Coo. (Wut.)

[xaq_the_aereon]

To take my mind off the fact that this is the last day before my next big move, I found myself focusing on something a bit more insane, yet a bit more comforting...our favorite pigeon dating visual novel, Hatoful Boyfriend.

One thing I found myself wondering was this: In comparison to the official voice actors from the Drama CDs, how close were Team Hatoful's choices?


(Disclaimer: These are basically speculation on my part...unless I can somehow get my hands on a copy of one of the drama CDs, I can't really say one way or another.)

RYOUTA
Team Hatoful VA: Me
Intended angle: A bit chipper, but in a way that tries to hide melancholy.
Drama CD VA: Asanuma Shintaro. (Starts talking around the 11 second mark.)
Projected accuracy rating: 70%. Voice not rough enough, but I imagine I got the overall emotion down.

KAZUAKI
Team Hatoful VA: David
Perceived angle: Goofy old man, if a bit daft.
Drama CD VA: Hirofumi Nojima.
Projected accuracy rating: 45%. Projected enjoyability rating: 100%.

SAKUYA
Team Hatoful VA: Teo
Perceived angle: Utter snob.
Drama CD VA: Ishida Akira.
Projected accuracy rating: 90%. Aside from the difference in pitch, I'd say that was spot on.

NAGEKI
Team Hatoful VA: Teo
Perceived angle: Emotionally disconnected, kinda sad.
Drama CD VA: Mitsuki Saiga.
Projected accuracy rating: 30%. Gender difference issues aside, it doesn't seem like she could get quite as dead-sounding as you did....so if anything, she's the one who's inaccurate.

YUUYA
Team Hatoful VA: Raven
Perceived angle: 50% suave, 50% sleaze.
Drama CD VA: Kouji Yusa.
Projected accuracy rating: Indeterminate. The only voice examples I could find of him involved singing...in any case, I imagine his voice was a bit deeper, and the character a bit less overt on being a pervert. :b

SHUU
Team Hatoful VA: David
Perceived angle: Creepy with a side order of creepy.
Drama CD VA: Takehito Koyasu. (Starts talking around the 23 second mark. Different Shuu, same murderous bastard.)
Projected accuracy rating: 40%/100%. If anything, the Tim Curry voice somehow wasn't creepy enough. The cold-assisted Wallenstein voice, however, was absolutely perfect.

OKOSAN
Team Hatoful VA: Me
Intended angle: 1 part bird, 2 parts roasted ham.
Drama CD VA: Norio Wakamoto.
Projected accuracy rating: 0%. Attempting to compare to Wakamoto is, from my experience, physically impossible.

ANGHEL
Team Hatoful VA: Raven
Perceived angle: ...Yeah, there are no words to describe it.
Drama CD VA: Takahiro Sakura.
Projected accuracy rating: 10%. Seriously, I can't see someone who voiced Cloud Strife being anywhere near as high-strung and hyper as your version was. Of course, that being said, I now have a hard time imagining Anghel sounding that...bland.

Hrm.

Well, that's that.

Comments

[davidn]

Two of the greatest standouts of our grand voice adventure were your Ryouta and Raven's Yuuya... I had thought before we started that they were both fairly unremarkable characters and that Ryouta in particular would be very hard to bring any excitement to, but your voice was perfect for him - I described the approach I thought you gave him in pretty much exactly the same words in a comment on my recent post earlier today. And Yuuya has... just shot up the character rankings in my book after he played such a hilarious role in not only his scenes, but quite a lot of other people's as well :) And Cloud Strife can't be Anghel! (Although come to think of it, he is sort of withdrawn and manga-ish.)

I'd been hoping my cold would go away in time for that Friday night - I hadn't realized that it would be my greatest asset ;)

[xaq.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, your opinion of my Ryouta voice is a bit embarrassing...mostly because I put nothing into it; that's just how I normally talk.

[davidn]

Heh, the same with my Mr. McBeaks voice ;) What can I say - you have a good clear... cartoon/game/other voiceover protagonist voice in a way that I can't quite define.

[kjorteo]

Everyone did an outstanding job with his or her roles (Kaye was outstanding, too!) Some parts of the casting were known "this is the character I can actually do" decisions (such as my Sakuya) while others were seemingly assigned at random once we were running low and just needed to figure out who was left to do whom (such as Raven's Anghel) but absolutely everyone worked out beautifully. One of my goals for this group was to make an overall stronger pool of voice talent cast just by letting everyone play to their strengths and cover everyone else's weaknesses (I can do Sakuya, the fact that I suck at Yuuya doesn't matter because someone better than me can handle him, etc.) and that ended up being a tremendous success.

I'm with David in considering Raven's Yuuya to be one of the most dramatically improved characters in the entire cast, and you did a great job with the sort of everyman/Only Sane Pigeon (with a side of "oh, it's fine, I'm totally not about to cry or jump off a building or anything :)") performance for Ryouta, with whose blandness David and I had both struggled before.

Even if my curiosity as to how David will handle Kazuaki in serious mode/presumably Hitori is one of the many, many reasons I would now really like to do BBL with the team at some point.

ANYWAY

My Sakuya started out as just the generic probably-American-perpetuated "snobby British person" stereotype (which is why he's English despite being French,) and sort of crystallized into more or less "extrapolate from the grunts and screams and such what Narcis Prince's speaking voice would sound like," and, as I mentioned in the hangout, there's probably some Rarity in there somewhere, as well.

My Nageki wasn't going for any other particular voice to impersonate or anything (though I have a hard time arguing with David's declaration of how Squall Leonheart it ended up being,) so much as just ... generally dead. Nageki is :| - The Voice.

I always imagined Eddie from Guilty Gear for Shuu (which is perfect, since that's the same VA; I just hope he uses his Eddie voice for the drama CDs) though it's hard to argue with Raven's assertion that David's Snape voice for him has become a bit iconic at this point, as well.

If there's any discrepancy between Raven's Anghel and the drama CD VA, then clearly the drama CD VA is wrong.

[kjorteo]

I am now interested in how accurate you would still consider this post (both your perceived angle of our takes on all the cast, and your accuracy rating when compared to the drama CD VAs) after BBL.