Postby marmotgirl » Wed Sep 09, 2009 4:35 pm
Now I like Greg Ayres, and ironically it's his dub of another Ishida role - Chrono in Chrono Crusade , that turned me on to him as a VA, but by GOD THAT IS NOT KAWORU.
The problem with Ayres is that he plays Kaworu like a traditional "kid-with-a-secret". Something about his intonation just screams whiny, childish, i-know-something-you-don't-know-ness, and that's not what Kaworu is about at all, obviously. The real appeal of Khron's - and even Sturdivant's - performances for me is that they make Kaworu sound far older than his appearance suggests. There's something about the juxtaposition of pretty-kid and man-voice which seems to eerily implicate a kind of wisdom, in Khron's performance especially, which was one of the things which initially drew me to Kaworu as a character.
Incidentally, - it's been a while so I may be talking out of my ass here - listen to Khron's Kaji in the series, versus his Kaji in Death. If I remember rightly, series Kaji sounded much more like EOE-Kaworu; Khron obviously deliberately re-tuned Kaji to make him sounds less like Kaworu, and personally I think the results sound far better.
I'm kind of worried about Jerry Jewell; the last thing I heard from him was Kyo in fruits basket, another whiny-emo-kid-type. I had hoped for whasisface, um...argh...*googles* JAY HICKMAN yes that's it, based mostly on his performance as Mytho in Princess Tutu. Although deliberately flat for most of the series, he mamaged a nice ethereal, soft-but-solid tonal quality that could perhaps have been manipulated quite nicely to suit Kaworu.
"Dude, it's not that I don't think you're cool or anything but the fact is that that guy is driving a Big Red GTO and you're pissing about in an enraged banana."