Enjoying "Knights Of Sidonia" anime but these constant Japanese "whisper-gasps" are driving me batty

Cafe Society
1

Re Knights Of Sidonia in Japanese with English subtitles. The art is very good and the story is kind of interesting but I think I’m going to put it aside because these Japanese voice characterizations are just driving me nuts.

Every spoken response by the main character has to include multiple little “whisper gasps”. When he’s surprised, hungry, embarrassed, getting hit, etc pretty much anything is whisper-gasp time. I guess these whisper-gasps must be very meaningful in Japanese, but honestly they are the sounds (to my ears) a woman makes as she approaches orgasm.

It’s disconcerting.

2

I haven’t seen Knights of Sidonia (heard good things), but “the anime gasp” is definitely an annoying omnipresent trope in most of the anime I’ve seen. It’s often more of an extended grunt, like “uh-uuuhuh-uhhh!” It can be pretty damned funny, but if can also totally break immersion during a dramatic moment, especially since it usually accompanies a plot twist or big reveal. When it’s paired with grit teeth and sweating it looks like everyone is constipated.

I don’t know if it’s part of Japanese culture or what. One of my theories is that anime is often limited animation, so for reaction shots everyone is basically frozen so they overact on the voices to make up for it. Or who knows, maybe Japanese people watch Western 'toons and think we have strange reactions.

There’s also a bunch of little odd writing flourishes I notice. Pretty much every anime has a “meaningful name” drop at some point. If this thread were in an anime this would be the convo.

Astro: I’m sick of it! I’m not watching Knights of Sidonia anymore!

(pregnant pause)

marshmallow: Astro…

And scene!

I used to associate that with the overwrought melodrama a 14 year old might write, but I think they were just emulating anime all along.

3

Japanese voice acting (for animation at least) is extremely dramatic. The voices aren’t supposed to sound real at all.

That’s all I can tell you without clips of what you are talking about, as I admit I’ve never noticed this. I’ve noticed grunts in general, ala Power Rangers, but not breathy gasps–well, except when people are out of breath and actually gasping or gasping in surprise. And all of those I can remember are by female characters, not male ones.

4

Minus a sample, I couldn’t say what the OP is referring to. At a guess, it’s probably アー or an extended うん. Basically, it’s the Japanese equivalent of “Aah”, “Hm”, and “Huh.”

Maybe the people doing the subtitles aren’t translating those parts, so it sticks out. But I don’t think that the Japanese make more half-assed sounds before they start talking than Americans do.

5

IIRC, unlike Western animation, where they record the voices first and then draw, in anime the entire soundtrack is taped after the animation is already done. The interjections are there so that everything matches up.

6

Is this related to the thing I’ve noticed, where the characters always seem completely surprised when their cell phones ring?

ring ring

“*GASP, uh?”

Seriously, you never hear a cell phone ring followed by the character simply reaching into their pocket to retrieve the phone. There’s always an audible, verbal reaction to the phone ringing.

7

You get used to it. It’s like a verbalization of the character’s mental process. Like him figuring out in four steps that the 1: there is a girl, 2: she’s looking at him, 3: she says [eng]Hi![/eng], and 4: he figures out she’s talking to him…

  1. Oh!
  2. Oh?
  3. ooooh.
  4. OH!?
    KoS is a fantastic anime. There’s a new season coming soon. Once that and any new Attack on Titan drops, I’ll be happy.
8

87 YEARS after Steamboat Willie and Japanese animators still haven’t learned how to use a freaking dope sheet?

I saw the Japanese language version of Spirited Away in the theater just to see if they had lip sync in Japanese, and no…

Hard to believe that there are people in this world who claim that anime is good animation when they can’t even get something as basic as lip sync right.

9

I don’t think anyone claims that anime is good animation, in particular. The bottom rung is still probably better than most Hannah-Barbera cartoons were, but that’s not a particularly good measure.

There are some high production value movies, and those do include proper lip syncing. A few of those from 10+ years ago have fully hand-drawn sequences of fully 3D mechanical objects (robots, jets, tanks, etc.) turning and twisting, while perspective shifts to reproduce the effect of a camera zoom being applied. I think it’s safe to say that, that sort of work is more impressive than anything Disney ever did.

But people don’t watch anime to bask in the glory of high production value. They watch it because there’s some series with good stories. All the “animated” part adds to any of it, is that Japan was able to put out a movie like Pacific Rim 40 years ago. Live action+3D special effects still can’t fully capture everything that one can do in full animation, even at the largest budgets. Those sorts of special effects open up a lot of storytelling that has been denied to Hollywood for all that time.

Most of it is crap, but that’s true of everything.

10

Watched the first season. Didn’t notice any unusual amounts of gasps or gulps or grunts, at least compared to other anime series.

Sidonia general? I liked it overall, but with some reservations.

Good:

Art, especially the backgrounds and cockpits
Post-apocalyptic setting, bleak as hell, everything is used and abused, wonderful world building
Pseudo-realistic conceits (e.g. rocket burns for course corrections, ammo/fuel constraints, time on target)
Lovecraftian abominations with a touch of The Thing always get a big thumbs up
Sound effects (dem rocket engines)
Trans-humanism, except the bear lady, which is just so…Japan
I’m not the biggest fan of mecha and even I thought the formations were badass
Basically Attack on Titan in space

Bad:

Other than Kobayashi (who is awesome and the show should just be about her machinations), I couldn’t give less of a shit about these characters. Couldn’t tell you the names of half of them. The MC eats a lot of food and can fly and is a clueless moron audience surrogate. Some airheaded girls and pseudo-girls like him because why not, we need harem “comedy.” There’s a gray haired guy who is mad jealous because MC took the robot he wanted. Bear lady stares out of windows all day, only interesting in the flash back. The engineer lady has big tits. Good try, but no.

Couldn’t care about middle school tier romance that involves awkwardness and blushing that goes no where. Cringe worthy. Thankfully this doesn’t take up a lot of time.

Ugly:

Good god, these character designs are more horrific than the monsters. Fish faced uncanny valleys of despair everywhere. If they spent less time animating explosions and low gravity bouncing tit physics they could make the characters actually have some sort of life life qualities to them and I might feel empathy, you know, instead of being dead eyed, no nose freaks.

11

I would give the same overall review as Marshmallow on almost every point. If there’s a second season, I’ll be tuning in when I get around to it on NetFlix, but I won’t be any particular hurry.

I really didn’t notice any “whisper-gasps.” If they were there, it’s obviously something I’ve gotten used to and tuned out.

12

No idea what the OP is referring to, but unnecessary (from the POV of a Westerner) verbal reactions are common in Japanese.

13

That just means that those sections were animated using 3D computer animation and a 2D cell shader was applied, or was used as the basis for rotoscoping.

Disney pioneered it in The Great Mouse Detective back in 1986. Here’s the final scene, with a chase through the gears of Big Ben.

14

I’ve noticed this for years, not just in anime but in many Japanese movies, especially the older ones. I think it’s quite charming. Thanks OP for putting a name to it, anyway!

15

Spanish animation dubs after the fact, as well, but they specifically avoid drawing mouths that are shaped too strongly (we’re used to having dubbed material not match exactly, but there is a difference between “can’t lip read” and “can lip read, the lip reading is nowhere near the voice”).

16

No, it’s all hand drawn. The artists probably used sculpy models as reference, but the lines aren’t quite perfect and they’ll bend with the movement, as an artist would do with anything moving fast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nMXj0oEaY0 (Does include a few scenes with 3D, which stick out like a sore thumb)

17

It’s true that the standard approach in Japan is to draw first and record the voices later. At first, this was strictly for budget reasons. In the 60s, it was cheaper to do things this way and as there was a massive demand to be met, the studios simply opted for the fastest and cheapest way to put films out.

This, however, ended up affecting the entire creative process, even when deadlines weren’t so strict and budgets so tight. Unlike American films, Japanese animators will make sometimes substantial changes to the script as they’re drawing it. Much of the acting is also decided before voices are recorded.

That said, though, that’s not really the reason why mouth movements don’t often follow dialog very well. This has entirely to do with budget, as it’s possible to adjust the mouth movements later; if there is enough time and money. Usually, there isn’t. (Anyway, it’s a point of detail. For most people, all Disney movies are post-dubbed because most people don’t watch them in English.)

The fact is that Japanese animated films are made on shoestring budgets. In many cases, this show, a lot. In other cases, it’s incredible how much Japanese animators can milk out of their budgets. Here are production budgets, for comparison:

The Lion King (1994) $45,000,000
Pocahontas (1995) $55,000,000
Mulan (1998) $90,000,000
Lilo and Stitch (2002) $80,000,000

Akira (1988) $10,000,000
Ghost in the Shell (1995) $6,000,000
Spirited Away (2002) $20,000,000
Steam Boy (2004) $24,000,000
Paprika (2006) $3,000,000

Steam Boy is notorious for how long it took to make and its relatively huge budget. And yet, it was still only a little over 1/4 of Lilo and Stitch’s cost. It still looked great.

Far more impressive, though, is the work of Satoshi Kon. Paprika only cost about 3 million dollars to make. That’s a little over the budget for a single Simpsons episode.

18

Wait, *Paprika *was made with like half the money used on Clerks 2 ?
I am speechless.