"Japanese Voice Acting: Karaoke Box"

"Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning." -Maya Angelou




Karaoke boxes are hugely popular in Japan.

Especially when they have all-you-can-eat ice cream.
{...Okay, that's what draws me inside.}
If you ever find yourself in Japan,
grab some pals and pyon! over to a karaoke box.
Trust me, you'll find one easily.
They're as common as Starbucks in NYC.
Or as churches in Utah.
Or as ice cream wrappers in my garbage bin.

What's going on in this recording?
A double date, that's what.
YES.
Ranma took Kairi, Riku called Cho,
and they all went karaoke-ing together.
Daww.

Who are these characters, anyways?
Riku and Kairi hail from Kingdom Hearts,
a beautiful Square Enix video game.
We stole Ranma from Ranma 1/2,
a 1980s comic that will leave you in stitches.
And Cho comes from my brain. She's all mine, baby.


Why is Ranma singing a girly song?
A running gag in the Ranma 1/2 comic is,
despite Ranma's ability to turn into a woman
{he fell in a cursed Chinese hot spring, go figure}
he is completely heterosexual, 100% male.
And he wouldn't ever touch a Disney song. Or sing it so passionately.
But the lyrics fit him perfectly,
since he's both male and female,
constantly struggling to only be male,
and to be the manliest male in the history of manliness.
Chuck Norris, here comes Ran-chan.


Boys and girls speak differently...
...in Japanese as well. Jumping jellyfish, do they really?
To illustrate a character more fully,
you must fuse their speech style with their word choice.
And you must evaluate the scene.
Since these four are all close friends and lovers

they speak casually to one another.
The only character who retains any politeness
is Kairi
though she slips into colloquial speech near the end,
from shock and humiliation at Ranma's performance.
*hee hee*

Are you at home?
In a cafe?
On your Blackberry?
Listen to the people around you.
You can probably guess a lot about them
their mood, their relationship to the person they're speaking to, their deception/sincerity
just by listening to what they say, and how they say it.

{Image via WeHeartIt}

{"Come Back to Me" © Utada Hikaru}

{"Reflection" © Matthew Wilder & David Zippel}

{"Jajauma ni Sasenaide" © Ranma 1/2}
{Riku & Kairi © Tetsuya Nomura}
{Ranma © Rumiko Takahashi}
{Cho © Ashley S. Harmon}