Michael Lindsay is impressed by fans’ passion for anime. He has received very kind remarks for his work as Yuu in Marmalade Boy.

If you have been a voice actor for several years, how has the growth in popularity of Japanese animation affected the voice acting industry? Is there appreciably more animation voice acting work as a result?

Bob Bergen: There is much more anime product out there today then ever! Much of it is nonunion and done outside of Hollywood (Texas and Colorado), which doesn't affect those of us who live here in California. Plus union actors (SAG) can't work on nonunion projects, so we don't even compete for those jobs. However, there is still much work done here in L.A., both union and nonunion.

Crispin Freeman: I think it has affected the American industry tremendously. From a financial point of view, anime is a lot cheaper to get on the air since the animation has already been finished in Japan and all that needs to be done is to dub it into English. The SAG contract for dubbing animation does not pay nearly as much as the SAG contract for original animation. Also, the dubs on many anime series are non-union so their budgets are even lower. This makes anime very attractive to a producer or network from a financial point of view.

I don't know for certain, but I would think this puts a squeeze on the budgets for original American shows to try to be more competitive with the anime budgets. If they can't then I would imagine that the networks would buy fewer of the American shows and more of the Japanese ones. That's just conjecture on my part, however, since I'm not a producer yet.

From an artistic point of view there's also a huge influence. I've seen a number of American shows try to do the "anime style" because of the rising popularity of anime. What they fail to realize is that anime is popular not because of its stylized character designs or super-deformed antics, but because the stories in anime are not limited to a juvenile audience. American culture decided in the `50s with the Comic Book Code that comics and animation should only be designed for children.

That relegated an entire medium to one genre of expression. That never happened in Japan; there are comics and animation for every demographic group. In addition, a much larger percentage of the Japanese population read comics and watch animation than in America. Therefore, the stories in anime can be much more mature and sophisticated. It is that level of sophisticated storytelling that attracts such a devoted following across every demographic group. American comics have begun to come out from under that adolescent mind-set, but they still have a long way to go in my opinion.

Animation, on the other hand, seems trapped in the nursery, telling stories only to children or concerning issues of childhood. When Princess Mononoke was brought over for distribution here in America, no one seemed to know what to do with it because it wasn't easily marketed towards American children.

Luckily, Spirited Away could be marketed toward American children, albeit slightly older children, 13 or so. Disney's demographic is seven-year-old girls. If they don't get a G-rating, they lose money. That limits your storytelling ability pretty dramatically, especially when more and more kids are playing videogames rather than watching animation.

Michael Lindsay: When I started out dubbing, there were really only a handful of anime companies. In the six or so years that I've been doing it, the industry has literally exploded. I'd say now my workload, including series and CD-ROMs, runs around 60-40 for Japanese titles. Although it's probably helped that some of the recent Japanese series I've had the good fortune to do were fairly high profile.

Olivia Venegas: In my experience as a director, I've noticed that the growth in anime's popularity has enabled us to get access to a much wider range of voice actors in recent years. The talent pool is expanding quickly, although there still seems to be a learning curve when it comes to looping speed which is a critical factor to consider when casting for this type of work.

What are the differences between the two? The major difference that most people are aware of is that American animation is usually prerecorded while Japanese imports are post-recorded. What other differences are there?

Bob Bergen: The big difference is the money!!! American animation for television pays approximately $700 for a four-hour session and residuals for reruns. Anime, if union, pays about $60 per hour (guaranteed two hours work) and little in the way of residuals. This is why you don't see as many mainstream American animation actors doing anime, with the exception of some features. I myself would do much more anime if the pay was better. It actually should be just the opposite. In American animation you don't have to match sync.

Anime dubbing is a much harder skill. Some of the best actors in the world do anime. Unlike on-camera work in film or TV there is really no time for the actor to prepare emotionally for scenes when dubbing. In a movie you might shoot one-to-two pages of script a day. And you have time to prepare for emotional scenes to "get you there," so your acting is real. In dubbing you go line, by line, by line. Your character might go from pure anger, to hysterical amusement, to a fight scene, etc. You don't get the time to prepare for each adjustment. You are just expected to do it... immediately! Therefore you have to be able to adjust your acting emotions much faster than on camera work.

Plus if you are the first actor to dub a project you have no other performances to work off of. Acting is reacting. So if there is no one to react to you are kinda going by the seat of your pants. But a good dubbing director will make sure your choices work.