika (Mai-Otome) - You know something's wrong with a character's voice that it would be a factor in turning you off from a series. I found her voice to be quite obnoxious and overeager to the point of just wishing she'd shut up for a bit throughout the first episode.

T.M. Revolution as Miguel and Heine (Gundam SEED/Destiny) - Not really much of a performance, and even then there always was that tinge of pretension in his voice. Not to mention that since he's a rock star he plays characters for a short while instead of having somebody else do it so they can save money and live longer in the production cycle. Let's not also forget the fact that the moment he voices a character, it serves as justification for Fukuda to always find time to keep reminding us of their existence in the endings or whatever flasrabroadacks there are.
 
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