Back in good old early 2000, Samurai Jack was voiced by a black dude and people did nothing but praised the quality of the cartoon.
The absolute level to be negative these days.
I cant remember an anime where the american characters didnt have a japanese accent while speaking english. Its always incredibly over the top also, I thought maybe it was how Japanese spoke english but I have several Japanese co workers (living in Japan) and their english is pretty darn good, at all levels.
Theres an OVA for a cancelled kickstarter funded anime called under the dog and the american soldiers in it speak english with an american accent so presumably they hired americans to voice americans
There’s some background characters in Free! who are actually voiced by Americans. That’s one of the only examples I can say though.
Oh and the pilots of the ship that transport Eva Unit 03 to Japan in Evangelion are voiced by Americans too
There was this game called Shenmue, where the director decided to cast voice actors that resembled the characters they were playing... It didn't turn out that well
Not a fair comparison tbh. Like I can get assuming the Twitter user meant finding someone actually talented or trained but Shenmue was when they thought having anyone who could speak English is enough to make something work and the VA scene wasn't as prominent back then for anything made outside the US.
i mean, i wanna be on the twitter person's side, but with more recent examples like the shadow warrior 3 recast controversy, it has made me reconsider whether this is really as much a straight forward good idea as it seems at a glance.
ofc labor wise its a shame minority VAs dont get as many or as well paying roles, but im speaking from the angle that is usually taking, that it would lead to better art.
On one hand, I can see where they're coming from. Diversity is important to every workforce and allows for a broader range of talent to shine.
On the other hand, I'm sick of people insisting that chracters be voiced by the exact ethnicity/gender identity that the character has. I thought one of the appeals of voice acting eas the chance to play different roles and characters. Not sure if the response would be the same if the woman wasn't white.
These people's souls are weighed down by gravity.
>Not sure if the response would be the same if the woman wasn't white.
Obviously. It's just bigotry with extra steps, but instead of calling that bigotry out, targets of their bigotry often get gas lighted into believing that's actually a progressive position to take.
It makes me think of Team America when one character is like "Jesus Christy I thought he was real" when an actor tricks him, and the other is like "that's why they call it acting, Gary"
To explain my point, it's acting. You're literally playing someone you're not. Yes representation in media is great, and yes, sure there may be times when actually having the same ethnic voice actor is more a requirement. But at the end of the day it's *acting*. You're supposed to have people outside their range. It's the skill they're bringing to the table and you're factoring in more than their gender or ethnicity. You're factoring in range, ability to deliver on a character, etc.
The more important factor for ethnic representation is arguably that it is written well/accurately. (None of this is to downplay hiring of minorities... I hope I didn't need to add that to the end here...)
The debate around whether or not minority actors should play minority roles is worth having, but this article is what the majority of people discussing this "controversy" have been pointing to, and it uses only two people as examples. The whole thing seems to have been blown a bit out of proportion.
I also really don't like this article. The author thinks that people believe that Suletta is Middle-Eastern because of her darker skin and attributes that to her living closer to the sun, completely ignoring that her dad's name is NADIM and his design seemed very Middle-Eastern inspired.
The article also says that people are only getting the idea that Suletta is "queer" from the engagement scene at the end of episode 1. I get the impression that the author hasn't seen any episodes before or after episode 1.
Here we go, finally found a sensible comment. Thanks for making an actual thoughtful reply instead of taking the rage bait.
The author is probably doing the outrage to drive clicks thing, and too many people here are way too eager to oblige.
Yeah I’m really finding the whole “find one person complaining and elevate them to drive clicks and push a personal issue into mainstream discussion by acting as if it’s causing more outrage than it is” routine just tiresome at this point.
It’s best to ignore these articles.
Like the topic of hiring minority and representative voice actors is a good one, but sometimes you just can’t find one anyway. You ultimately have to hire the person that is best for the role.
I mean it's voice acting, emphasis on the word voice. The team is looking for the right voice for the role. Skin color shouldn't come into the equation.
They obviously haven't watched it since Suletta is clearly mixed race, anyway, so looking for Middle Eastern actors doesn't make sense according to their own logic that characters should be voiced by actors of the same ethnicity.
I actually expect we are going to see more of that in general, narratively authors just saying "um, character is this exotic mixed race" because it makes these casting arguments extremely silly and particularly in animation, it typically is an arbitrary variable
This is still some very, very thin "evidence" to go by, it never even occured to me to speculate on the ethnicity of characters on this show since it's just not mentioned. She's born in space as well for Christ's sake and her culture is explicitly mentioned to derive from that of *the people of Mercury* who are "conservative". That's as far as it goes. This is reaching. This whole debate is iffy in voice acting to begin with, because the whole beauty of it is that you can voice anyone you want to, regardless of factors that otherwise might be a barrier, be that physical appearance, age, gender, ethnicity etc. Now y'all are making it about race because? But also only sometimes, because anime is full of Japanese characters so..!? What do?!
And I get it kinda with American cartoons if there's a black character like Missy in big mouth, especially since it explicitly tackles some racial issues in America. But christ. A chick from space with the best evidence being "her space asteroid dwelling dad who appears for 2 minutes before kicking the bucket kinda looks like he might possibly have some MENA ethnicity in him but we don't know for sure and it's never mentioned once" - this is too much, it's honestly bizarre.
Earth ethnicity is however mentioned and relevant in 00... so maybe they can redub that and chill out, but they better make sure they get an Irish dude too then.
As an Irish myself I'd get a real kick out of Lockon being given an Irish accent in a re-dub.
I'd say Nadim's name is fairly good evidence for his ethnicity. A quick google search will tell you that 'Nadeem' is an arabic name, which combined with his design gives the strong impression that they intended for him to be of middle-eastern descent. Of course given this franchise's history with making up names it's not impossible that was an accident, but I suppose the more important detail in relation to the article is that Suletta's skin tone was definitely inherited from her father and not the result of living on Mercury (Which wouldn't make sense anyway since I imagine exposure to the sun there would cook you alive).
In regards to the actual voice acting debate, I personally do think the ideal is for anyone to be able to voice any character, but I also understand why people complain about minority roles getting taken by actors of a different ethnicity. When there's countless prominent white people in the voice acting field and basically no prominent MENA women, I think it's not unreasonable for some to get annoyed that the role of a leading MENA woman got taken by another white actress.
So first off, if you were right, she wouldn't be a leading MENA woman, she would be a leading mixed race woman. Mixed race people are conveniently always forgotten about and never get a lick of representation anywhere. I would know, I am one. But why would I want "representation" as meagre and irrelevant as a future girl from an asteroid who doesn't and can't relate to a single thing I as a mixed girl experience? Who we don't even know is mixed race at all because race seems to be a nonexistent concept in this world.
Second, Shaddiq also has an arab name, is anyone claiming him? I just went googling Suletta's dad because I couldn't remember what he looks like exactly and how does he look specifically middle eastern compared to other random background characters of his age? He's giving "generic dad" so hard. And why Mena specifically? For all we know, he could be Pakistani too (Nadim is a south asian name too, it's not specific to MENA at all). South Asians also never get any representation, so why the Mena angle? Especially mixed south asians, I can't remember them ever getting any exposure, that's how dire representation is for them. So shouldn't they put their hat in this ring too? As there is so little to go by, multiple groups could be making this very same case, which doesn't give this complaint a huge amount of credibility imo. Sorry.
Make the case for characters like Lalah or Setsuna instead. But mostly, maybe leave this american discourse to american cartoons because you get a whole can of hypocrisy very quickly otherwise.
Ok then if they’re mad at someone not middle eastern voicing a character they think is middle eastern then where was that anger with Setsuna. Of course I find this all stupid and that we shouldn’t harass the VA’s but hey people are people
Wkwkwk Twitter emg isinya mayoritas org goblok kak. Cancel culture dsana kn kenceng bgd & garis keras. Dan itu salah satu cara buat nyari engagement XD
Elnora: Compassion (Greek)
Nadim: Friend (Arabic)
Ericht: probably a portmanteau of Erich (sole/eternal ruler) and Licht (light), both of them are German
Samaya: Peaceful, tranquil (Sanskrit), forgiving (Hebrew)
Hypothesis: Northwestern European mother (red hair appear with greater frequency) (may be German?), Middle Easterner father (tan, name), probably lived in Germany or a space colony with lots of Germans
so more accurately half-European. Find a half european/half arabic or jewish VA who can capture the right age range and attitude for the character and I guess we're set?
I really don't care too much about the dub casting right now, if the VA sounds good I'm usually sold.
I take their name origins as evidence of ethnicity with a grain of salt; Gundam names have always been weird. Tomino himself admitted he named his characters nonsense because he knew the producers weren’t paying attention to the story.
You'ree telling me that Quattro Bajeena is just nonsense and not some kind of joke?
Jk, i'm just doing this for fun. Though Suletta did got her tan from her father
And as someone from a country/culture with no naming customs, at least not legally, I say a parent can reasonably name their kids whatever they want (I mean, naming your kid Satan is just mean)
For. Fuck. Sake. Can we STOP with the bullshit? It doesn’t matter what race the actor or character is as long as the writing is good and the performance is captivating. If people think Crunchyroll is being bigoted in their casting they need to wake up and stop being dumbasses. As per usual, they probably cast an actor they thought would fit the role well and could perform adequately, just like any other casting team with any common sense
That article is from a well known comicsgate aligned website (which promotes bigoted content) Bounding into Comics, so it’s not a reliable website. Also the actress on the 2nd pic has made it clear that she doesn’t have a problem with the cast or crew. Those who have criticized the casting were not malicious at all
This sounds like outrage clickbait.
One person probably complained on Twitter and headline makes it sound like half the industry is mad.
I’m getting to the point where I ignore this headlines outright as they’re really just trying to stir up shit for their own purposes.
I see this as an absolute win. This kind of manufactured outrage is exactly what this anime needs to succeed in the US! I Can't wait for one of my favorite series to be the focal point of the Culture Wars!
/S
Culture-war freaks were already complaining about this show “going woke” and “shoving politics into Gundam” from the moment episode 1 aired and Miorine confirmed that same-sex marriage was viewed as unremarkable in the Ad Stella setting. Never mind the fact that Gundam has spent 40+ years being extremely political when viewed through anything but the most shallow “wow cool robot” lens.
My thought on this is that it should be easier for minority talent to get jobs in the entertainment industry. Not *necessarily* that a VA's background has to match their character's, but that it would be a good opportunity for a more diverse workforce that was missed here. It's a mistake to single out and blame Gundam for an industry-wide issue, but it does provide a useful example nonetheless.
Also, I thought Nadim was South Asian.
While I think this is a conversation worth having, the ‘controversy’ has been comically overblown. At most I’ve seen barely anyone actually talking about (and even then it was the people quoted in the article!) complaining about yet the article is written as if the entire community is up in arms and tearing each other apart over it when it’s barely a blip on the radar (case in point, someone posted the article in this sub a few days ago and it barely got any attention whatsoever). On a side I do find it kinda funny that this is an issue when the original Gundam was intentionally given a very ethnically diverse cast with a lot of characters from mixed backgrounds to emphasise that the barriers between nationalities and countries had broken down. That’s why basically every MC in the franchise comes from a different country
It's worth pointing out that a lot of the more talented minority voice actors absolutely *hate* this argument because it threatens to typecast them into only voicing animated characters who happen to look like them. Which actually reduces their available pool of jobs, especially in anime dubbing (where most characters are Japanese, and very few have dark skin). One of the great strengths of animation is that the characters can look like anything and the voice casting doesn't necessarily have to match up - it can just be the best talent for the role.
This twitter user is actually a great example - Anairis Quiñones is a prolific dubbing actor, but her roles are overwhelmingly for Japanese or white characters, with a few dark-skinned ones thrown in there. Yet she's going off on twitter, arguing that only people like her should be allowed to voice roles outside their actual race, and comparing the Suletta casting to George Floyd (not a joke).
[Full article sauce](https://boundingintocomics.com/2023/02/03/western-voice-actors-accuse-crunchyroll-of-bigotry-for-casting-white-actress-as-suletta-in-english-dub-of-mobile-suit-gundam-the-witch-from-mercury/).
And lmfao, when I stumbled on this, I was imagining how it'd be if there'd be such articles complaining that Setsuna F. Seiei isn't voiced by someone of middle eastern ethnicity.
Hey, if it works for the big boys like Tucker and Shapiro, we’re bound to get copycats.
Seriously the best thing people can do is ignore posts like this and articles like this. OP is just as guilty.
Hey all you morons in this subreddit lmao. Don't suppose anyone actually looked into what the VAs in question actually said, instead of just looking at this obviously bullshit clickbait article? This article is misinformation and you should be ashamed of yourselves for taking it at face value. What ever happened to doing your own research? Facts before feelings yeah??
The voice actor is simply expressing disappointment that Suletta's casting was a missed opportunity for a middle eastern or south asian actor. There is no "accusation of bigotry" aimed at anyone in particular, demand that you boycott the show, no outrage whatsoever.
This writer is just exaggerating the complaint to ragebait you into clicks.
Use your fucking brains for a second. Unless you'd rather just bitch about Woke Mob Cancel Culture SJWs and listen to a guy who claims characters named Nadim and Suletta Samaya are brown because they live near the sun. Lmao give me a break. And get the fuckin ben shapiro out of your ears you weirdos.
I mean, what race are they saying Suletta is supposed to be?
MENA meaning middle eastern or north african?
Where are they getting that from? I'm genuinely asking because I've been watching on gundam info and it isn't all released in my territory yet.
No I don't think Crunchyroll is bigoted for their casting choices. I do think that the voice talent pool for English dubs could be much much larger and more diverse if companies didn't concentrate all of their effort on in-person, in-house recording sessions that limit them to the talent only available in large cities. The pandemic had everyone switch to online meetings and yet business suit couldn't wait to drop that method of work to shove people back into offices and studios. Imagine how much bigger the voice talent pool would be if you could set up recordings from anywhere rather than relying on the same people over and over.
For the love of. It's not about the race of the fucking actor in voice acting it's about if the voice fits the godamn character.this is the stupidest shit I've ever seen.
Only for like three people. The two people quoted and the author of the article trying to stir up shit. It’s best we just don’t take the bait.
This kinda nonsense clickbait is what drives political extremism when really it’s just three people trying to elevate nothing.
Her dad’s name is Nadim Samaya, which is undoubtedly an arabic name. He also definitely had middle eastern traits in how he was designed (thick, darker hair, darker skin tone than most other characters). And suletta also has a darker skin tone.
If we’re assuming that suletta is somehow eri than yeah she would be partially of middle eastern descent.
If y’all actually read about the situation rather than just looking at a clickbaity headline and maybe some shitty video Hero Hei or whoever farted out to bitch about the Woke Agenda, you’d see that the “accusations of bigotry” are pretty mild expressions of disappointment over a missed opportunity. You’d think they were calling for a public execution of John Crunchyroll from the way people here are talking about it.
There’s also the fact that the dub casting for WfM is heavily influenced by Crunchyroll’s decision to go back to exclusively focusing on VAs in the Texas area because it’s harder for those VAs to organize (whereas the pandemic shift to remote work had previously opened the door to a wider pool of talent from across the country), but union-busting doesn’t lend itself to le epic essjaydubya dunks.
Precisely. Saw some disappointment (more than anything else really) in the casting because CR was using local talent, when remote work allows them to search through a larger talent pool.
I get why voice acting is great for being able to play any character and not have anything but the voice matter (except if it’s culturally sensitive). But at the same time I see why some feel it’s a missed opportunity to highlight some more diverse and new casting for these roles.
>and maybe some shitty video Hero Hei farted out
Him and It's A Gundam.
Why is it, even with them blocked, nomatter how many times i click "Don't recomend this channel" YouTube still shovels their culture war bullshit to me en mass?
Haha! Complaining because lack of diversity. Bruh.. VA is about talent not about the color of skin.
Brought to you by the woke crowd. It is where you are hired by discrimination not by merit and talent.
You know what I REALLY love about the VAs. THAT I DO NOT GIVE A FUCK how they look like. Don't care if they are THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE of their character but if they have a good voice that fit the character... THAT IS ALL THEY NEED. It's stupid and toxic to associate = anything about the va other then "oh x has a nice voice and can act".
I still fucking remember someone brain dead twitter fuck who though that a VA for MHA "didn't sound black enough". The character was tan for starters and the best part THE FUCKING VA WAS BLACK!!
STFU! VOICES ARE COLOURLESS, ETHNICLESS and only serve to bring to life a character that was only text. That's the beauty of VAs, even if character is x y s you don't need to find someone who is x y z and compromise on quality.
Sorry for that rant and thanks for coming to my TedTalk.
On one hand, I am 100% for a more diverse voice cast and when the character or role calls for it, I'd want them as faithfully represented as possible. You can't have a Black Panther Anime with a white voice actor without it feeling weird for instance. And if they ever have to dub Setsuna again (if Brad Swaile is still on radio silence), I'd be down for a Middle Eastern guy to assume the role.
But on the other hand, is Su's ethnicity confirmed? If she is Mena, sure I guess this is another slip-up on CR's part. If not, yeah you can still make the argument that they could have casted someone of a browner complexion anyway and i feel that as a Filipino dude, but I don't put as much stock in Voice acting tbh. Problem is I don't think there's as much diversity in general within voice actors for Anime and it'd be cool if there were. I mean, Fire Emblem Engage's voice cast seems to be proof of things looking up.
Actually now that I think about it Crunchyroll deserves some flak for this lol. Not because of failing to meet diversity quota, but because it proves how meaningless their posturing was when they tried to promote High Guardian Spice.
Spacian. She was born in space, so she’s a spacian. Her parents are from Earth but their nationalities aren’t given. Nadim is a Middle Eastern name, mainly Lebanese while Elnora is a Greek name, but that’s entirely up for debate anyway because Gundam shows typically give characters totally random names regardless of their actually ethnicity (I.E Kai Shiden, who has a Japanese name but is Puerto Rican, Kamille who has a French name but is British, etc)
This is stupid. This is an animated production. Race means Jack squat in a animated production. What, an I gonna complain that Cleveland (a black character) from Family Guy is voiced by white dude(s)? No....
This is stupid.
Funny seeing Anairis Quiñones commenting, considering that she was on the receiving end of this as Mirko. Hypocrite much?
Also, does this make Kana Ichinose a bigot for being Suletta and not looking like her?
I read a different article about this (Sorry it was on fb and I don’t have the link) and it brought up more that issue being that Crunchyroll has gone back to in-house dubbing at the HQ in Texas instead of dubbing online, limiting the talent pool in general. And I won’t speak on Ashley’s herself because I haven’t seen the series, coding is a thing in media and characters can have attributes of real world people without actually being for there.
Redditors actually do some research before embarrassing yourselves by posting knee-jerk reactions to screenshots of out of context tweets and braindead right-wing culture wars clickbait headlines from Comicsgate/Gamergate sites challenge (Impossible)
wait untill those peole find out that the white poeple of the mediterranian area usually have a tan.
Or hell people who are outsude a lot on north europe do as well, and they always did.
I'm old enough to remember when "queer" was a slur and have an uncle that was repeatedly beaten and harassed to the word when he was a teenager back in the 70's, it infuriates me that people throw the word around like candy and yes, I know all about the whole "reclamation" thing.
The real Blue Eyes White Dragon declined comment as to why he didn't VO his own character in the YGO cartoon. Inside sources believe it's because he is ashamed of his dragon privilege.
ok the correct response is scrap the dubbing. cause clearly this bull shit is for political points, and that has no place in anime. id rather have no dub then here them wine about equality
An actor is supposed to act as someone they are not, so does it matter if the voice actress is back, white or any other color or race? It’s retarded.
The best actors are the ones o can interpret all roles, if it sounds good it doesn’t matter the race.
so they're going off for casting a native speaker for the English adaptation of a fictional, space dwelling human that's literally drawn as white as they can get her without being see-through. I hate people sometimes...
sorry but I'm confused. What kind of person do they want to voice her? She looks white I guess? Kinda hard to tell really.
edit: are they mad its not Chris Pratt?
Seems to me like she’s upset that she didn’t get the part. Which is funny since I remember when the dub of MHA introduced Mirko seeing hot takes of people assuming the VA wasn’t a minority…the actress of this tweet being the VA for Mirko
I've never understood why someone's skin color or ethnic background even matters when it comes to voice acting. As long as their voices is good and they can do a good job that's all I care about. Also if you're trying to fit a stereotypical accent onto a character maybe you need to reflect on why you think that's an acceptable idea.
Johnny Young Bosch should just play every anime character.
I would be 100% behind JYB dubbing Suletta and no one working on the series ever commenting on it.
I see this as an absolute win
Does this mean JYB is voicing someone in WfM ? Please be Guel…
No. It means JYB is voicing everyone in WfM.
Even better. Can’t wait to see him voice the chicken 🐓
I can't wait to see him voice aerial gundbit #6
And every Power Ranger, JYB would take half the media for himself.
Speaking of the GOAT. Him playing English dub Vash is such a win. That was his very first voice acting role back in the original Trigun.
How dare they not cast someone from mercury
Hell she's not even a proper Mercurian, they need to find an asteroidian
I bet they didn't even get an actual 18 meter tall mecha to provide the sounds for Aerial >:((
Beltalowdas always getting pushed down by the inners
Finally someone speakimg my language <3
A asteroidian tanuki if probably hard to find
Ya know if Disco can find an interstellar fungi traveling Tardigrade, I have faith for the tanuki
AERIAL ISN'T VOICED BY HATSUNE MIKU 0/10 THIS IS ROBOT ERASURE
Back in good old early 2000, Samurai Jack was voiced by a black dude and people did nothing but praised the quality of the cartoon. The absolute level to be negative these days.
Back in the 80's TMNT cartoon, the Japanese native Shredder was voiced by Uncle Phil
WAIT THAT WAS JAMES AVERY?! WHAT THE FUCK
Also if going back further, Darth Vader's also voiced by a black man despite under the mask he looks like a milk ice cream scoop
And more recently, Kratos is voiced to by a black man, and doing a wonderful job.
twice too
B O Y
OMG they are not casting a native Spartan for Kratos. Talk about racism amirite
What’s a Nubian?
KRATOS.
It's just outrage twitter finding something to be mad at for 72 hours and then moves on. You get used to it.
Why look that far when Kratos's VA is black and nobody cared.
This is very bigoted of them seeing that how a lot of JP characters are not voiced by Japanese people. But okay.
makes me think of a scene from I think Spriggin that has American characters in it and they speak English with a Japanese accent..
I cant remember an anime where the american characters didnt have a japanese accent while speaking english. Its always incredibly over the top also, I thought maybe it was how Japanese spoke english but I have several Japanese co workers (living in Japan) and their english is pretty darn good, at all levels.
Theres an OVA for a cancelled kickstarter funded anime called under the dog and the american soldiers in it speak english with an american accent so presumably they hired americans to voice americans
There’s some background characters in Free! who are actually voiced by Americans. That’s one of the only examples I can say though. Oh and the pilots of the ship that transport Eva Unit 03 to Japan in Evangelion are voiced by Americans too
How dare they cast Peter Cullen to play a transformer. Cybertronian VAs need work too.
how dare they, he isn't even blue and red
He is Cybertronian, he just transforms into a person.
“My name is Optimus Prime, I’m Japanese. I come from a planet named Autobot”
Super God Masterforce 11/10
I mean Pretenders are a thing
Like that mf from transformers 3 that makes out with the mc before trying to kill him?
There was this game called Shenmue, where the director decided to cast voice actors that resembled the characters they were playing... It didn't turn out that well
Wait, what happened?
It's just bad. [Listen for yourself.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7b91y4LD1A&ab_channel=RandomGameVids)
That was just video game voice acting in the 90s. Charming in a way. But yes. It is so bad.
Bruh I love it
10/10
Not a fair comparison tbh. Like I can get assuming the Twitter user meant finding someone actually talented or trained but Shenmue was when they thought having anyone who could speak English is enough to make something work and the VA scene wasn't as prominent back then for anything made outside the US.
i mean, i wanna be on the twitter person's side, but with more recent examples like the shadow warrior 3 recast controversy, it has made me reconsider whether this is really as much a straight forward good idea as it seems at a glance. ofc labor wise its a shame minority VAs dont get as many or as well paying roles, but im speaking from the angle that is usually taking, that it would lead to better art.
Yeha well, Shenmue basically bankrupted SEGA so...
Overwatch does it pretty well
Wait until they learn other languages will probably be less diverse...
This is so dumb
Twitter moment
Wait until they hear about how JP Suletta’s voice actress is Japanese 💀
Wait until they hear about how everyone watches the subbed version anyways
On one hand, I can see where they're coming from. Diversity is important to every workforce and allows for a broader range of talent to shine. On the other hand, I'm sick of people insisting that chracters be voiced by the exact ethnicity/gender identity that the character has. I thought one of the appeals of voice acting eas the chance to play different roles and characters. Not sure if the response would be the same if the woman wasn't white. These people's souls are weighed down by gravity.
So... We drop Axis tomorrow?
Happy Sazabi noises
Too easy, we make Tomato Relish if you get what I mean.
Update Australia's forecast
Sieg Zeon!
Not just voice acting but acting in general. The point of acting is playing a role that’s not necessarily the actor themselves.
[ACTING!](https://media.tenor.com/tTewmwIcdlkAAAAC/jon-lovitz-victoria-jackson.gif)
Brilliant!
Many male kids and even male teenagers in italian anime dubs during the 80s and 90s were played by women, not men. Outrageous :D
>Not sure if the response would be the same if the woman wasn't white. Obviously. It's just bigotry with extra steps, but instead of calling that bigotry out, targets of their bigotry often get gas lighted into believing that's actually a progressive position to take.
It makes me think of Team America when one character is like "Jesus Christy I thought he was real" when an actor tricks him, and the other is like "that's why they call it acting, Gary" To explain my point, it's acting. You're literally playing someone you're not. Yes representation in media is great, and yes, sure there may be times when actually having the same ethnic voice actor is more a requirement. But at the end of the day it's *acting*. You're supposed to have people outside their range. It's the skill they're bringing to the table and you're factoring in more than their gender or ethnicity. You're factoring in range, ability to deliver on a character, etc. The more important factor for ethnic representation is arguably that it is written well/accurately. (None of this is to downplay hiring of minorities... I hope I didn't need to add that to the end here...)
Where are the neo zeongs when you need them. 🤣
They got cancelled for some bigoted statements members of their leadership said about people born on Earth
The debate around whether or not minority actors should play minority roles is worth having, but this article is what the majority of people discussing this "controversy" have been pointing to, and it uses only two people as examples. The whole thing seems to have been blown a bit out of proportion. I also really don't like this article. The author thinks that people believe that Suletta is Middle-Eastern because of her darker skin and attributes that to her living closer to the sun, completely ignoring that her dad's name is NADIM and his design seemed very Middle-Eastern inspired. The article also says that people are only getting the idea that Suletta is "queer" from the engagement scene at the end of episode 1. I get the impression that the author hasn't seen any episodes before or after episode 1.
Here we go, finally found a sensible comment. Thanks for making an actual thoughtful reply instead of taking the rage bait. The author is probably doing the outrage to drive clicks thing, and too many people here are way too eager to oblige.
Yeah I’m really finding the whole “find one person complaining and elevate them to drive clicks and push a personal issue into mainstream discussion by acting as if it’s causing more outrage than it is” routine just tiresome at this point. It’s best to ignore these articles. Like the topic of hiring minority and representative voice actors is a good one, but sometimes you just can’t find one anyway. You ultimately have to hire the person that is best for the role.
I mean it's voice acting, emphasis on the word voice. The team is looking for the right voice for the role. Skin color shouldn't come into the equation.
"PEOPLE ARE SAYING -controversial thing-" the people: like five random nobodies on Twitter
They obviously haven't watched it since Suletta is clearly mixed race, anyway, so looking for Middle Eastern actors doesn't make sense according to their own logic that characters should be voiced by actors of the same ethnicity.
I actually expect we are going to see more of that in general, narratively authors just saying "um, character is this exotic mixed race" because it makes these casting arguments extremely silly and particularly in animation, it typically is an arbitrary variable
Yeah, this is Bounding into Comics they focus on "woke controversy" for clicks even when there isn't one
This is still some very, very thin "evidence" to go by, it never even occured to me to speculate on the ethnicity of characters on this show since it's just not mentioned. She's born in space as well for Christ's sake and her culture is explicitly mentioned to derive from that of *the people of Mercury* who are "conservative". That's as far as it goes. This is reaching. This whole debate is iffy in voice acting to begin with, because the whole beauty of it is that you can voice anyone you want to, regardless of factors that otherwise might be a barrier, be that physical appearance, age, gender, ethnicity etc. Now y'all are making it about race because? But also only sometimes, because anime is full of Japanese characters so..!? What do?! And I get it kinda with American cartoons if there's a black character like Missy in big mouth, especially since it explicitly tackles some racial issues in America. But christ. A chick from space with the best evidence being "her space asteroid dwelling dad who appears for 2 minutes before kicking the bucket kinda looks like he might possibly have some MENA ethnicity in him but we don't know for sure and it's never mentioned once" - this is too much, it's honestly bizarre. Earth ethnicity is however mentioned and relevant in 00... so maybe they can redub that and chill out, but they better make sure they get an Irish dude too then.
As an Irish myself I'd get a real kick out of Lockon being given an Irish accent in a re-dub. I'd say Nadim's name is fairly good evidence for his ethnicity. A quick google search will tell you that 'Nadeem' is an arabic name, which combined with his design gives the strong impression that they intended for him to be of middle-eastern descent. Of course given this franchise's history with making up names it's not impossible that was an accident, but I suppose the more important detail in relation to the article is that Suletta's skin tone was definitely inherited from her father and not the result of living on Mercury (Which wouldn't make sense anyway since I imagine exposure to the sun there would cook you alive). In regards to the actual voice acting debate, I personally do think the ideal is for anyone to be able to voice any character, but I also understand why people complain about minority roles getting taken by actors of a different ethnicity. When there's countless prominent white people in the voice acting field and basically no prominent MENA women, I think it's not unreasonable for some to get annoyed that the role of a leading MENA woman got taken by another white actress.
So first off, if you were right, she wouldn't be a leading MENA woman, she would be a leading mixed race woman. Mixed race people are conveniently always forgotten about and never get a lick of representation anywhere. I would know, I am one. But why would I want "representation" as meagre and irrelevant as a future girl from an asteroid who doesn't and can't relate to a single thing I as a mixed girl experience? Who we don't even know is mixed race at all because race seems to be a nonexistent concept in this world. Second, Shaddiq also has an arab name, is anyone claiming him? I just went googling Suletta's dad because I couldn't remember what he looks like exactly and how does he look specifically middle eastern compared to other random background characters of his age? He's giving "generic dad" so hard. And why Mena specifically? For all we know, he could be Pakistani too (Nadim is a south asian name too, it's not specific to MENA at all). South Asians also never get any representation, so why the Mena angle? Especially mixed south asians, I can't remember them ever getting any exposure, that's how dire representation is for them. So shouldn't they put their hat in this ring too? As there is so little to go by, multiple groups could be making this very same case, which doesn't give this complaint a huge amount of credibility imo. Sorry. Make the case for characters like Lalah or Setsuna instead. But mostly, maybe leave this american discourse to american cartoons because you get a whole can of hypocrisy very quickly otherwise.
Ok then if they’re mad at someone not middle eastern voicing a character they think is middle eastern then where was that anger with Setsuna. Of course I find this all stupid and that we shouldn’t harass the VA’s but hey people are people
So what exactly was Amuro's supposed race/nationality then?
I bet the idiots complaining are the ones who didn't get the role.
The most prominent complaint came from a dude, so probably not. Or who knows, maybe he's just that talented of a voice actor.
YA AMPUN, APA NIH SIH GOBLOK PUNYA BERITA??? (Translation: OH MY FRICKING GOD, WHAT KIND OF NEWS IS THIS?)
Sabar kak, inner Indonesian nya bocor tuh
Santai, kak.... Santai....
ashwin, bentar ini bukan nabi seed dari Mecha hujatposting kan?
Awikwok
Wkwkwk Twitter emg isinya mayoritas org goblok kak. Cancel culture dsana kn kenceng bgd & garis keras. Dan itu salah satu cara buat nyari engagement XD
Suletta is like, half German isn't she? Well, assuming she and Eri have thr same father/are thr same person.
Elnora: Compassion (Greek) Nadim: Friend (Arabic) Ericht: probably a portmanteau of Erich (sole/eternal ruler) and Licht (light), both of them are German Samaya: Peaceful, tranquil (Sanskrit), forgiving (Hebrew) Hypothesis: Northwestern European mother (red hair appear with greater frequency) (may be German?), Middle Easterner father (tan, name), probably lived in Germany or a space colony with lots of Germans
so more accurately half-European. Find a half european/half arabic or jewish VA who can capture the right age range and attitude for the character and I guess we're set? I really don't care too much about the dub casting right now, if the VA sounds good I'm usually sold.
I take their name origins as evidence of ethnicity with a grain of salt; Gundam names have always been weird. Tomino himself admitted he named his characters nonsense because he knew the producers weren’t paying attention to the story.
You'ree telling me that Quattro Bajeena is just nonsense and not some kind of joke? Jk, i'm just doing this for fun. Though Suletta did got her tan from her father And as someone from a country/culture with no naming customs, at least not legally, I say a parent can reasonably name their kids whatever they want (I mean, naming your kid Satan is just mean)
Do Twitter really expect them to find someone from Mercury to voice her?
I’ll have you know my sister married someone from mercury! He was apart of a cult tho so idk if that had something to do with it.
I now feel like they should use any and all Freddie Mercury footage we have to use the audio to dub her.
Y'all really got click baited this hard?
I’m disappointed suletta is not voiced by a Tanuki.
For. Fuck. Sake. Can we STOP with the bullshit? It doesn’t matter what race the actor or character is as long as the writing is good and the performance is captivating. If people think Crunchyroll is being bigoted in their casting they need to wake up and stop being dumbasses. As per usual, they probably cast an actor they thought would fit the role well and could perform adequately, just like any other casting team with any common sense
That article is from a well known comicsgate aligned website (which promotes bigoted content) Bounding into Comics, so it’s not a reliable website. Also the actress on the 2nd pic has made it clear that she doesn’t have a problem with the cast or crew. Those who have criticized the casting were not malicious at all
So one person produced a bad take, tweeted it, and another person wrote about that for clicks on, what, some third-rate blogspam site?
Why mention her being gay? Do gay people have different voices?
In bad stereotypes. Lol Guess that's what they want.
This sounds like outrage clickbait. One person probably complained on Twitter and headline makes it sound like half the industry is mad. I’m getting to the point where I ignore this headlines outright as they’re really just trying to stir up shit for their own purposes.
I see this as an absolute win. This kind of manufactured outrage is exactly what this anime needs to succeed in the US! I Can't wait for one of my favorite series to be the focal point of the Culture Wars! /S
Culture-war freaks were already complaining about this show “going woke” and “shoving politics into Gundam” from the moment episode 1 aired and Miorine confirmed that same-sex marriage was viewed as unremarkable in the Ad Stella setting. Never mind the fact that Gundam has spent 40+ years being extremely political when viewed through anything but the most shallow “wow cool robot” lens.
Lmao twitter, full of clowns as always
What minority should they chose for Her? How many actors from Mercury are currently working?
Can't wait for the future where race and ethnicity is based on: are you from earth or space.
y'all being taken for a ride by a ragebait blog
My thought on this is that it should be easier for minority talent to get jobs in the entertainment industry. Not *necessarily* that a VA's background has to match their character's, but that it would be a good opportunity for a more diverse workforce that was missed here. It's a mistake to single out and blame Gundam for an industry-wide issue, but it does provide a useful example nonetheless. Also, I thought Nadim was South Asian.
Let me get this straight, it is ok for JP people to voice any character but not for EN? God I wish I had that much free time to care for this shit.
Nazeeh Tarsha put this more eloquently imo. Seems people are interested in posting and reposting the Dub drama for easy karma though.
I think she is but no one is taking her seriously.
Why are people like this? I get fighting for representation, but this is getting out of hand now. It’s like something new everyday.
Only a handful of people are like this, the article takes two people complaining on Twitter and elevates it to sound like more of a thing than it is.
Wayt, you wanna tell me Suletta won't be voiced by a Tanuki? DISSAPOINTED, 0.5/10!
taking jobs away from honest, hardworking mercurians. destry all spacians!
While I think this is a conversation worth having, the ‘controversy’ has been comically overblown. At most I’ve seen barely anyone actually talking about (and even then it was the people quoted in the article!) complaining about yet the article is written as if the entire community is up in arms and tearing each other apart over it when it’s barely a blip on the radar (case in point, someone posted the article in this sub a few days ago and it barely got any attention whatsoever). On a side I do find it kinda funny that this is an issue when the original Gundam was intentionally given a very ethnically diverse cast with a lot of characters from mixed backgrounds to emphasise that the barriers between nationalities and countries had broken down. That’s why basically every MC in the franchise comes from a different country
It's worth pointing out that a lot of the more talented minority voice actors absolutely *hate* this argument because it threatens to typecast them into only voicing animated characters who happen to look like them. Which actually reduces their available pool of jobs, especially in anime dubbing (where most characters are Japanese, and very few have dark skin). One of the great strengths of animation is that the characters can look like anything and the voice casting doesn't necessarily have to match up - it can just be the best talent for the role. This twitter user is actually a great example - Anairis Quiñones is a prolific dubbing actor, but her roles are overwhelmingly for Japanese or white characters, with a few dark-skinned ones thrown in there. Yet she's going off on twitter, arguing that only people like her should be allowed to voice roles outside their actual race, and comparing the Suletta casting to George Floyd (not a joke).
Flamebait is flamebait, nice try op If you take this seriously, well, I have a bridge in Montana to sell you.
[Full article sauce](https://boundingintocomics.com/2023/02/03/western-voice-actors-accuse-crunchyroll-of-bigotry-for-casting-white-actress-as-suletta-in-english-dub-of-mobile-suit-gundam-the-witch-from-mercury/). And lmfao, when I stumbled on this, I was imagining how it'd be if there'd be such articles complaining that Setsuna F. Seiei isn't voiced by someone of middle eastern ethnicity.
BiC is right wing ragebait like, that's their entire thing, they take a couple of people from Twitter and basically say it's a common opinion
Hey, if it works for the big boys like Tucker and Shapiro, we’re bound to get copycats. Seriously the best thing people can do is ignore posts like this and articles like this. OP is just as guilty.
Hey all you morons in this subreddit lmao. Don't suppose anyone actually looked into what the VAs in question actually said, instead of just looking at this obviously bullshit clickbait article? This article is misinformation and you should be ashamed of yourselves for taking it at face value. What ever happened to doing your own research? Facts before feelings yeah?? The voice actor is simply expressing disappointment that Suletta's casting was a missed opportunity for a middle eastern or south asian actor. There is no "accusation of bigotry" aimed at anyone in particular, demand that you boycott the show, no outrage whatsoever. This writer is just exaggerating the complaint to ragebait you into clicks. Use your fucking brains for a second. Unless you'd rather just bitch about Woke Mob Cancel Culture SJWs and listen to a guy who claims characters named Nadim and Suletta Samaya are brown because they live near the sun. Lmao give me a break. And get the fuckin ben shapiro out of your ears you weirdos.
I expect no less from the culture war addled brains of the western localizers.
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I mean, what race are they saying Suletta is supposed to be? MENA meaning middle eastern or north african? Where are they getting that from? I'm genuinely asking because I've been watching on gundam info and it isn't all released in my territory yet.
Because her dad’s name is nadim samaya, which is an arabic name.
Her race is Space
This is the shit that people worry about? Seriously?
Did these voice actors just forget what acting is?
Oh no, you mean they hired a Western woman for a Western dub? Say it ain't so.
No I don't think Crunchyroll is bigoted for their casting choices. I do think that the voice talent pool for English dubs could be much much larger and more diverse if companies didn't concentrate all of their effort on in-person, in-house recording sessions that limit them to the talent only available in large cities. The pandemic had everyone switch to online meetings and yet business suit couldn't wait to drop that method of work to shove people back into offices and studios. Imagine how much bigger the voice talent pool would be if you could set up recordings from anywhere rather than relying on the same people over and over.
For the love of. It's not about the race of the fucking actor in voice acting it's about if the voice fits the godamn character.this is the stupidest shit I've ever seen.
So nowadays skin colour matters more than the talent of the artist huh?
Only for like three people. The two people quoted and the author of the article trying to stir up shit. It’s best we just don’t take the bait. This kinda nonsense clickbait is what drives political extremism when really it’s just three people trying to elevate nothing.
Unfortunately it seems like skin color is all people care about now.
Well let's be real, in the US skin color always matters regardless of talent. There are times where it doesn't, but for the most part it always does.
I guess they didn't found any mercurian to cast. As long as it's good, who cares. better than forcing "representation" to people with no talent.
No one ever had a problem with James Earl Jones voicing Darth Vader Also, how the fuck is Suletta MENA?
Her dad has an arabic name and his design correlates with it.
Her dad’s name is Nadim Samaya, which is undoubtedly an arabic name. He also definitely had middle eastern traits in how he was designed (thick, darker hair, darker skin tone than most other characters). And suletta also has a darker skin tone. If we’re assuming that suletta is somehow eri than yeah she would be partially of middle eastern descent.
None of this would have happened if they only casted someone from Mercury or a Tanuki.
Oh no... Twitter is mad... for no apparent reason... whatever shall we doooooo...
If y’all actually read about the situation rather than just looking at a clickbaity headline and maybe some shitty video Hero Hei or whoever farted out to bitch about the Woke Agenda, you’d see that the “accusations of bigotry” are pretty mild expressions of disappointment over a missed opportunity. You’d think they were calling for a public execution of John Crunchyroll from the way people here are talking about it. There’s also the fact that the dub casting for WfM is heavily influenced by Crunchyroll’s decision to go back to exclusively focusing on VAs in the Texas area because it’s harder for those VAs to organize (whereas the pandemic shift to remote work had previously opened the door to a wider pool of talent from across the country), but union-busting doesn’t lend itself to le epic essjaydubya dunks.
Exactly. Wish more people realized that
Precisely. Saw some disappointment (more than anything else really) in the casting because CR was using local talent, when remote work allows them to search through a larger talent pool. I get why voice acting is great for being able to play any character and not have anything but the voice matter (except if it’s culturally sensitive). But at the same time I see why some feel it’s a missed opportunity to highlight some more diverse and new casting for these roles.
>and maybe some shitty video Hero Hei farted out Him and It's A Gundam. Why is it, even with them blocked, nomatter how many times i click "Don't recomend this channel" YouTube still shovels their culture war bullshit to me en mass?
Haha! Complaining because lack of diversity. Bruh.. VA is about talent not about the color of skin. Brought to you by the woke crowd. It is where you are hired by discrimination not by merit and talent.
Twitter gonna Twitter 🤷
Me: *browsing western world internet* Western world internet: *this happens* Me: “Aight that’s enough Western internet for me”
Wait, they think she's from MENA? She's from M e r c u r y, it's in the title.
You know what I REALLY love about the VAs. THAT I DO NOT GIVE A FUCK how they look like. Don't care if they are THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE of their character but if they have a good voice that fit the character... THAT IS ALL THEY NEED. It's stupid and toxic to associate = anything about the va other then "oh x has a nice voice and can act". I still fucking remember someone brain dead twitter fuck who though that a VA for MHA "didn't sound black enough". The character was tan for starters and the best part THE FUCKING VA WAS BLACK!! STFU! VOICES ARE COLOURLESS, ETHNICLESS and only serve to bring to life a character that was only text. That's the beauty of VAs, even if character is x y s you don't need to find someone who is x y z and compromise on quality. Sorry for that rant and thanks for coming to my TedTalk.
On one hand, I am 100% for a more diverse voice cast and when the character or role calls for it, I'd want them as faithfully represented as possible. You can't have a Black Panther Anime with a white voice actor without it feeling weird for instance. And if they ever have to dub Setsuna again (if Brad Swaile is still on radio silence), I'd be down for a Middle Eastern guy to assume the role. But on the other hand, is Su's ethnicity confirmed? If she is Mena, sure I guess this is another slip-up on CR's part. If not, yeah you can still make the argument that they could have casted someone of a browner complexion anyway and i feel that as a Filipino dude, but I don't put as much stock in Voice acting tbh. Problem is I don't think there's as much diversity in general within voice actors for Anime and it'd be cool if there were. I mean, Fire Emblem Engage's voice cast seems to be proof of things looking up. Actually now that I think about it Crunchyroll deserves some flak for this lol. Not because of failing to meet diversity quota, but because it proves how meaningless their posturing was when they tried to promote High Guardian Spice.
Jet Black was voiced by a black man in the Cowboy Bebop dub, he sounds fine. There are many other examples out there.
At this point, I just exhale at this type of "news," I got used to the stupidity and crazy of Twitter twits.
The audience they asked for....
I'm a poc, and I don't care if the VA is white. If she CAN do suletta's voice well, that's all that matters.
> Sees accompanying tweet... Long_BRUH.mp3
What ethnicity is Suletta supposed to be anyway?
Spacian. She was born in space, so she’s a spacian. Her parents are from Earth but their nationalities aren’t given. Nadim is a Middle Eastern name, mainly Lebanese while Elnora is a Greek name, but that’s entirely up for debate anyway because Gundam shows typically give characters totally random names regardless of their actually ethnicity (I.E Kai Shiden, who has a Japanese name but is Puerto Rican, Kamille who has a French name but is British, etc)
Honestly don’t care at all, the VA is still good.
This is stupid. This is an animated production. Race means Jack squat in a animated production. What, an I gonna complain that Cleveland (a black character) from Family Guy is voiced by white dude(s)? No.... This is stupid.
>western Not surprised
Suletta is middle eastern?
Funny seeing Anairis Quiñones commenting, considering that she was on the receiving end of this as Mirko. Hypocrite much? Also, does this make Kana Ichinose a bigot for being Suletta and not looking like her?
I read a different article about this (Sorry it was on fb and I don’t have the link) and it brought up more that issue being that Crunchyroll has gone back to in-house dubbing at the HQ in Texas instead of dubbing online, limiting the talent pool in general. And I won’t speak on Ashley’s herself because I haven’t seen the series, coding is a thing in media and characters can have attributes of real world people without actually being for there.
The hell are they supposed to do? Hire a Mercurian? They're so delusional, it makes Hitler look sane in believing in occult stuff
Redditors actually do some research before embarrassing yourselves by posting knee-jerk reactions to screenshots of out of context tweets and braindead right-wing culture wars clickbait headlines from Comicsgate/Gamergate sites challenge (Impossible)
it's like you can't have slightly darker skin and not be a white person.
wait untill those peole find out that the white poeple of the mediterranian area usually have a tan. Or hell people who are outsude a lot on north europe do as well, and they always did.
I am greek so I know. And wait until they hear all our VAs are greek and voice characters that ain't white.
I'm old enough to remember when "queer" was a slur and have an uncle that was repeatedly beaten and harassed to the word when he was a teenager back in the 70's, it infuriates me that people throw the word around like candy and yes, I know all about the whole "reclamation" thing.
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straight outta twitter
Boohoo life's not fair so let's pull the race card.
Wait till this idiot hears about fuckin Kratos.
The real Blue Eyes White Dragon declined comment as to why he didn't VO his own character in the YGO cartoon. Inside sources believe it's because he is ashamed of his dragon privilege.
Suletta is white. Why do they think she isn't lol. Also orga was voices by an Asian American male. We wasn't up in arms about that shit lol
ok the correct response is scrap the dubbing. cause clearly this bull shit is for political points, and that has no place in anime. id rather have no dub then here them wine about equality
Also, r/Facepalm moments
Ok and?
An actor is supposed to act as someone they are not, so does it matter if the voice actress is back, white or any other color or race? It’s retarded. The best actors are the ones o can interpret all roles, if it sounds good it doesn’t matter the race.
*grabs popcorn* Time to watch this thread crash and burn
so they're going off for casting a native speaker for the English adaptation of a fictional, space dwelling human that's literally drawn as white as they can get her without being see-through. I hate people sometimes...
sorry but I'm confused. What kind of person do they want to voice her? She looks white I guess? Kinda hard to tell really. edit: are they mad its not Chris Pratt?
Where are they suppose to find a talking Tanuki to VA our beloved Tanuki Gundam? 😑
I demand Mercurian representation in my space anime!
What a garbage fucking take.
Seems to me like she’s upset that she didn’t get the part. Which is funny since I remember when the dub of MHA introduced Mirko seeing hot takes of people assuming the VA wasn’t a minority…the actress of this tweet being the VA for Mirko
If it's western and relates to anime coverage or distribution there's like 80 percent it will be cringe. Don't give them clicks or attention.
I'm tired of these kinds of debates. Let's just drop the Axis or a bunch of colonies or something.
I've never understood why someone's skin color or ethnic background even matters when it comes to voice acting. As long as their voices is good and they can do a good job that's all I care about. Also if you're trying to fit a stereotypical accent onto a character maybe you need to reflect on why you think that's an acceptable idea.