The Acting in Eva

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The Acting in Eva

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Postby Nukie » Fri Sep 05, 2008 12:54 pm

Hello all, used to frequent here awhile ago, now Im back, blah blah blah. Anyway, something that isn't talked about much are the amazing performances the voice actors of this show did. I think this is one of the reasons Eva has stayed popular: the characters and their complexities, brought to life by their respective seiyuu. Im probably just preaching to the choir here, but...

Anyone who says that they hate Shinji probably isnt an actor. Im a beginning acting student, I have to say that Shinji is a goldmine of a character. I would give an arm and a leg to play him. Eva is actually the reason why I got into acting seriously, as I wanted to play characters as interesting as the Eva cast. He has so many freaking layers to him, and it is ALWAYS fun to play crying/screaming/freaking out (which he does a lot of) but also his humanity. It's really easy to play him as whiny and nihilistic (Spike Spencer) but Ms. Ogata really understood him completely and delivered some amazing VO. :thumbsup:

In fact, every character is a goldmine in terms of their subtext, emotional turmoil and backstory. Who do you think gave the best performance out of the Eva cast, and why? Who would you play if you had the chance?
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Postby IrkenEvangelion » Fri Sep 05, 2008 1:02 pm

I always loved the original voice cast, I always hated how they changed 2 or 3 voices with every different release.

If I had the chance I'd voice Aoba or Toji.
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Postby AyrYntake » Fri Sep 05, 2008 1:17 pm

I don't think people hate Shinji the playable character as much as they hate Shinji the person. Either way, I don't hate Shinji, and I like acting, even though I suck at it.
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Postby simon » Fri Sep 05, 2008 3:48 pm

Asuka's


the way she screams "I hate everyone" (in Japanese of course) says it all.

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Postby Zaiku » Fri Sep 05, 2008 5:26 pm

I think that Kensuke's Japanese voice was very fitting and really captured his nerdy essence. His English VA just annoyed the crap out of me though, especially in epsiode 8. *shudders*

If I could voice any character, it would probably be Kaworu, Touji, or Kensuke.
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Postby swamp147 » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:00 pm

Gendo's Japanese VA was pretty awesome - it fit his role perfectly and just the way he spoke was unique. Didn't like the English one having heard the Japanese one.

I do think that both the English and Japanese VAs for Rei were great for her character.

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Postby Zaiku » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:10 pm

swamp147 wrote:Gendo's Japanese VA was pretty awesome - it fit his role perfectly and just the way he spoke was unique. Didn't like the English one having heard the Japanese one.

I do think that both the English and Japanese VAs for Rei were great for her character.


True that, Japanese Gendo really captured the mood and the feel, the English one on the other hand... >_>
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Postby Action_Bastard » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:42 pm

The only VA I don't like is the English Kaji. It=major suck. All others are fine by me.
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Postby Lucretius » Fri Sep 05, 2008 10:01 pm

I don't really dislike the English dub, but it sounds completely different from the original. All the voices sound cartoonish and exaggerated, with the exception of Rei's voice, which actually sounds better. I watched some of the German dub of EoE on youtube, and I was pretyy impressed. Not only do the characters sound more human than they do in the English dub, but the translation is, surprisingly enough, more accurate. (E.g., in the kitchen scene, Shinji's crucial line is correctly rendered "Ich möchte dir helfen. Ich möchte immer mit dir zusammen sein, Urstoff," as opposed to the watered-down "I want to stay with you" in Mangle's version. And Rei's lines, for some reason, sound 50% more awesome auf Deutsch. ("Die Welt füllt sich mit Traurigkeit. Sinnlosigkeit umgibt die Menschen. Einsamkeit erstickt ihre Herzen.") And when I said "Das Glück findet man nur im Traum," I almost lost it. :spout:

He shuddered a bit, remembering the somewhat creepy level of detail Kaji had gone into, while rubbing a watermelon in a disturbingly sexual way.

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Postby Zaiku » Fri Sep 05, 2008 10:55 pm

Action_Bastard wrote:The only VA I don't like is the English Kaji. It=major suck. All others are fine by me.


ACtually, now that I think about it, Kaji sounded so retarded on the English dub. And he sounded like such a cool laid back guy in Japanese, and then... His voice goes BLEARGH!!!

>_>
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Postby JimmyWolk » Sat Sep 06, 2008 9:04 am

Lucretius wrote:I don't really dislike the English dub, but it sounds completely different from the original. All the voices sound cartoonish and exaggerated, with the exception of Rei's voice, which actually sounds better. I watched some of the German dub of EoE on youtube, and I was pretyy impressed. Not only do the characters sound more human than they do in the English dub, but the translation is, surprisingly enough, more accurate. (E.g., in the kitchen scene, Shinji's crucial line is correctly rendered "Ich möchte dir helfen. Ich möchte immer mit dir zusammen sein, Urstoff," as opposed to the watered-down "I want to stay with you" in Mangle's version. And Rei's lines, for some reason, sound 50% more awesome auf Deutsch. ("Die Welt füllt sich mit Traurigkeit. Sinnlosigkeit umgibt die Menschen. Einsamkeit erstickt ihre Herzen.") And when I said "Das Glück findet man nur im Traum," I almost lost it. :spout:
Ugh! Don't EVER say the German dub of EoE is good. Okay, you can argue about the VAs (though I have my personal peeves with some (Asuka sounding too old the being the biggest)). But the translation... >_<
It was already just so-so in the series, but it was utterly stupid in the movies. For example, the flashback to the kiss scene has Asuka saying "Ich geh dann mal" - probably translated from "Here I go!" but actually rather means "Well, I'm off!", in the sense of leaving - and that when she's just approaching him. And they even extended the "Adam came from Lilith" error by actually saying that humans and Angels come from the same source. In case anyone cares, I pointed out some more here, though it's been so long that I don't quite remember when and where they come for all of them. D&R also had such a stupidity error with Misato asking about Rei's whereabouts instead of Asuka's when Kaworu is using EVA-02 (really don't know how one can make such a mistake).
I don't have the means or will to compare now, but even if it is more accurate than the English dub (what - despite all the Mangle hate - I actually doubt) don't be fooled thinking that it is accurate at all.

I have never seen the entire English dub, but from what I've seen I agree about the "exaggerated voices"/overacting. One particular scene that stuck to my mind is Rei running off after informing Shinji of Shamshiel's arrival - already panting like she ran a marathon after the first step. Not exactly "natural"... >_>

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Postby Lucretius » Sat Sep 06, 2008 9:49 am

Well, I didn't see the whole movie in German, just some of the later segments, so I missed the bit about Lilith. But I don't remember the "Ich gehe dann mal" bit. Is there more than one dub?

Edit: I just re-watche the relvant scenes and yeah, you're right about both. That really is stupid. Still, the parts I saw were generally closer to Bochan Bird's translation than the English dub was. At least Shinji's line in the hospital scene was given as "Ich bin wirklich das Letze." And, to return to the kitchen scene, the German dub has Asuka say "Du kannst überhaupt nicht lieben!" which, judging from literal translations of the original which I've seen, is more accurate than Mangle's "You never even loved yourself!"

As you pointed out in that old forum post, the German dub has some uhh....technical difficulties ("The Evas are assimilating Rei!" WTF?!) but still, they got the psychologically significant lines right.
Last edited by Lucretius on Sat Sep 06, 2008 10:47 am, edited 3 times in total.

He shuddered a bit, remembering the somewhat creepy level of detail Kaji had gone into, while rubbing a watermelon in a disturbingly sexual way.

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Postby simon » Sat Sep 06, 2008 10:01 am

I've always thought that Japanese do great job as seiyuus. I've seen few english dubs and they sucked and I've seen Ruronin Kenshin in German dub and it ended in few day long psychosis. Damn, it was horrible. Samurais speaking german. LOL!


When you get accustomed to the Japanese language, you can hear the greatness in the voice modulation and side sounds to the dialogue. english dubs are simply flat, empty and plastic.

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Postby V » Sat Sep 06, 2008 10:16 am

it's not a show about giant robots, or judeo-christian mysticism or existentialism, it's a show about characters, and their psychology


seriously.....many shows have "Charicatures" but Eva has some of the most fleshed-out characters I've ever seen in a series.

I mean even the secondary characters are fully fleshed out, and the 3rd tier characters (Nerv techies) have at least some distinct personalities.

I mean, even like Toji and Hikari get developed.

My favorite episodes in descending order (not including End of Eva) are 18 first, then 9 and 8 ( the intro-of-Asuka arc), but then episode 17. Why? Because its this episode in which all of the children characters actually interact and have something to do. ***dear god, Rei even on her own initiative starts a meaningful conversation with someone other than Shinji or Gendo, and then gets confronted about how she likes Shinji but never realized this in words. Toji and Hikari get meaningful character development and actually talk a lot throughout the entire episode showing a range of emotions, and basically they are revealed as actual characters. I mean, if this series were 150% as long as it is, I'd actually want to see more of "how the heck do these kids interact at school?"....and of course, Toji and Hikari actually get into a romantic relationship more successfully than Shinji or Asuka can. It's odd that they're one of the actual, canonical 'ships' but you don't see much shipping for them.
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Postby AyrYntake » Sat Sep 06, 2008 12:59 pm

Guess I'd be Shinji then, though playing Kaji would be cool too
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Postby Zaiku » Sat Sep 06, 2008 4:40 pm

V wrote:it's not a show about giant robots, or judeo-christian mysticism or existentialism, it's a show about characters, and their psychology


seriously.....many shows have "Charicatures" but Eva has some of the most fleshed-out characters I've ever seen in a series.

I mean even the secondary characters are fully fleshed out, and the 3rd tier characters (Nerv techies) have at least some distinct personalities.

I mean, even like Toji and Hikari get developed.

My favorite episodes in descending order (not including End of Eva) are 18 first, then 9 and 8 ( the intro-of-Asuka arc), but then episode 17. Why? Because its this episode in which all of the children characters actually interact and have something to do. ***dear god, Rei even on her own initiative starts a meaningful conversation with someone other than Shinji or Gendo, and then gets confronted about how she likes Shinji but never realized this in words. Toji and Hikari get meaningful character development and actually talk a lot throughout the entire episode showing a range of emotions, and basically they are revealed as actual characters. I mean, if this series were 150% as long as it is, I'd actually want to see more of "how the heck do these kids interact at school?"....and of course, Toji and Hikari actually get into a romantic relationship more successfully than Shinji or Asuka can. It's odd that they're one of the actual, canonical 'ships' but you don't see much shipping for them.


I suppose its the fact that their personality's complement eachother very easily. She cooks, he eats. Also, they are both kind an 'non-psycho bitch' characters, as compared to Asuka, so a relationship is easy for them.

Shinji is introverted, Asuka is extroverted. She hates on him, since she can't properly express her emotions. Shinji doesn't know that this means that he likes her, but thinks its her being mean.

So, Shinji and Asuka have a pretty love-hate relationship.

While Toji and Hikari have a cook-eat relationship. [/sadjoke]
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Postby Eva Yojimbo » Sun Sep 07, 2008 3:19 am

I have to agree about the excellence by the original Japanese cast. It's uniformly superb without any real weak link. I despise the dub if only because of the changes made to the characters (especially Shinji).

V wrote:it's not a show about giant robots, or judeo-christian mysticism or existentialism, it's a show about characters, and their psychology
Any fictional show (or book) about existentialism or any theme has to have characters that carry the themes, so that's a rather ridiculous statement. What's more important; the package or the delivery man that brings the package to you? What's further, the other elements (giant robots, mysticism, etc.) adds layers of richness the same way the interesting characters do. They're all part of the whole and removing any ingredient changes the taste and therefor what NGE is "about".
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Postby Evangelion__x » Fri Sep 12, 2008 4:39 am

I watched the last few episodes in Japanese and I was so glad I did. It was an amazing experience. The Japanese cast did an absolutely incredible job. Much better than the dub did, obviously. ;D

But, I do like the dub. Spike Spencer did a great job. He's not that bad. Neither is Amanda Winn Lee or Allison Keith. Kensuke's voice actor though, was pretty bad.

I'd love to voice Asuka. I'm not as loud-mouthed like she is all the time, but I can be when I want to. ^_^

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Postby chee » Sun Sep 14, 2008 10:21 am

I'm not too fond of the dub myself. It feels "off", and most of the acting isn't all that great. Some of the voices either sound too old (Asuka) or too young (Kaji). (Although Grant's performance in the DC version of 22 was surprisingly good.) Also, Spencer's Shinji screams make me chuckle.

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Postby Zaiku » Sun Sep 14, 2008 4:31 pm

^Agreed. The voices just sound exaggerated, TOO exaggerated.
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