

----------------------------------------------

http://dioxaz.free.fr/?p=155
by Dioxaz, 29 July 2016


1) But… but!! Where are the voices?! I can’t hear anything! Don’t tell me you didn’t notice, it’s the most striking thing in the series! (also, a word on fandubs)

Reading complaints about being no voices in Youtube comments (both from Western and Japanese viewers) always bring me a smile, especially after 7 episodes.

It’s not the most striking if you’re used to watching fanworks, especially Touhou ones*. 
It’s not when you consider it’s a fanwork, too. And it’s not when you start thinking and considering what having good voice acting actually involves.

*There’s Nico Nico Douga for that, and also Touhousubs’ Youtube channel if you want a careful selection of them, with English subtitles, all reprinted with actual permission from authors

The constraints I listed above remind a bit of the ones you encounter when you want to go full voice for your own work, 
like recruiting your cast, testing it, giving acting directions, waiting for the lines to be delivered, double-checking the lines are properly delivered, 
eventually checking if some lines have to be redone, adjusting the tone of your animated feature to the strength and weaknesses of your VAs, 
adapting your story so the low number of VAs you have at your disposal isn’t detrimental, eventually adjusting the audio quality of your voice recordings 
(eq-ing, dynamic compression, volume, panning, effects, etc.) and make sure there’s homogeneity between all of them, etc. 
Ironically, that’s a whole set of things they completely decided to rule out, either as taking the easy way out, or as an assumed artistic choice, 
as it gives way more liberty this way (no need to alter your story because of the voices and you’re free to choose the tone you want). 
I speculate they were too afraid of screwing up their episodes so they ended up with written dialogue only. 
And this will be the final part of this review before concluding.

Again, if you’re familiar with Touhou fanworks, you probably noticed how easy it is to screw everything up with subpar voice acting. 
Just look at the Cookie☆ voice dramas. Just look at anything that features voice*. A hint of cheese will always be there no matter how good the voice acting is. 
I guess this has to do with how Touhou Project stimulates our imagination like no other franchise has done it before, 
thanks to how ZUN built this wonderful universe, set of characters and background behind them. 
So, in order to accommodate that, one of the smarter choices is to rule out voice, 
as it is the hardest resource to get right and as it immediately kills that imagination stimulating factor I mentioned above for this specific franchise 
(a bit unrelated of an example but sometimes there’s nothing wrong with preferring a well-known TV series to be read as a manga instead of being watched, 
as even low-grade and trivial full animation, rushed audio work, generic soundtrack and stereotyped voice acting can add their own share of cheese on their own… 
but it’s a whole other debate).

*I’m also including those so-called Yukkuri voice and Voiceroids here, as an improper and abusive use of them can lead to very cringe-worthy and questionable results, 
especially on non-parodic content (I’m not talking about people who make a cutting-edge and innovative use of them, 
rather the habit of using them as cheap trendy and attractive tricks because some people mistakenly think it’s nicer to have voice than nothing)

So, in the end, it’s not a bad thing at all that this OVA series has written dialogue only and no voice. I sincerely hope it will remain that way. Sure it kind of looks dodgy and clumsy. 
Sure there’s a little too much dialogue to make us forget that clumsiness and sure watching the endless lipflaps moving in the air without producing sound will feel unnatural to most of you, 
because of the strong influence commercial animation had on us for more than 90 years now. But keep in mind they’re just drawings. 
Think of it as an animated book and strongly convince yourself this is a fictional and imaginary world, while keeping in mind you’re not watching something meant to be aired on regular TV. 
If you succeed, you might find the characters cuter that way and like it better. You might even think it has its own charm and how it can be set apart. 
Also remember how people did when talking movies weren’t still a thing.

Now, if you just can’t because you can’t and because you think I’m a moron to be able to waste my time in making all this up, there are fandubs. 
A vast majority of you will only watch it like this anyway. Currently, the best fandubs are the ones made and directed by Chinese amateur VA shourei小N. 
They have variety (many VAs are featured, including NENE and vivian198808), excellent audio quality and the quality of the performance is rather good. 
vivian198808 also make her own ones alone, but I think her voice is too soft to be versatile enough (note: she also makes full voice versions of some well known MMD dramas). 
Other fandubs to note are the ones made by ヘイ眠気覚まし. But again lack of versatility and audio quality in earlier episodes are subpar. 
Another notable mention is 鶏子だよぉ (http://trkdy.com/). Because of how her Marisa sounds, she can almost be designated as the true successor to Pika Aizawa… 
except that can’t be because she’s obviously not as versatile (her voice is medium to high pitched and not soft enough, so deep and soft voices aren’t her strengths).


2) The pikadub! the pikadub, dumbass!

And this leads us to another point you think I didn’t notice or I ignored on purpose. No, I’m coming to it. 
During the 3 first episodes of Memories of Phantasm, there was a series of fandubs that were unanimous with almost everybody. 
They were made by solely one person, amateur VA Pika Aizawa.

What was so great about them is how they sounded very close to TV animation standards, making the series look and sound like a potential flagship TV animated series. 
She was energetic, full of self-confidence with an unmatched versatility, allowing her to perform all kinds of characters. 
She by herself single-handedly eliminated the need to see elsewhere and even come back to the original unvoiced episodes for most. 
Except, she wasn’t so perfect. She was acclaimed because her acting matched what almost every ordinary anime enthusiast from the West expects when watching anime. 
That’s why those fandub versions had so much success. As a side note, it also brought some undesired and more clueless viewers to the party.

Now, coming back to the actual performance itself, it did have some weaknesses indeed. 
As versatile she was, sometimes her timbre sounded a bit too similar from a character to another. 
She was also prone to free-wheeling and exaggerating a lot, as it is very in fashion in the anime industry. 
Western viewers typically love this but that doesn’t make her acting the de facto example. 
The free-wheeling can get irritating after a while and you wish she was more subtle and tempered. 
The best example was her rendition of Marisa in the Bluray version of episode 1 of this series. 
Because, yes, she did eventually get called by the circle to perform on one of their release (as a bonus audio track however), unlike what some 4channers like to claim on /jp. 
It was just too much to me, to a point it even felt a bit jarring. 
Her first version (the one which made her famous on Nico Nico Douga and Youtube) just sounded right because it was more tempered.

And finally, the worst happened. After dubbing 3 episodes of Memories of Phantasm, dubbing episode 1 of amateur MMD series Angels of Paradise (as Marisa) 
and releasing a Voice drama CD, she definitely quit the scene and wiped everything she did off Nico Nico Douga, probably as a result of that excessive and unwanted fame. 
People were here just for her fandubs of Memories of Phantasm and nothing else. Everybody only cared about the “pikadub” without even thinking about it. 
It was the ubiquity for many viewers. Now she left, this whole set of viewers are completely lost now. 
I hope this will help them in being a little more curious and open-minded, and realize how having someone like Pika Aizawa was something exceptional. 
Now the future of Memories of Phantasm is without her, that’s how it is (and I repeat, there’s nothing wrong in watching it unvoiced).

----------------------------------------------

https://space.bilibili.com/1433840
https://www.acfun.cn/u/602348
vivian198808 

http://space.bilibili.com/249118
shourei小N

Starting with the 10th series, shourei小N no longer works on this OVA, since she moved to the pro and began to work under official contracts.
As of the beginning of 2020, she is a popular UGC producer and has her own agent.

So, from 2020, — the voice acting for this OVA is done by one person: a Chinese girl with a nickname vivian198808.

----------------------------------------------

https://www.reddit.com/r/touhou/
https://www.reddit.com/search/?q=fantasy%20kaleidoscope



