Anime News

Japanese Seiyuu Are Regularly Transfered Into English Dubs
Date: 10/25/2005
With news coming out of Oni-Con this weekend that Mari Iijima will reprise her voice as Lynn Minmay in ADV's upcoming English dub for Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, some have bandied about the fact that it is almost unheard of for a Japanese actor or actress to also voice their English dubtrack counterpart. While it's true this may be the case for actual remastering through an English licensor, Japanese seiyuu voices are routinely transferred into English dubs via several methods. The most common is the non-human character situation (animals etc..). Where in Japan these are acknowledged as true characters and as such provided unique voices, by the time they reach the English rendering studio, they are basically heard as "sound effects" and as such, the roles are often not acknowledged or cast anew. Other situations include background chatter and sound effects. This is also a lot more common in older English dubs. As production values and budgets have increased, more of these non-human characters are being vocalized in fresh form by their English producers.
Source: Anime News Service