By Mark Schilling
Dubbing is a big business in Japan, with the huge local animation industry generating most of the demand. Several voice actors, called seiyu, have achieved celebrity status, while legions of wannabes sign up for seiyu courses and schools.
One of the most famous, Nobuyo Oyama, is the distinctively growly voice of Doraemon, a blue robot cat that is the star of a long-running TV cartoon show and a series of hit films. After doing the job for twenty-six years, Oyama, 68, will turn it over to a 27-year-old successor in April.
But foreign films, save for those targeting children, have long been subtitled for theatrical distribution. "Audiences want to hear the real voices of foreign actors," says Pony Canyon production executive Shinji Sakoda. "That's hasn't changed much over the years."
There has been an increase, however, in cinemas showing both dubbed and subtitled prints of the same film. "There's more demand for dubbed prints for films targeting a family market, particularly from multiplexes. And it's not just family films any more, but what we call "all target" films as well," says publicist Ryohei Okubo of Asmik Ace, which released Shark Tale -- a film that fits the latter description, on 250 screens on March 5. Seventy percent of the prints are dubbed, 30 percent subbed.
"Also, it used to be that few besides animated films were dubbed," Okubo commented, "but more live-action films are being dubbed as well." Among recent examples are Asmik Ace's Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, as well as Gaga and Shochiku's upcoming Racing Stripes and Toei's The Mask 2.
Distributors often hire, not professional seiyu, but well-known film and TV celebrities to dub the starring roles in these films. The target under-twelve audience may sometimes barely know who they are, but the parents buying the tickets and reading the celebs' press conference comments certainly do. For Racing Stripes, the distributors asked Masuda Okada -- a popular comic duo -- to dub the two of the thoroughbreds in the film. Hidehiko Masuda told reporters that his lines were originally in standard Japanese, but he changed them to Osaka dialect because "I couldn't feel anything happening otherwise." Probably not what the film's Hollywood producers had in mind, but given the dialect's comic cachet -- most Japanese TV comedians are from the Osaka area -- a wise choice for the distributors.
Meanwhile, the lead role, of a zebra who takes up horse racing, went to Rena Tanaka, a twenty-four-year-old actress and model who may be dubbing for the first time, but is already a familiar face to millions of Japanese. The zebra's love interest, a white horse, is dubbed by singer Hitomi Shimatani, who also supplies the made-in-Japan theme song. A two'fer that could translate into not just bigger ticket, but CD sales following the film's March 12 release.
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DVD and video titles are also growth markets for dubbers -- especially the Korean films and TV dramas that have enjoyed an explosive boom. Dramas, such as Winter Sonata -- which launched the boom two years ago on pubcaster NHK -- are often dubbed first for TV broadcast, then released on dubbed videos and DVDs. The thirty-plus women who are the biggest fans of Korean dramas far prefer the dubbed over the subbed versions of the tapes.
Korean films are a different story, however -- only the biggest titles are dubbed, because of the expense. "That's true for not just Korean films, but all foreign films -- only the major ones are dubbed," says an editor for AV Express, a Japanese DVD and video industry trade magazine. "There's been some increase -- but not much. Dubbing is still a large investment."
Hard numbers are hard to come by. The Japan Video Association, an industry body that releases annual sales figures videos and DVDs, does not track the numbers of subbed and dubbed videos. Also, it does not keep figures on which DVDs have dub tracks as well as subtitles. Neither does Tsutaya, Japan's biggest video rental chain -- at least any that it is willing to release. One indicator: Six of Amazon Japan's current top-ten selling DVDs, have dub tracks: Collateral, Everybody Has Secrets, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Infernal Affairs II, Torque and Police Story. In other words, if you're a fan of Hollywood action and fantasy, Hong Kong martial arts movies and Korean romantic dramas, you are keeping Japan's seiyu employed.
