Akira
Kamiya's accomplishments as a voice actor in Japan equal those of English-language
legends such as Mel Blanc, June Foray, Daws Butler and Don Messick. To have
Kamiya as a guest of honor is special, but it's even better when Kamiya offers
to give acting lessons. Kamiya has a voice acting school in Japan and has
brought his students to Anime Expo; this time, the students were the fans
at Animazement. Assisted by an interpreter, Kamiya told these lucky fans
how to deliver their lines in the anime acting style. As with English-language
dubbers, anime acting is loud, emphatic and not subtle, requiring a lot of
energy to get the performance across. Dub actors in the U.S. and Canada have
told how they have to work as hard at "foley" sound effects as at delivering
lines, and Kamiya had a similar lesson for Friday convention fans.
Kamiya's
lessons in sound effects, which he called active and passive adlibs, were
full of motion. He expected the fans to act out the movements leading to
the sounds, whether it was throwing a ball, leaping for a tree limb or striking
with a sword. "I think you've gotten your first taste of voice acting," Kamiya
said after putting the fans through the opening exercises. For the sounds
of the exertion of running, Kamiya offered the fans a secret; the trick is
in how hard you exhale, letting the body take care of the accompanying inhalation.
"If you do it too seriously you'll start seeing stars," Kamiya said. "You
may get asphyxiated and pass out." Those sounds are as much a part of anime
voice acting as delivering lines, and Kamiya even told he fans that they
can emphasize - with an extra breath - that their onscreen character is turning
his head when he runs.
This actor's decades in the anime business have produced roles such as Shutaro Mendo in Urusei Yatsura, Ryo Saeba in City Hunter and Kenshiro in Fist of the North Star,
and Kamiya delighted his student-fans by delivering lines in the voices of
those characters. He also thought out loud about the oddities of those characters'
behavior. In the giant robot shows like Mazinger Z and Getter Robo,
why would the robot's pilot scream the name of an attack before delivering
it? "If you were a boxer and did that, it would be hard to win the match,"
wondered Kamiya. In the Raideen robot show, why would the robot make
noises of pain when he's hit? No, that's Kamiya's responsibility because
he thought up the gimmick and others used it, he said. And in the beloved
Doraemon series, "It's been 25 years, but all of the Doraemon characters are still in the fifth grade." (Sounds like Peanuts to us.)
Akira
Kamiya's accomplishments as a voice actor in Japan equal those of English-language
legends such as Mel Blanc, June Foray, Daws Butler and Don Messick. To have
Kamiya as a guest of honor is special, but it's even better when Kamiya offers
to give acting lessons. Kamiya has a voice acting school in Japan and has
brought his students to Anime Expo; this time, the students were the fans
at Animazement. Assisted by an interpreter, Kamiya told these lucky fans
how to deliver their lines in the anime acting style. As with English-language
dubbers, anime acting is loud, emphatic and not subtle, requiring a lot of
energy to get the performance across. Dub actors in the U.S. and Canada have
told how they have to work as hard at "foley" sound effects as at delivering
lines, and Kamiya had a similar lesson for Friday convention fans.
Kamiya's
lessons in sound effects, which he called active and passive adlibs, were
full of motion. He expected the fans to act out the movements leading to
the sounds, whether it was throwing a ball, leaping for a tree limb or striking
with a sword. "I think you've gotten your first taste of voice acting," Kamiya
said after putting the fans through the opening exercises. For the sounds
of the exertion of running, Kamiya offered the fans a secret; the trick is
in how hard you exhale, letting the body take care of the accompanying inhalation.
"If you do it too seriously you'll start seeing stars," Kamiya said. "You
may get asphyxiated and pass out." Those sounds are as much a part of anime
voice acting as delivering lines, and Kamiya even told he fans that they
can emphasize - with an extra breath - that their onscreen character is turning
his head when he runs.
This actor's decades in the anime business have produced roles such as Shutaro Mendo in Urusei Yatsura, Ryo Saeba in City Hunter and Kenshiro in Fist of the North Star,
and Kamiya delighted his student-fans by delivering lines in the voices of
those characters. He also thought out loud about the oddities of those characters'
behavior. In the giant robot shows like Mazinger Z and Getter Robo,
why would the robot's pilot scream the name of an attack before delivering
it? "If you were a boxer and did that, it would be hard to win the match,"
wondered Kamiya. In the Raideen robot show, why would the robot make
noises of pain when he's hit? No, that's Kamiya's responsibility because
he thought up the gimmick and others used it, he said. And in the beloved
Doraemon series, "It's been 25 years, but all of the Doraemon characters are still in the fifth grade." (Sounds like Peanuts to us.)
