Anime Central - Wendee Lee

Wendee Lee sings and dances. She's performed on stage and in films. But it wasn't until a sound engineer friend mentioned a casting call for a series called Robotech that she moved into dubbing anime roles. After playing Vanessa ("With her big glasses...she was always very worried and lost"), Lee got roles in Digimon, Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop and the latest dub of Akira. But Lee has worked in kidvid, handling shows for the Fox Kids Network like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and VR Troopers. "It's a good release for these insane voices inside of me," Lee said, especially the "throat-ripper" roles like Scorpina in power rangers. And Lee has played boys on occasion, like T.K. in Digimon.

Lee's best-known role in anime may have been Faye Valentine in Cowboy Bebop. "I thought of her as a big outer shell with a lot of layers on the inside," Lee said. "I used her sexuality to give her confidence and power. The original voice actor was not afraid to lay back and gentry ease into the character, and I did the same thing. While she likes to use a Japanese performance as a general guide, "I dont think its very challenging creatively to do a performance that's already been done. It's like plagarizing." On the difference between English-language and Japanese-language female voices, Lee says the high-pitched Japanese sounds don't necessarily translate well into English. "It can be grating to our ears," she said.

Lee will next appear in Love Hina and Handmaid May, but she had one sad story about the dub that never was released. She was one of the people who dubbed the dialogue and songs for the Tonde Buurin series about a girl who turns into a superhero pig. "It turned out incredibly adorable," Lee said. "It's a very sweet show - it would be perfect for young kids. It was tasteful and so sweet." However, the producers of the show had to delay the series, and Lee said they eventually lost the rights to Tonde Buurin. So the completed dubs, ready to be released, are sitting on a storage shelf somewhere. "It was so tragic, it turned out so fantastic and adorable," Lee lamented.

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