Dub Voice Actor Guesses/Discussion

[snowmint]

I'm hoping it's not Zeno Robinson or AJ Beckles as Roy.

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

I'm hoping it's not Zeno Robinson or AJ Beckles as Roy.

I'm praying it's not Laurie Hymes as Liko, so far, using a variant of her Lillie voice. I also hope Lisa Ortiz does NOT cast herself as the PokeDex, jesus christ, what little I've heard is...come on, the target audience is not THAT lowest common denominator, how did they go from Nick Stellate to that over time...

 

[BigDocFan]

Sarah does voice characters other than Ash, namely several Pokémon, which are mostly minor roles. Could see her staying on in a smaller capacity for that purpose.

By the sounds of it, Sarah, Michele and James are leaving the show (James on medical grounds) so they're Pokemon roles could be recast (a lot I know)

Lisa implies she is staying on so hope it is true

I'm praying it's not Laurie Hymes as Liko, so far, using a variant of her Lillie voice. I also hope Lisa Ortiz does NOT cast herself as the PokeDex, jesus christ, what little I've heard is...come on, the target audience is not THAT lowest common denominator, how did they go from Nick Stellate to that over time...

I liked Lisa as Team Rocket's Rotom Phone, it is rare to see a form of Pokedex with a personality that isn't enthusiastic

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

By the sounds of it, Sarah, Michele and James are leaving the show (James on medical grounds) so they're Pokemon roles could be recast (a lot I know)

Lisa implies she is staying on so hope it is true


I liked Lisa as Team Rocket's Rotom Phone, it is rare to see a form of Pokedex with a personality that isn't enthusiastic

I just think the delivery is too baby babblish, per se, like an odd lisp but I think the last dub Dex that took itself seriously was Suzy Myers in XY (I know this was the drop off point for most with the dub, for me generally much earlier) as it seemed at least controlled and not goofy per se. Different strokes for different folks!

This is very interesting, they’re all likely leaving when Ash goes. The 4Kids cast mains permanently departed for the most part when everyone was recast, meanwhile, save Lillis & Blaustein doing very minor roles in mid DP and never doing any roles ever again in Lillis’ case on Pokémon again in English afterward (Blaustein passed away, RIP, soon after- know this is morbid but I think the grief of losing Meowth might have been a factor 2 years earlier as she was very attached to him).

 

[Poke Trey]

Hard to tell who's to be casted. Either they stick with the NY/LA approach or purely LA or heck back to purely NY. 1 big mystery after another.

 

[PokeMasterLA]

By the sounds of it, Sarah, Michele and James are leaving the show (James on medical grounds) so they're Pokemon roles could be recast (a lot I know)

When was it implied that Michele was leaving too? Just curious about that. I know her main focus now has been her Twitch streaming. But I've never heard any indication of her planning to leave.

 

[snowmint]

There's no way twitch streaming pays her bills.

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

There's no way twitch streaming pays her bills.

I doubt that as well, Michele gets some work besides Pokémon in general in Anime dubs so that absolutely can’t be her main source of income. Sarah was more of a theater actress and stage one before Pokémon, but she’s in some random movies lately as well.

 

[Poke Trey]

Just some more info on Geoff li. He's Canadian just like me, he's also been composing these Paldean Partners shorts on TPCI'S social media accounts. Might be the youngest dub music composer ever as he's only 28/under 30, that blows My mind, he's affiliated with Madcap labs/Goldfarb's music company. I'm just keeping tabs on him to see where else he's going cuz he's piqued my interest since last year and it's only getting stronger recently.

 

[Charmander4]

The censorship could be much worse I feel, at least TPCI don't make Rice Balls seem to be something else

Oh the horror!!

At least 4Kids could actually write a script, compose a song, direct the VA’s, and not have “kay”, “psyched”, “stoked” jammed into every sentence.

 

[Charmander4]

So, out of curiosity, who would you all have voice Liko and Roy in the Pokémon Horizons dub. Who would you have voice each of the Rising Volt Tacklers? Who would you have voice Amethio and the other Exploers?

Veronica Taylor, Rachael Lillis, Eric Stuart. As reparations.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

Hard to tell who's to be casted. Either they stick with the NY/LA approach or purely LA or heck back to purely NY. 1 big mystery after another.

I'm crossing my fingers that they'll keep the NY/LA approach as it was probably one of my favourite things about the Journeys dub, allowing the folks in LA to join in the fun whilst the NY crew still get their chance to shine.

Main cast wise though I do think we'll see quite a few LA actors voicing our new leads (some even new to the main anime or even the franchise) and maybe some NY ones (I think I've already mentioned who I'd love to see voicing Liko, Roy, Friede and some others).

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

I'm crossing my fingers that they'll keep the NY/LA approach as it was probably one of my favourite things about the Journeys dub, allowing the folks in LA to join in the fun whilst the NY crew still get their chance to shine.

Main cast wise though I do think we'll see quite a few LA actors voicing our new leads (some even new to the main anime or even the franchise) and maybe some NY ones (I think I've already mentioned who I'd love to see voicing Liko, Roy, Friede and some others).

I'm hoping the NY talent gets more opportunities in particular since the LA ones have a steady stream of work, and they need it since NY is dying out in the dubbing scene entirely these days (why so many past NY VAs have moved to LA or work there frequently instead these days, Natochenny included and Taylor to boot departed ages ago once it was obvious TPCI would not let her return to the franchise in a major capacity back then).

Veronica Taylor, Rachael Lillis, Eric Stuart. As reparations.

I would do something to rectify that mistake, TPCI IMO needs to let go of this grudge just as much as 4KMedia/Konami does with JCC in Yu-Gi-Oh but also still won't: enough time has passed, and if they'll let Megan Hollingshead and Tara Jayne come back of all people recently-- then they should let the people who made the dub what it is (or was) in the first place return with a whole new fresh slate of characters to cast. Very unlikely, but one would hope with Ash having left the Series, this is a chance to make things right all around (they'll likely also keep Goldfarb and do the same as they have been to the Anime etc. dubs, but should really join the 21st century and just keep all the OST too by now).

 

[Insanish Danish]

Oh the horror!!

At least 4Kids could actually write a script, compose a song, direct the VA’s, and not have “kay”, “psyched”, “stoked” jammed into every sentence.

lol I have issues with the censorship in the 4Kids dub to be sure, but in terms of script writing TPCi is so much worse. There are so many examples but solely regarding the ones listed in this post, the number of times characters end their sentences with "'kay?!" and the number of times Ash goes "I'M TOTALLY PSYCHED" is (was? again I haven't watched the dub since Best Wishes, idk if the characters talk differently now lol) so damn grating. I don't love most of the voice acting either but it's really the writing that makes TPCi's dub so unbearable for me.

 

[snowmint]

I'm sure they just don't care. It is what it is.

 

[Charmander4]

I'm sure they just don't care. It is what it is.

They don’t. TPCI stacks them high and sells it cheap.

 

[Poke Trey]

I think Li's got potential, he's REALLY young. I'd like to see him take up more of a leading composer position, if he wants to. Its a lot that'll be put on him but, we'll see for now.

 

[snowmint]

The Japanese OST music should be kept fully for horizons.

 

[PaperSplash]

TPCI actually did something weird back in BW regarding calling apples "berries" for some reason as well as in XY, "kimi no mi" was likely why as it refers to fruit so that wasn't a 4Kids exclusive thing to change one food item to another for random reasons in OS & AG (4Kids also did call rice balls rice balls a handful of times in their dub, believe it or not).

I wanted to give this some extra clarification and context: "ki no mi" in Japanese is an incredibly broad term that basically can refer to any edible product of a tree. So depending on context, it can be translated as "fruit", "berries" and/or "nuts", among other things. You guys remember that Rattata Pokédex entry in the first dub episode that said "It likes cheese, nuts, fruits and berries"? Originally only "ki no mi" and cheese were mentioned, because the former term in Japanese encompasses all of the latter three terms used in the dub.

Flash forward to the gen 2 games, which introduced a group of "ki no mi" items. For whatever reason, the official English version opted to translate this as "Berries". (In hindsight, "Fruit" probably would have been a better choice, as later gens would introduce berries based on real-world fruit that are decidedly not berries.) Anyway, at some point some internal documents regarding Pokémon terminology (and how certain Japanese terms should be always translated to English for consistency's sake) was compiled and given to the dubbers (I've personally been given proof of these documents' existence, but I don't think I'm allowed to elaborate beyond that).

Now 4Kids of course didn't always follow these documents correctly or at all, given how they handled certain names and terms. But for the most part, the dub has been evidently pretty good about catching references to game terminology since then. So I don't think the dub calling non-berry fruit "berries" was a random change; as silly as it is, it's just a natural consequence of them being consistent to a fault with how game terminology is translated (both internally and externally).

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

I wanted to give this some extra clarification and context: "ki no mi" in Japanese is an incredibly broad term that basically can refer to any edible product of a tree. So depending on context, it can be translated as "fruit", "berries" and/or "nuts", among other things. You guys remember that Rattata Pokédex entry in the first dub episode that said "It likes cheese, nuts, fruits and berries"? Originally only "ki no mi" and cheese were mentioned, because the former term in Japanese encompasses all of the latter three terms used in the dub.

Flash forward to the gen 2 games, which introduced a group of "ki no mi" items. For whatever reason, the official English version opted to translate this as "Berries". (In hindsight, "Fruit" probably would have been a better choice, as later gens would introduce berries based on real-world fruit that are decidedly not berries.) Anyway, at some point some internal documents regarding Pokémon terminology (and how certain Japanese terms should be always translated to English for consistency's sake) was compiled and given to the dubbers (I've personally been given proof of these documents' existence, but I don't think I'm allowed to elaborate beyond that).

Now 4Kids of course didn't always follow these documents correctly or at all, given how they handled certain names and terms. But for the most part, the dub has been evidently pretty good about catching references to game terminology since then. So I don't think the dub calling non-berry fruit "berries" was a random change; as silly as it is, it's just a natural consequence of them being consistent to a fault with how game terminology is translated (both internally and externally).

I think this was generally some of JCC's problem post-4Kids under TPCi in essentially being so direct in certain translations that it caused the random "berries" vocal edit to slip through when as you said, "fruit" as an all encompassing term would've been better. Thank you for clarifying all of this, it makes more sense to me now!