All this talk about the staff tailoring the voice actors to the very specific nuances of the characters...
And none notice Rie Tanaka. She's the Japanese version of Tara Strong. Or Atsuko Tanaka. Not to tread on any of their stellar abilities, but to assume someone like Rie Tanaka was chosen to voice someone with as many lines as Kan-E-Senna for anything but her star power is a little on the naive side.
As someone who has spent time in Japan, has friends move back and forth between there and being an extensive weeb anime connoisseur since the 1990s, I can tell you with full authority that literally everything that isn't farming in Japan is fanservice-related. (No. Not that kind of fanservice—but outright pandering to a base.) Most of these 'seiyuu' are really just pop idols, screen actors and the like—retired or not—doing filler work. It's not like they work for a voice studio.
I mean, by the numbers... The West has a much, much larger pool of voice talent to draw from than Japan and that, statistically, is going to bump up the number of voices that not all of you are going to agree with. Personally, I found most of the voices outside of Merlywb, Hydaelyn, Lahabrea, Gaius, Livia and Alphinaud to be very wooden and/or over-acted. Then again, Hydaelyn, Lahabrea, Gaius and Alphinaud are voiced by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, Kyle Hebert, Richard Epcar and Sam Riegal, respectively. It honestly felt like some of the lesser-known voice talent tried to go with the obviously-acted, 'epic', 'anime-voice' angle.
And none notice Rie Tanaka. She's the Japanese version of Tara Strong. Or Atsuko Tanaka. Not to tread on any of their stellar abilities, but to assume someone like Rie Tanaka was chosen to voice someone with as many lines as Kan-E-Senna for anything but her star power is a little on the naive side.
As someone who has spent time in Japan, has friends move back and forth between there and being an extensive weeb anime connoisseur since the 1990s, I can tell you with full authority that literally everything that isn't farming in Japan is fanservice-related. (No. Not that kind of fanservice—but outright pandering to a base.) Most of these 'seiyuu' are really just pop idols, screen actors and the like—retired or not—doing filler work. It's not like they work for a voice studio.
I mean, by the numbers... The West has a much, much larger pool of voice talent to draw from than Japan and that, statistically, is going to bump up the number of voices that not all of you are going to agree with. Personally, I found most of the voices outside of Merlywb, Hydaelyn, Lahabrea, Gaius, Livia and Alphinaud to be very wooden and/or over-acted. Then again, Hydaelyn, Lahabrea, Gaius and Alphinaud are voiced by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, Kyle Hebert, Richard Epcar and Sam Riegal, respectively. It honestly felt like some of the lesser-known voice talent tried to go with the obviously-acted, 'epic', 'anime-voice' angle.
