atashinchi

Senin, 22 Oktober 2007

History: Seiyū

Voice acting has existed in Japan since the advent of radio. However, it was only in the 1970's that the term seiyū entered popular usage because of the enormously popular anime Space Battleship Yamato. According to a newspaper interview with a voice talent manager, "Since the Yamato boom, the word 'seiyū' has become instantly recognized, before that actors and actresses who introduced themselves as seiyū were often asked, 'You mean you work for Seiyu supermarket?'" [2]

The radio drama era

In 1925, the Tokyo Broadcasting Company (predecessor to the NHK, Japan's public broadcasting system) started radio broadcasts. In that same year twelve students who were specializing in voice-only performances became the first voice actors in Japan when a performance of a radio drama was broadcast. They referred to themselves as seiyū, but in those days the term "radio actor" (ラジオ役者, radio yakusha?) was used by newspapers to refer to the profession.

The next era began in 1941 when the NHK opened a training program to the public in order to prepare actors to specialize in radio dramas. This was called the "Tokyo Central Broadcasting Channel Actor Training Agency" (東京中央放送局専属劇団俳優養成所, Tōkyō Chūō Hōsō Kyoku Senzoku Gekidan Haiyū Yōsei Sho?). Then in 1942 the Tokyo Broadcasting Drama Troupe debuted its first performance. This was the second time that the term "seiyū" was used to refer to voice actors and from this time on, this word was used.

There are several theories as to how the term "seiyū" was coined. One theory is that Oyhashi Tokusaburo, a reporter for the Yoimuri Newspaper, coined the term. Another theory is that Tatsu Ooka, an entertainment programming managing producer for the NHK came up with the term.

At first, seiyū, like those at the Tokyo Radio Drama Troupe and similar companies specialized in only radio dramas; however, with the advent of television, the term took on the additional meaning of one who does dubbing for animation. Television broadcasting aside, when radio was the leading mass medium, actors who played in radio dramas were not without their fans; for example, actors in the Nagoya Radio Drama troupe who played the lead love interest roles often received many fan letters.

[edit] 1960s: First seiyū boom period

In 1961, during the early days of commercial television broadcasting, the Five-Company Agreement (Gosha Agreement) caused the supply of Japanese movies that were available to Japanese television stations to dry up. As a result, in the 1960s many foreign dramas and other foreign programming was imported and dubbed into Japanese language for television broadcast.

At first, the NHK subtitled most foreign shows; however, shows dubbed in the Japanese language soon became the standard. This increased the popularity of seiyū. At the center of the first seiyū boom were actors like Nachi Nozawa, who gained fame by repeatedly dubbing the same foreign actors, in Nozawa's case Alain Delon, Robert Redford, and Clint Eastwood. Because of problems with pay guarantees arising from the Gosha Agreement, cinema actors were prevented from dubbing foreign movies for television. Television actors were also prevented from dubbing because of a similar agreement. This caused studios to turn to actors from the radio age and actors from the Shingeki style of acting. Around this time dubbing of foreign animation was done by Rakugo story tellers, Asakusa comedians, and the like, and seiyū were called "dubbing talents" if they specialized in dubbing, while those giving voice to a character went under the name of "ateshi". It is during this golden age for dubbing that the Tokyo Actors Cooperative Haikyo was founded. Later, Haikyo seiyū managers left and opened their own management agencies.

The first dubbed show broadcast in Japan was an episode of the American cartoon Superman, on October 9, 1955, on KRT (today TBS), and the first non-animated dubbed show broadcast was Cowboy G-Men, again by KRT, in 1956. Both were dubbed live; the first show to be broadcasted with pre-recorded dubbing was The Adventures of Television Boy (テレビ坊やの冒険, Terebi Bōya no Bōken?) on April 8, 1956.

[edit] 1970s: Second seiyū boom period

During the late 1970s, the boom in the animation world allowed seiyū of particularly attractive male anime characters to become extremely popular. Akira Kamiya, Tōru Furuya and Toshio Furukawa were the first to unite into a band, Slapstick, and perform live. Many other seiyū released their own albums. In 1979 radio programs featuring seiyū as DJs such as Animetopia became widely popular, and at around the same time the first anime magazines began to be published. The then editor-in-chief of Animage, Hideo Ogata, was the first to publish editorials on the ongoing transformation of seiyū into idols. Following his lead, the other magazines created "seiyū corners" with information and gossip about seiyū every new issue: this was one of the main causes of young anime fans yearning to become seiyū. This led to a sudden increase in the number of students in seiyū specialized schools, which also grew in number and began to specialize in single fields. For the first time, anime seiyū were young people who grew up dreaming to become exactly that, as opposed to being members of drama troupes or theatre actors who performed as a hobby. This boom lasted roughly until the first half of the 1980s.

[edit] 1980s: An interim period

In 1989 the seiyū of the five main stars of the animated television show Ronin Warriors (Nozomu Sasaki, Takeshi Kusao, Hiroshi Takemura, Tomohiro Nishimura and Daiki Nakamura) formed an all-male singing group called "NG5". The group became popular, to the extent that it was featured as the subject of a special documentary program on MBS. The atypical popularity of NG5, however, did not spread to other seiyū groups.

In this period seiyū production companies also began to provide specialized courses at on-site training schools specifically for training in animation dubbing.

[edit] 1990s: Third seiyū boom period

The 1960s and 1970s booms were centered mainly around general public types of media, such as the TV. In the 1990s a new boom centered around more personal ways of communication, such as radio shows, Original Video Animation, television quizzes, public events and the Internet, gave way to the publication of the first seiyū-specialized magazines, Seiyū Grand Prix and Voice Animage. Seiyū acquired a score of new fans thanks to the radio, and their CD sale figures increased drastically. Concerts began to be held in the bigger halls. While the second boom also saw the seiyū become popular as DJs, this time the recording houses backed the seiyū radio shows as sponsors, and large sums of money began to circulate. Megumi Hayashibara, Hekiru Shiina and Mariko Kōda are the first examples of this new trend. Recording companies and seiyū forming schools began to devise new ways to raise young seiyū to nation-wide popularity, another radical change from the previous booms and one of the cornerstones of the ongoing transformation from seiyū to idol.

When voice acting was introduced in television games, the existence of seiyū became known throughout the entire country. As a consequence, the same seiyū would perform in a series of events related to the television game world, making appearances and participating to radio programs based on the television games to attract the fanbase.

In the second half of the 1990s, the boom in the animation world led to the sudden increase of anime shown in the Tokyo area. With the newly acquired ability to connect to the Internet, gathering information on their favourite seiyū became very easy for fans, and seiyū began to appear in Internet-based radio shows. Rather than just the spur of the moment, these changes appear to have become solidly established.

by Novie at Senin, Oktober 22, 2007.