This is not a problem with voice actors, it's a problem with the direction. The VAs are all very talented and can do just about anything you ask of them, but unless the person in charge knows what they are doing, what to ask for, and give feedback on a performance, it won't result in a good performance. I say this as someone who figured this out very quickly from doing my own projects where I was voice acting and having to give direction to other voice actors. (The trick is you don't have to *voice* everything, just the sound of breath is enough a lot of the time. 100% is not needed 100% of the time)
I agree! Also, to be honest, I thought the guy was going to talk about improv as the most annoying thing voice actors do because often in media, when improv is done, it feels so off and slightly out of character for the characters. Admittedly, that's also a director decision, but improv is extremely hard to pull off very well, and that's why it's not done well often.
In Zelda, it's actually a case where it's required. The characters don't speak, so to get an idea of what they sound like, you need them to make sounds, usually at the very beginning of the dialogue. Sometimes it's a little "hmm..." but sometimes it's a "HEYYYY!!!!" which is always hilarious. They do go overboard with Link in every game but you get used to it haha
Love how with BOTW and TOTK it outright just sounds like porn half the time. Interact with a zora woman and try not to mistake what you hear with hentai, it isn't easy.
if a small noise that happens sometimes in a specific subgenre of cartoons is one of the most annoying things ever for you, then you either live a very calm life or get annoyed easily
it pisses me off. Like I will see these scenes and just wait to see if they make a noise like that hoping that maybe this one voice actor will be the exception to break free from this plague on the voice acting industry. then I realized how much I've been taken out of the experience because I'm diverting 100% of my attention to this minute detail.
Anime is so excessive with voice foley that I think I've just become desensitised. Like I definitely notice it, but I've sort of just accepted it as a convention of the genre
It’s very noticeable with anime. Funniest shit when there’s like separate reactions for something so each character has to do their own version of a grunt in sequence.
OMG, yes, this is so annoying. Like, come on, just nod to each other and do that cool action! Why ruin it with anticlimactic throat noises of approval?..
I know it's very specific, but Zach Hadel (from Oney Plays, and Smiling Friends fame) has occasionally done a bit where a character goes- wha?! You know, where a character- Um!? HUH!? Like that and it is funny, it's done in old cartoons, too.
@@AlexDown1He makes voice foley sound natural because he uses entirely foley that people actually use in real life. The wha- um- huh!? Is just so natural lol The problem I have with voice foley is that it always sounds deliberate. It's always delivered TOO perfectly and logically. Zach does it exactly how real people do- sloppy, semi random, and often incoherent.
The biggest problem I usually have with it is playing BotW or TotK and talking to a female NPC, where their only two voice clips are "💖Hyuuuuuuh~💖" and "💖Aaaahh~💖"
A good example of it being not needed is in how to train your dragon during the drawing in the dirt scene where hiccup is making no noise while toothless is drawing
American media seeing something: actual silence, the character's facial expression and body language carries the surprise. Japanese media seeing something: *audible gasp an actual human being is incapable of reproducing without making an entirely different face than the character*
Though I agree Japanese animation is definitely worse for it, Western animation still has a lot of it, Vox Machina over does it constantly (good show but yeah)
Interestingly, in Studio Ghibli movies it's the exact opposite. The american dub for some reason feels the need to needlessly fill moments of silence with expositional dialogue.
It's definitely a case by case thing, and one of my favorite eastern movies is the 1995 Ghost in the Shell, where they dwell a lot on background music and those really pretty futuristic scenes.
One of my favorite instances of this is in Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath. Every couple of times you double jump, your character makes the most exaggerated *"HOOWAH!"* sound that lasts longer than it takes to do it again. When I was a kid, I would grab a rope, and mash the jump and grab buttons to see how many times I could stack that sound on top of itself before the audio clip ended.
I loved that game as a kid! So underrated. On a side note, Borderlands uses grunts everytime you jump and when you're playing with 3 other players it gets irritating *fast* lol
@@Rosie-ij3on Same with Gunfire. My friend and I always make fun of it. Especially the dog character. HOII! HUHH! HOI!! HUUH! HOII! HUHH! I guess it's called "roguelite borderlands+overwatch" for a reason.
Personally, I think the most annoying thing voice actors do is, when their characters are supposed to scream, they instead let out this ugly throat-yell and it always throws off the scene for me
OMFG same! No girl moans like that when she gets hurt unless she's a masochist or something. Do the people who ask voice actors to put it there find it hot or something? Cause for me it's pretty ridiculous and comes off as out of character, specially in a serious scene
I cannot stand when characters make pointless grunts for absolutely no reason. Character wakes up and spots something out their window and every single tiny movement is just "Huh. Ghh? Rnngh. Hm. Guh? Hrhh."
That’s something that has always bothered me like in anime when someone is surprised they go ‘guh!?’. Nobody does that Ito and it’s so immersion breaking because of how stupid it is
That’s only something that just bothers me in eng dub anime even though I mostly only watched sub. Though haven’t been watching much anime just Kamen Rider or Tokusatsu stuff.
i love it when it's subtle, but there is a point where it just takes you out of the immersion (also, you are SUPER underrated! your video quality is so good, and your voice is so good! keep it up man!)
for me persoanlly its that voice a character does in western animation when theyre lying about something, i have never seen a single person in my life make that voice when lying
@@HaveSomeHalloweenSpirit That is definitely common with kids or people who aren't actually "lying" just being cheeky and use that voice specifically for others to catch onto the fact they aren't telling the truth
@@Tranqwhirl "Oh uh, me? I was just uhhhhhhhhh looking! for the... The Bathroom! Right right, the bathroom! just needed a good 'ol pee, deffffinitely not snooping for proof you're a murderer, and would you look at that! no bathroom here! I'll just be going now if you don't mind..... BYE"
I'm completely unable to watch modern anime dubs because there's not only so much of this, but also nearly every anime voice actor now does this thing where they do a short, sharp exhale after every single line. That's something I had to train myself not to do, and then I notice that they ALL do it, almost EVERY SINGLE LINE.
Honestly the state of anime dubbing is so bad, I'm very dyslexic and subtitles hurt my head, so I have to watch dubs and they're always so bad, it just taints my opinion on what I might otherwise have enjoyed
To be honest this sounds like something that should be SO EASY to cut in post prod that the blame should fall on the sound technician/engineer/designer/whatever. You can edit out noises like those in seconds. Even simply cutting out or fading out the exhale, then adding a tiny bit of reverb/delay should make it fairly unnoticeable. Maybe reducing the offending frequency or phase cancelling the noise. Plus i'm sure there's plenty of denoising tools that can do something about it with one click.
@@Dice-Z Hi I work with audio and I'd like to say that if you want to cut off a piece at the start or end of a voice recording, even if it's super close to the actual words, usually just cutting it off is enough, or just a little fade in/out. They genuinely just might not have the time to go back in for that though, and the editors only get paid so much anyway.
Im not one to watch anime, but when I finally decide to pick up a show, any female character has an ungodly amount of moaning for the littlest things (such as standing up, sitting down, beginning to talk, picking up little men whom were just running across a desk, etc…). Another thing I notice is the moaning is louder than the speaking, so when I turn it down so people around me don’t think I’m watching somtin else that also includes a lot of moaning, I can’t hear the characters actually provide something useful to the story.
I am SO glad let this phenomenon has not only been noticed but rallied around in the opinions regarding it. It has always bothered me that even in the original anime dubs or animated things inspired by anime that so many characters make so many noises all the time that aren't speaking.
I agree. If "Voice Foley" is done well, it can enhance something because it seems fitting and doesn't make you go "what the hell was this sound?". But sadly, there are many cases there it isn't done well and it can become ridiculous. Especially in games if the Devs only have one grunt for an action you will keep doing a lot (Jumping, Attacking, Dodging etc.) and the same grunt plays every single time. Link's Grunts from OoT are awesome though. For a character there people debate wether or not he can talk, he always had a clearly defined voice thanks to "voice foley".
I thought this video was going to be about the breathiness in how some people do voice lines and end their words. THAT is what really pulls me out of the immersion 😭
I do think most of the pet peeves I have on voice foley comes from anime, specifically when a character eats a food and does a sound when they a find the food delicious like that’s just weird in my opinion, I don’t see that being done irl unless it’s from tv ads about food.
Italians have a "visual foley" they do when food tastes good. They put their forefinger against their cheek and rotate it, lol. (Then again, they have a gesture for everything and that's not even an exaggeration.)
At most, I do a "Hmmmmm" before swallowing and stating that the food is delicious. Most people around me also do that. What really bugs me about anime voice acting is characters doing that high-pitched sound right before taking a spoonful of food to their mouths and the proceeding to loudly moan as if they just had the mother of all orgasms right there and then.
I personally hate the way animated characters sound when they eat something. Like I remember always being extremely annoyed with how characters in Gravity Falls would sound when they'd take a bite of and chew food.
it's so funny that they call it "voice foley" and yes it is absolutely ridiculous in anime. in western cartoons not so much. i think it's because i am western and not japanese, so westerners do it in places that make more sense to me than japanese people
I find even more funny when characters are talking about non-sense that only they would understand around normal people and NO ONE raises an eyebrow, they just walk past them like nothing is happening, it's so damn funny.
@@mertensiam3384 saying that to me is so funny because I always notice people talking about whatever stuff and do raise an eyebrow when I hear something weird, but still, there's a difference between two people just talking with each other, and two people literally talking about some random nonsense that will apparently end the world or something.
@@32-bitcloudor when every character has to monologue about “I need to get stronger! For sensei! For Fulla! FOR MOTHER! I WILL GET THROUGH THIS AND I WILL NEVER GIVE UP! I have to… BREAK THROOOOUGHHH!!!”
The one that’s been a joke between me and my friends is the voice foley used for eating. Seriously, every anime when they eat they go “AHH-UM!” So we do that now as a joke
Bro, I work in construction and do a lot of physically exerting things that have made me sub-consciously spew out a, “Hup!”, what you’ll hear typically when a character jumps, and I’m thankful that no one else on site notices or clowns on me. Video games, am I right? 😂
I have a sibling who always does voice Foley without her knowing what it even is, she always makes unnecessary grunts...like no, you don't need to moan and groan for 30 seconds whilst stretching
My brother does something kinda similer. Sometimes when getting up from a chair, sitting down, jumping, taking a step, ect he makes a lil grunt/moan sound, like "Hůăh". Each time he does it annoys me every time, like no, you don't need to grunt from getting up from a chair.
@@McKayla-h7r Okay, fair enough. My brother is in his teens though, so he'll have to wait awhile until he has a need to grunt/groan from getting up from a chair.
This has always been my biggest roadblock to enjoying anime. Look just let the visual of a person in awe due the talking, you don’t need to vocalize it all the time 😤
YES OH MY GOD! As an audio engineer for dubs!!! It makes me go crazy when someone randomly demands reaction grunts! A SMILE OR HEADTILT DOES NOT NEED SOUND DESIGN!!!
I literally never noticed this when watching media. Especially anime. Had no idea it was something that might ruin immersion. Voice foley never ruined mine personally.
Fucking finally someone brings it up. It's been annoying me for years, but whenever i bring it up, all i get is "its just part of the culture/genre". Thank you for bringing in an appeal to authority.
As a sound designer and someone who has directed voice actors in small projects, this is something I actively avoid. Sometimes it's okay to just the the visuals and sound effects sing without every movement needing an accompanying grunt or moan. Edit: That being said... I understand the temptation to fill the air with... Something.
I feel that in especially quiet scenes sometimes what works best is simply the sound of the character breathing. Depending on the scene the attention to such a small yet realistic detail can really slow down the viewer's thought process and help them get more engrossed, (at least that's how it is for me,) if done correctly in the right conditions. But I'm not a vocal coach or a sound designer, so take my words with a grain of salt.
I've never really paid attention to it with voices (although I'm sure now I will lol), but I notice unnecessary foley all the time with random objects. The worst is when they make guns rattle whenever someone aims or moves quickly, or when swords/knives "whoosh" and "shing" when people are just holding them.
This happens a lot in dubs to just like… fill space in sentences that originally would have been longer. I haven’t noticed it much in things that are originally in english
My personal "favorite" will always be Oerba Dia Vanille, who has entire playlists of weird vocalizations. Even the Georgia Van Cuylenburg agreed, and said that it was the easiest jobs she'd ever had because it was mostly moans and grunts.
I think this is like... stuff they came up with for radio theaters and it worked back then, but then people invented and improved screens, and that allowed writers to actually show stuff, but then we keep sticking to traditional writing stuff.
I love this video. I've always noticed this and never knew it was called voice foley, but it's something I've always noticed in anime, and also noticed how comparatively absent it was in western animation. IG that's one reason I often tend to find characters in western animation more believable/relatable...
On the documentary "I Know That Voice" they said that the one project that requires a lot of this kind of stuff is video games. They have to record hours upon hours of grunts, groans, yells, etc, etc, etc.
I can't stand the vocal foley they've been doing in the past several spongebob seasons. EVERY SINGLE MOVEMENT, SpongeBob is making a "Mwow" or "Nyeeem" sound, and Squidward is going "Herrrrm?" "Huuuooh" for the slightest change in facial expression. The whole show is just pure noise now and I can't even tolerate it as background noise while I'm working.
ive been watching anime since childhood, so voice foley is just something ive gotten used to. honestly, ive always wondered if its in any way related to how over-acted kabuki theater tends to be. its part of the charm and culture of it, in a way.
Even jp have their own misgivings with voice foley. They apparently got a certain threshhold too when it gets to be too much. And yet the industry doubles down on it.
I remember modern Simpsons and Spongebob doing this ALL THE FUCKING TIME whenever a character is doing some kind of action that only requires a *little* voice foley, but they end up overdoing it every time to the point of annoyance.
that's like his whole shtick. he doesn't talk at all so that's how his communication skills are defined. his ability to vocalize only in grunts, gasps, sighs, and shouts is like when seeing someone with a physical handicap excel at a particular sport without said handicap affecting them. You'd be glad for them to be able to accomplish that, and likewise for Link's nonverbal communication due to the fact he'd be completely mute otherwise. And Nintendo's veteran developers know that the attitude of audiences towards games are different from other mass media and that people can tolerate a bit of excess grunting when it's in service of the gameplay and done convincingly. Because they were more limited in how much voice acting they could include, they had to make it count, whether Link is just huffing as he runs around or screaming as he fights for his life. In more recent years, games have become more like other media as technological limits go away, and now Nintendo is outsourcing game dubs to these same dumb studios doing these animes with directors that insist on putting annoying, tactless, overused vocal foley in freaking everything.
I fully agree and the unnececary sounds drive me crazy sometimes. I feel like its the audio equivelant of "show dont tell", it makes some scenes feel like they're not confident in conveying information. However i do think it's down to the voice directors rather than VAs.
I think playing a lot of fighting games as a kid desensitized me to it early. Because in those games, this stuff serves to give feedback to specific actions, the same way they also have different visual and sound effects for a move hitting and one being blocked.
dbza is a really good example (and why I wrote that comment) of some really good vocal foley which is both effective and funny at the same time. (the first season was.. I mean I don't wanna say it but it wasn't great. Still funny but not quite on the level of 2+3) my point is good vocal foley is one of the main reasons I like tv shows/anime/voice acting
There's this game that I love called Dust: An Elyisian Tail and as good as the voice acting can be at times, it's usually dragged down by this. The protagonist grunts and sighs so much, you'd expect the squeaky sidekick to be the more grating one but she just isn't.
im glad you made this video bc i mention this every time someones making me watch anime. It's gotten so bad that i've started 'anime gasping' at every little thing just for fun
Isn't this the same situation to Johnny Test's whipcrack sound that at first sight it's not that big of a deal then it starts to get annoying because it's everywhere
I thought you were gonna talk about how, oftentimes when a character gets interrupted mid-sentence, they just suddenly stop talking like they know they're about to be interrupted in the next second, unlike an organic interruption where there's some overlap and time for the... "interruptee" to decide whether to keep talking or stop talking
This sends me back to the old days of the original DBZ dub, where there was not allowed to be even a second of silence. So in addition to background music playing constantly 24/7 without pause, you had characters make noise with every motion and it was always ALWAYS so overexaggerated that everyone always sounded constipated. "IDIOTS! HE'S BEHIND YOU! HUEH, HUAAHHUUUH, HUAAAAAaaaAH!" The Super Saiyan transformation scene was literally a minute of Sean Schemmel totally faking an angry groan, just constant "Huuurrrggghhh, hurrruuuuuuuuggghhh, huurugh, huuuuuugh, haaaruruuuugghhhh, aaaaaaaaaaa"
voice foley makes me embarrased to watch anime when my parents are in the room. anime seems to do it way more than other medias and i can't stand it sometimes.
Good video. In anime IN Japanese this is already done, it's not a result of being dubbed. They do this to compensate for the animation being bad sometimes. As for Final Fantasy 7 Remake..uh the game was dubbed but then the animations were all redone to match the English recording. As for Castlevenia.. I have no Idea what they were cooking..cuz like they don't really do anime voice acting in that one
I think for me, it all depends on the context and delivery of voice foley on whether i like it or not. although that just may be me growing up on cartoons and anime normalizing it in my brain. there are times where it completely take me out of the moment, however, especially in video games like final fantasy
I once knew an autistic kid in middle school who would do this. At the time I thought he was just a weeb trying to be in his own personal anime, but then I learned about autism, and masking, and whatnot, so I think he was a fan of anime, and because he didn't have many friends to mirror in order to seem normal, he would mirror what he saw in anime and cartoons and end up doing vocal foley among other things
Funny thing with voice folleys is that we associate these loud excessive sounds wirh grunts. But in day to day life, when someone exerts force they don't really make that much noise if at all. It's more a facial thing. But loud grunts are so accepted in media that they became a reference point for sounds people make in general.
It's always fun in dubbing having to decide if you copy the Japanese vocal efforts vs doing a more "American Sound" (eh vs huh type stuff) because no decision will be the right to a portion of the people listening, lol.
I've become so desensitized to the weird anime noises that I do the same sort of shit when i'm wandering around in my room at 4AM like i'm not acting weird as fuck. I dislike when a dub goes out of its way to add in more of that shit, though. A couple dubs from back in the Saturday morning cartoon days had that sort of thing where during originally silent moments (I mean like literally no noises in the original audio because tension) there would just be the characters grunting or moaning and it was immensely obnoxious.
When I was an a little goober who thought watching anime was dumb and cringe, one of the things I would do when making fun of anime was the overdone voice foley! It's been something I've noticed and been annoyed by for a long time, and even now that I'm older and watch anime every now and then I still notice it and it still annoys me
After subjecting myself to animated media for so long Ive kind of... Integrated it unto my life? Ive started to voice foley doing things just becuase ive veen surrounded by it since childhood. Weird stuff On the plus side, its great for theatre
FINALLY. this kind of thing has always made me fucking Seeth for whatever reason, but when I’ve asked other people they had no idea what I was talking about
Reminds me of Porcelain Maid saying “listen to this with your eyes closed” when a character in a Japanese video game is amazed by an island they’re sailing towards but it just sounds like something off of cornhub
This is the one thing I have noticed almost non stop since starting to watch some Anime last year. It took me a while when I first watched NGE (with subtitles) and thought "This voice acting is amazing, even if I don't understand the language but something about it is putting me off." It was only later when I noticed characters making sounds like they were taking a massive shit whenever they were upset about or hurt by something.
This is not a problem with voice actors, it's a problem with the direction.
The VAs are all very talented and can do just about anything you ask of them, but unless the person in charge knows what they are doing, what to ask for, and give feedback on a performance, it won't result in a good performance.
I say this as someone who figured this out very quickly from doing my own projects where I was voice acting and having to give direction to other voice actors.
(The trick is you don't have to *voice* everything, just the sound of breath is enough a lot of the time. 100% is not needed 100% of the time)
I ain’t reading all that shit
I agree! Also, to be honest, I thought the guy was going to talk about improv as the most annoying thing voice actors do because often in media, when improv is done, it feels so off and slightly out of character for the characters. Admittedly, that's also a director decision, but improv is extremely hard to pull off very well, and that's why it's not done well often.
@@william3100 shut tf up I ain’t reading all that either
@@site_71-h6y Then don't?
@@site_71-h6y illiterate
When anime characters are hurt clenching their teeth and go: "Kkgggh... kkggh.. kggghh" like bro just let it out
They need to just let go of their edging streak ✋😬
They don't wanna bro
Gotta mog it
Can't do that, gotta stay strong and keep mewing.
what is this alien language in the reply section?
@@Deer_Cracker_lover The language of the brainrotten sigmas
As a zelda fan I’m completely desensitised to it , not a second goes bye without my brain going “HYAH”
Hugh!- HYAA!
Hup!
In Zelda, it's actually a case where it's required. The characters don't speak, so to get an idea of what they sound like, you need them to make sounds, usually at the very beginning of the dialogue. Sometimes it's a little "hmm..." but sometimes it's a "HEYYYY!!!!" which is always hilarious. They do go overboard with Link in every game but you get used to it haha
Love how with BOTW and TOTK it outright just sounds like porn half the time.
Interact with a zora woman and try not to mistake what you hear with hentai, it isn't easy.
The Great Fairy sounds...
eating in anime where they all do the "ahum" noise whenever they take a bite is one of the most annoying things ive ever subjected myself to.
I never even considered that, eating is like a whole sub genre of Voice Foley
if a small noise that happens sometimes in a specific subgenre of cartoons is one of the most annoying things ever for you, then you either live a very calm life or get annoyed easily
@@Someone-sc2hk jesus christ dont take everything so literally
@@Someone-sc2hk yeah they literally specified "that I have subjected myself to", + what 👆they said
it pisses me off. Like I will see these scenes and just wait to see if they make a noise like that hoping that maybe this one voice actor will be the exception to break free from this plague on the voice acting industry. then I realized how much I've been taken out of the experience because I'm diverting 100% of my attention to this minute detail.
GRAH!! WHY THE HELL WOULD THEY DO THAT!!?? HNENRGH!! ITS SO ANNOYING!! RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGHH!!
You get it
Geugh…what a strange comment…grahg Guh glech Guh….
@@mattgroening8872 guh... Matt-kun, please stop.. euughh... graaghh!
@@marlitasalaum guhhh…
@@mattgroening8872hyyyuuughh, graah, urghh, gaahh 😩 (I need help)
Anime is so excessive with voice foley that I think I've just become desensitised. Like I definitely notice it, but I've sort of just accepted it as a convention of the genre
nimi sina li lon mute
Blue lock was my first thought
lucky star be like
Dude, I didn’t realize how much “voice foley” shows up in anime until you pointed it out. Now I can’t unhear it.
@2u29wjiowk2iswj me neither
It’s very noticeable with anime. Funniest shit when there’s like separate reactions for something so each character has to do their own version of a grunt in sequence.
OMG, yes, this is so annoying. Like, come on, just nod to each other and do that cool action! Why ruin it with anticlimactic throat noises of approval?..
People are saying its annoying i hate it, i on the other hand love it its funny af
“oooh…” 😢
“uhhh”🙁
“uhm”😞
“unn…” 😔
i’m so done 😭
Becomes Link for four minutes*
Literally any time I hear someone make a foley style grunt I start playing BOTW link sounds in my head
HUP HUP HAAA HUP HAAA
I make a pass for link because besides those noises he is a mute. It'd be odd if he never made a sound...
that part with the little man in the video was so good, the only time I'd excuse bad foleys is when they're stupid shit like that
That's a great point, I'm surprised that it's not used more for comedy, intentionally anyway
I know it's very specific, but Zach Hadel (from Oney Plays, and Smiling Friends fame) has occasionally done a bit where a character goes- wha?! You know, where a character- Um!? HUH!? Like that and it is funny, it's done in old cartoons, too.
@@AlexDown1He makes voice foley sound natural because he uses entirely foley that people actually use in real life. The wha- um- huh!? Is just so natural lol
The problem I have with voice foley is that it always sounds deliberate. It's always delivered TOO perfectly and logically. Zach does it exactly how real people do- sloppy, semi random, and often incoherent.
The biggest problem I usually have with it is playing BotW or TotK and talking to a female NPC, where their only two voice clips are
"💖Hyuuuuuuh~💖" and "💖Aaaahh~💖"
SO TRUE!!!!
They just can't resist the Link Rizz.
It’s so cringe
💦Mmm MMM! 💦
fairies..
A good example of it being not needed is in how to train your dragon during the drawing in the dirt scene where hiccup is making no noise while toothless is drawing
now that you mention it, that scene hits SO MUCH HARDER because there’s nothing DISTRACTING you from what’s going on
it’s like
AAAAAAAAAAA
thats my favourite scene in the entire movie!! got goosebumps just reading this
Well now I just want to see a version with excessive voice foley.
Silence is quite powerful
Imagine if it panned to Hiccup's surprised face to show him making breathy grunts like in an anime
It really pisses me off when they have a breath after every word. “Sorryhh, I didn’thh meanhh to do thathh” I hate it every time.
kirito voice actor
American media seeing something: actual silence, the character's facial expression and body language carries the surprise.
Japanese media seeing something: *audible gasp an actual human being is incapable of reproducing without making an entirely different face than the character*
Though I agree Japanese animation is definitely worse for it, Western animation still has a lot of it, Vox Machina over does it constantly (good show but yeah)
@@DeconVOWell yeah because they’re inspired by anime
"Eughuha"
And the face is just 😮
Interestingly, in Studio Ghibli movies it's the exact opposite.
The american dub for some reason feels the need to needlessly fill moments of silence with expositional dialogue.
It's definitely a case by case thing, and one of my favorite eastern movies is the 1995 Ghost in the Shell, where they dwell a lot on background music and those really pretty futuristic scenes.
One of my favorite instances of this is in Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath. Every couple of times you double jump, your character makes the most exaggerated *"HOOWAH!"* sound that lasts longer than it takes to do it again. When I was a kid, I would grab a rope, and mash the jump and grab buttons to see how many times I could stack that sound on top of itself before the audio clip ended.
Goated videogame soley for the HOOWAH
I loved that game as a kid! So underrated. On a side note, Borderlands uses grunts everytime you jump and when you're playing with 3 other players it gets irritating *fast* lol
@@Rosie-ij3on Same with Gunfire. My friend and I always make fun of it. Especially the dog character. HOII! HUHH! HOI!! HUUH! HOII! HUHH!
I guess it's called "roguelite borderlands+overwatch" for a reason.
In Genshin Impact some of the foley is actual full sentences
Halo reach sprinting, and the female pain or assassination noises always bugged me
Personally, I think the most annoying thing voice actors do is, when their characters are supposed to scream, they instead let out this ugly throat-yell and it always throws off the scene for me
Throat yell for boys, moans for girls.
Leon constantly grunting from being in the rain in RE4 Remake.. the rain isn't that bad Leon, chill out.
You seen that boy's perfect hair? He has every right
@@DeconVO not wrong about that lol
i want girls to actually scream when hurt and not moan, that's my pet peeve
OMFG same! No girl moans like that when she gets hurt unless she's a masochist or something. Do the people who ask voice actors to put it there find it hot or something? Cause for me it's pretty ridiculous and comes off as out of character, specially in a serious scene
Tomb Raider 2013 be like
This comment would be horrifying out of context.
overwatch 2 please read this comment
True! Sometimes screams sound weird even irl but when its noticeably weirder in anime it feels s awkward 😅
I cannot stand when characters make pointless grunts for absolutely no reason. Character wakes up and spots something out their window and every single tiny movement is just "Huh. Ghh? Rnngh. Hm. Guh? Hrhh."
i do voice foley irl
sometimes i'll be eating and i just go "nom nom nom" out loud
Çhomp!
Hi Heavy 👋
Heavy TF2 wrote this comment.
real
autism
That’s something that has always bothered me like in anime when someone is surprised they go ‘guh!?’. Nobody does that Ito and it’s so immersion breaking because of how stupid it is
Honestly, it's probably one of the reasons I don't watch much anime.
That’s only something that just bothers me in eng dub anime even though I mostly only watched sub. Though haven’t been watching much anime just Kamen Rider or Tokusatsu stuff.
REAL
it's so overused that it's a staple of anime now
It would be more annoying if it's "YEUGH" after a quiet suspenseful strum
i love it when it's subtle, but there is a point where it just takes you out of the immersion (also, you are SUPER underrated! your video quality is so good, and your voice is so good! keep it up man!)
I remember first playing final fantasy 13 when i was like, 7 and thinking “wow they sigh a lot”. That was my first experience of bad voice pholey
Oh no, not Vanille...😬
for me persoanlly its that voice a character does in western animation when theyre lying about something, i have never seen a single person in my life make that voice when lying
I don't know what you're talking about
@@TranqwhirlMaybe he haves the power to detect lies and neither us nor him know that
@@Tranqwhirl No I totally get it. They talk in this "I'm definetely not lyinggg." type of voice.
@@HaveSomeHalloweenSpirit That is definitely common with kids or people who aren't actually "lying" just being cheeky and use that voice specifically for others to catch onto the fact they aren't telling the truth
@@Tranqwhirl "Oh uh, me? I was just uhhhhhhhhh looking! for the... The Bathroom! Right right, the bathroom! just needed a good 'ol pee, deffffinitely not snooping for proof you're a murderer, and would you look at that! no bathroom here! I'll just be going now if you don't mind..... BYE"
I'm completely unable to watch modern anime dubs because there's not only so much of this, but also nearly every anime voice actor now does this thing where they do a short, sharp exhale after every single line. That's something I had to train myself not to do, and then I notice that they ALL do it, almost EVERY SINGLE LINE.
Honestly the state of anime dubbing is so bad, I'm very dyslexic and subtitles hurt my head, so I have to watch dubs and they're always so bad, it just taints my opinion on what I might otherwise have enjoyed
To be honest this sounds like something that should be SO EASY to cut in post prod that the blame should fall on the sound technician/engineer/designer/whatever. You can edit out noises like those in seconds.
Even simply cutting out or fading out the exhale, then adding a tiny bit of reverb/delay should make it fairly unnoticeable. Maybe reducing the offending frequency or phase cancelling the noise. Plus i'm sure there's plenty of denoising tools that can do something about it with one click.
@@Dice-Z Hi I work with audio and I'd like to say that if you want to cut off a piece at the start or end of a voice recording, even if it's super close to the actual words, usually just cutting it off is enough, or just a little fade in/out. They genuinely just might not have the time to go back in for that though, and the editors only get paid so much anyway.
As a wise man once said: "I move away from the mic to breathe in."
@@StephonZeno chocolate rain 🙂↔️🙂↔️
Excessive voice foley has been one of the biggest reasons I've struggled to get into anime. SO glad you're here to put words to my frustrations.
Im not one to watch anime, but when I finally decide to pick up a show, any female character has an ungodly amount of moaning for the littlest things (such as standing up, sitting down, beginning to talk, picking up little men whom were just running across a desk, etc…). Another thing I notice is the moaning is louder than the speaking, so when I turn it down so people around me don’t think I’m watching somtin else that also includes a lot of moaning, I can’t hear the characters actually provide something useful to the story.
you made me wonder how it would come off if the usual sounds given to characters by gender swapped around
The hell kind of anime are you watching
i have the same issue in games! dudes always grunt normally when theyre jumping or whatever but women always moan so much and its so uncomfortable
Or when they have those annoying as fuck squeaky voices, and when theyre surprised they go "UUEEEEEHHHHHH????"
@@paniiziima let women grunt!!
People go "hum!" when they jump, not "gyah~"
You know there is too much foley when you start subconsciously grunting and making fun of it.
I am SO glad let this phenomenon has not only been noticed but rallied around in the opinions regarding it. It has always bothered me that even in the original anime dubs or animated things inspired by anime that so many characters make so many noises all the time that aren't speaking.
I agree. If "Voice Foley" is done well, it can enhance something because it seems fitting and doesn't make you go "what the hell was this sound?".
But sadly, there are many cases there it isn't done well and it can become ridiculous.
Especially in games if the Devs only have one grunt for an action you will keep doing a lot (Jumping, Attacking, Dodging etc.) and the same grunt plays every single time.
Link's Grunts from OoT are awesome though. For a character there people debate wether or not he can talk, he always had a clearly defined voice thanks to "voice foley".
I thought this video was going to be about the breathiness in how some people do voice lines and end their words. THAT is what really pulls me out of the immersion 😭
I do think most of the pet peeves I have on voice foley comes from anime, specifically when a character eats a food and does a sound when they a find the food delicious like that’s just weird in my opinion, I don’t see that being done irl unless it’s from tv ads about food.
honestly when I'm eating something really good, I do that unironically.
You're telling me you don't go "Mmmm, yummy yummy in my tummy" like the rest of us do? The youth of today...
Italians have a "visual foley" they do when food tastes good. They put their forefinger against their cheek and rotate it, lol. (Then again, they have a gesture for everything and that's not even an exaggeration.)
At most, I do a "Hmmmmm" before swallowing and stating that the food is delicious. Most people around me also do that.
What really bugs me about anime voice acting is characters doing that high-pitched sound right before taking a spoonful of food to their mouths and the proceeding to loudly moan as if they just had the mother of all orgasms right there and then.
I personally hate the way animated characters sound when they eat something. Like I remember always being extremely annoyed with how characters in Gravity Falls would sound when they'd take a bite of and chew food.
Real eating sounds piss me off even more. It's like nails scratching on a blackboard to me. Even if it isn't downright smacking.
it's so funny that they call it "voice foley"
and yes it is absolutely ridiculous in anime. in western cartoons not so much. i think it's because i am western and not japanese, so westerners do it in places that make more sense to me than japanese people
It's true Japanese people react to the world around them with confused grunts
I have no prior interest in this topic. But now I do. Thank you
Whats even funnier is the speech between the main characters and the antagonist . Irl it would look stupid
I find even more funny when characters are talking about non-sense that only they would understand around normal people and NO ONE raises an eyebrow, they just walk past them like nothing is happening, it's so damn funny.
@@ThemightyTelevision”so the worlds going to end in 3 hours?” “Yeah”
“What a normal conversation”
@@lordcaprisunthe2nd "are you the strongest because you're Satoru Gojo, or are you Satoru Gojo because you're the strongest?"
@@ThemightyTelevision i mean, irl you overhear stupid conversations all the time and you probably dont bat an eye either.
@@mertensiam3384 saying that to me is so funny because I always notice people talking about whatever stuff and do raise an eyebrow when I hear something weird, but still, there's a difference between two people just talking with each other, and two people literally talking about some random nonsense that will apparently end the world or something.
Part of my hatred of anime in general is when every character talks like they are either constipated or making active bowel movements
Or female characters constantly moaning no matter the genre.
Yes! I cannot get past it, I absolutely hate anime voice acting
@@32-bitcloudor when every character has to monologue about “I need to get stronger! For sensei! For Fulla! FOR MOTHER! I WILL GET THROUGH THIS AND I WILL NEVER GIVE UP! I have to… BREAK THROOOOUGHHH!!!”
@@Tabi-Kun Characters shouting attack names annoy me 99% of the time, there are very few moments where it's cool and justified. lol
@@32-bitcloud “SUUUUUPPEEEEERRRRR OBVIOUS SSTTTRRRROOOOOONG AAAATTTTAAAAAAAAAACKKK!!”
Ever since I was a kid I always thought it was hilarious when anime characters gasp after literally everything.
The one that’s been a joke between me and my friends is the voice foley used for eating. Seriously, every anime when they eat they go “AHH-UM!” So we do that now as a joke
Bro, I work in construction and do a lot of physically exerting things that have made me sub-consciously spew out a, “Hup!”, what you’ll hear typically when a character jumps, and I’m thankful that no one else on site notices or clowns on me. Video games, am I right? 😂
I call this the "Link syndrome"
Eh.
Guah?
Ziiiaaaack!
An especially funny excample is Leon in RE4 moaning everytime he aims.
I NEED to find a clip of that
I cant unhear any voice Foley. I no longer remember a time before. its all over
Those Shao Kahn sounds really got to you huh?
The Owl House has some of the best voice foley I’ve seen. I adore all of Luz’s ridiculous little sounds.
I have a sibling who always does voice Foley without her knowing what it even is, she always makes unnecessary grunts...like no, you don't need to moan and groan for 30 seconds whilst stretching
I would've drop kicked her out of the house as a child. lmfao
My brother does something kinda similer. Sometimes when getting up from a chair, sitting down, jumping, taking a step, ect he makes a lil grunt/moan sound, like "Hůăh". Each time he does it annoys me every time, like no, you don't need to grunt from getting up from a chair.
@@Void_Th3_W0lf as someone who is about to hit 40, sometimes you do need to grunt or groan when getting up from a chair.
@@McKayla-h7r Okay, fair enough. My brother is in his teens though, so he'll have to wait awhile until he has a need to grunt/groan from getting up from a chair.
This has always been my biggest roadblock to enjoying anime. Look just let the visual of a person in awe due the talking, you don’t need to vocalize it all the time 😤
YES OH MY GOD!
As an audio engineer for dubs!!! It makes me go crazy when someone randomly demands reaction grunts!
A SMILE OR HEADTILT DOES NOT NEED SOUND DESIGN!!!
TBH I think if I saw a tiny Mario dancing on my desk I'd squeal with happiness and hug him- shit's ADORABLE.
I'd squish him where he stood
I want a tiny Mario in my life too, I just hope he doesn't throw me out of the house like Bowser in Mario 64. lmfao
I literally never noticed this when watching media. Especially anime. Had no idea it was something that might ruin immersion. Voice foley never ruined mine personally.
Fucking finally someone brings it up. It's been annoying me for years, but whenever i bring it up, all i get is "its just part of the culture/genre". Thank you for bringing in an appeal to authority.
Yeah. It's one of those things that are just so... okay yeah, it's kind of realistic, but just because it's realistic doesn't mean it's good!
I don't grunt whenever I'm surprised but ydy
@@Brazils-only-hope Okay, I didn't actually mean when someone grunts, I was talking about other things in general.
The culture sucks and is full of groomers
Right? Just because it's a stylistic choice doesn't mean I have to like the style
As a sound designer and someone who has directed voice actors in small projects, this is something I actively avoid. Sometimes it's okay to just the the visuals and sound effects sing without every movement needing an accompanying grunt or moan.
Edit: That being said... I understand the temptation to fill the air with... Something.
I feel that in especially quiet scenes sometimes what works best is simply the sound of the character breathing. Depending on the scene the attention to such a small yet realistic detail can really slow down the viewer's thought process and help them get more engrossed, (at least that's how it is for me,) if done correctly in the right conditions. But I'm not a vocal coach or a sound designer, so take my words with a grain of salt.
i thought it was just the director's being terrible when bad voice foley was there. i didn't even know there was a name for it until this video!
Yeah it's almost always the director (blame them for everything)
3:15 is too realistic when there's too much voice Foley
I've never really paid attention to it with voices (although I'm sure now I will lol), but I notice unnecessary foley all the time with random objects. The worst is when they make guns rattle whenever someone aims or moves quickly, or when swords/knives "whoosh" and "shing" when people are just holding them.
This happens a lot in dubs to just like… fill space in sentences that originally would have been longer. I haven’t noticed it much in things that are originally in english
My personal "favorite" will always be Oerba Dia Vanille, who has entire playlists of weird vocalizations.
Even the Georgia Van Cuylenburg agreed, and said that it was the easiest jobs she'd ever had because it was mostly moans and grunts.
I think this is like... stuff they came up with for radio theaters and it worked back then, but then people invented and improved screens, and that allowed writers to actually show stuff, but then we keep sticking to traditional writing stuff.
I always just thought it was a part of the experience... a little clue that indicates "This isn't our world, it's hyper reality."
I love this video. I've always noticed this and never knew it was called voice foley, but it's something I've always noticed in anime, and also noticed how comparatively absent it was in western animation. IG that's one reason I often tend to find characters in western animation more believable/relatable...
Damn, now I know the word for those excessive grunts I hear in media!
On the documentary "I Know That Voice" they said that the one project that requires a lot of this kind of stuff is video games. They have to record hours upon hours of grunts, groans, yells, etc, etc, etc.
I can't stand the vocal foley they've been doing in the past several spongebob seasons. EVERY SINGLE MOVEMENT, SpongeBob is making a "Mwow" or "Nyeeem" sound, and Squidward is going "Herrrrm?" "Huuuooh" for the slightest change in facial expression. The whole show is just pure noise now and I can't even tolerate it as background noise while I'm working.
@@Mashudes my personal favorite
“ boIINg “
ive been watching anime since childhood, so voice foley is just something ive gotten used to. honestly, ive always wondered if its in any way related to how over-acted kabuki theater tends to be. its part of the charm and culture of it, in a way.
Even jp have their own misgivings with voice foley. They apparently got a certain threshhold too when it gets to be too much.
And yet the industry doubles down on it.
I remember modern Simpsons and Spongebob doing this ALL THE FUCKING TIME whenever a character is doing some kind of action that only requires a *little* voice foley, but they end up overdoing it every time to the point of annoyance.
Gotta love the Zelda music playing, music from a video game where voice foley is an iconic part of the main character
that's like his whole shtick. he doesn't talk at all so that's how his communication skills are defined. his ability to vocalize only in grunts, gasps, sighs, and shouts is like when seeing someone with a physical handicap excel at a particular sport without said handicap affecting them. You'd be glad for them to be able to accomplish that, and likewise for Link's nonverbal communication due to the fact he'd be completely mute otherwise.
And Nintendo's veteran developers know that the attitude of audiences towards games are different from other mass media and that people can tolerate a bit of excess grunting when it's in service of the gameplay and done convincingly. Because they were more limited in how much voice acting they could include, they had to make it count, whether Link is just huffing as he runs around or screaming as he fights for his life. In more recent years, games have become more like other media as technological limits go away, and now Nintendo is outsourcing game dubs to these same dumb studios doing these animes with directors that insist on putting annoying, tactless, overused vocal foley in freaking everything.
I fully agree and the unnececary sounds drive me crazy sometimes. I feel like its the audio equivelant of "show dont tell", it makes some scenes feel like they're not confident in conveying information. However i do think it's down to the voice directors rather than VAs.
I'VE BEEN PLAYING SO MUCH POKEMON COLOSSEUM SO HEARING THAT SONG JUMPSCARED ME
i love when my malefail protag makes some dumb cringey noise because i bet in their head they sound cool but they sound stupid
I think playing a lot of fighting games as a kid desensitized me to it early. Because in those games, this stuff serves to give feedback to specific actions, the same way they also have different visual and sound effects for a move hitting and one being blocked.
Always hated the shows where there's no taking and instead just. This. WHYYYYYYYYYYY????!!!!!!
This is extremely annoying.
@@vintprox fr
We all had that one classmate in school who mimicked anime characters by doing irl voice foley
I hate whenever shows just do "guh, buh, tuh, huh" for every action
Like who tf goes "kyuh?!" To "your mom died"
I actually really appreciate good vocal foley. It can be a bit cringe at times but when it's done well it's one of my favorite parts of voice acting.
dbza is a really good example (and why I wrote that comment) of some really good vocal foley which is both effective and funny at the same time. (the first season was.. I mean I don't wanna say it but it wasn't great. Still funny but not quite on the level of 2+3) my point is good vocal foley is one of the main reasons I like tv shows/anime/voice acting
There's this game that I love called Dust: An Elyisian Tail and as good as the voice acting can be at times, it's usually dragged down by this. The protagonist grunts and sighs so much, you'd expect the squeaky sidekick to be the more grating one but she just isn't.
Ah, what a classic. Sure wish it was on new gen Xboxes. 😐😐😐😐
@@residentkane Is it not? It's on switch and PC
it happens a LOT in anime.
im glad you made this video bc i mention this every time someones making me watch anime. It's gotten so bad that i've started 'anime gasping' at every little thing just for fun
Isn't this the same situation to Johnny Test's whipcrack sound that at first sight it's not that big of a deal then it starts to get annoying because it's everywhere
For someone with 627 subs and very few views this is an insanely good video, thanks!
That's what I'VE been sayin'
I thought you were gonna talk about how, oftentimes when a character gets interrupted mid-sentence, they just suddenly stop talking like they know they're about to be interrupted in the next second, unlike an organic interruption where there's some overlap and time for the... "interruptee" to decide whether to keep talking or stop talking
It may be unecessary but it does add to a certain appeal to the media. To each their own.
This sends me back to the old days of the original DBZ dub, where there was not allowed to be even a second of silence. So in addition to background music playing constantly 24/7 without pause, you had characters make noise with every motion and it was always ALWAYS so overexaggerated that everyone always sounded constipated.
"IDIOTS! HE'S BEHIND YOU! HUEH, HUAAHHUUUH, HUAAAAAaaaAH!"
The Super Saiyan transformation scene was literally a minute of Sean Schemmel totally faking an angry groan, just constant "Huuurrrggghhh, hurrruuuuuuuuggghhh, huurugh, huuuuuugh, haaaruruuuugghhhh, aaaaaaaaaaa"
this was one of those things I noticed and got slightly annoyed by but never knew how to describe it let alone type out what it is
voice foley makes me embarrased to watch anime when my parents are in the room. anime seems to do it way more than other medias and i can't stand it sometimes.
Good video.
In anime IN Japanese this is already done, it's not a result of being dubbed. They do this to compensate for the animation being bad sometimes.
As for Final Fantasy 7 Remake..uh the game was dubbed but then the animations were all redone to match the English recording.
As for Castlevenia.. I have no Idea what they were cooking..cuz like they don't really do anime voice acting in that one
I think for me, it all depends on the context and delivery of voice foley on whether i like it or not. although that just may be me growing up on cartoons and anime normalizing it in my brain. there are times where it completely take me out of the moment, however, especially in video games like final fantasy
Im also an aspiring voice actor. Its actually a dream to get to do this shit unnecessarily because I find it hilarious
Best of luck with that! I have a feeling I would enjoy it once and then hate every subsequent time
I noticed it as a kid in old kids cartoons, specifically Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiago. it irritated me to no end.
I once knew an autistic kid in middle school who would do this. At the time I thought he was just a weeb trying to be in his own personal anime, but then I learned about autism, and masking, and whatnot, so I think he was a fan of anime, and because he didn't have many friends to mirror in order to seem normal, he would mirror what he saw in anime and cartoons and end up doing vocal foley among other things
He could have just been stimming.
Funny thing with voice folleys is that we associate these loud excessive sounds wirh grunts. But in day to day life, when someone exerts force they don't really make that much noise if at all. It's more a facial thing. But loud grunts are so accepted in media that they became a reference point for sounds people make in general.
Soooo true man at some points it honestly feels like unwanted asmr
It's always fun in dubbing having to decide if you copy the Japanese vocal efforts vs doing a more "American Sound" (eh vs huh type stuff) because no decision will be the right to a portion of the people listening, lol.
3:00 For a second I thought that was just a Source Film Maker Animation then it hit Me...
It is just Toy Story 2
Thats how good Toy Story 2 looks
When pixar used to make bangers
I've become so desensitized to the weird anime noises that I do the same sort of shit when i'm wandering around in my room at 4AM like i'm not acting weird as fuck.
I dislike when a dub goes out of its way to add in more of that shit, though. A couple dubs from back in the Saturday morning cartoon days had that sort of thing where during originally silent moments (I mean like literally no noises in the original audio because tension) there would just be the characters grunting or moaning and it was immensely obnoxious.
A great video on a niche topic. This is the quality content I've been looking for.
When I was an a little goober who thought watching anime was dumb and cringe, one of the things I would do when making fun of anime was the overdone voice foley! It's been something I've noticed and been annoyed by for a long time, and even now that I'm older and watch anime every now and then I still notice it and it still annoys me
2:12 I SPIT MY FOOD AND WAtER OUT AND IM COVERED IN SNOT😭😭😭
After subjecting myself to animated media for so long Ive kind of... Integrated it unto my life? Ive started to voice foley doing things just becuase ive veen surrounded by it since childhood. Weird stuff
On the plus side, its great for theatre
FINALLY. this kind of thing has always made me fucking Seeth for whatever reason, but when I’ve asked other people they had no idea what I was talking about
Now you have a resource to show them (and get me more views 👀)
Reminds me of Porcelain Maid saying “listen to this with your eyes closed” when a character in a Japanese video game is amazed by an island they’re sailing towards but it just sounds like something off of cornhub
Sometimes when I be parkouring in Assassin’s Creed the MC grunts a LITTLE bit too much
This is the one thing I have noticed almost non stop since starting to watch some Anime last year. It took me a while when I first watched NGE (with subtitles) and thought "This voice acting is amazing, even if I don't understand the language but something about it is putting me off." It was only later when I noticed characters making sounds like they were taking a massive shit whenever they were upset about or hurt by something.