Pokémon English Dub Voice Actor Changes Discussion Thread

Starting with Battle Frontier, they changed the voice actors for all of the humans (and Meowth) as well as for the some of the Pokémon whose names were changed for the English dub, like Seviper or Cacnea.

Here's the discussion thus far as this started on Discord. (Mentioning those who have already participated: @Calxiyn, @Ars Nova, @Hero of Time, @Hayabusa.)

All times PDT.

Amaury - Today at 9:07 AM
You know, I still don't understand why they changed the voice actors for the English dub of Pokémon starting with Battle Frontier for the humans (and Meowth) and for some of the Pokémon whose names were changed for the English dub, especially when it seems the new voice actors didn't bother trying to live up to the old voice actors' pitches, tones, etc. Seviper, for example, didn't sound like a snake a lot of the times, and, unless I missed something, no longer did the tongue trilling he used to do on occasion during the three Advanced series. Jessie was also a lot more high-pitched. And so on. It wasn't too big of a deal with new characters that the group ran into a long the way or new characters like Dawn as that's the first time you heard them, but for characters have been around since the beginning of the series, or before Battle Frontier in general, you can definitely hear the difference. It seemed to get better as they went through Diamond and Pearl and such, but still.

Queen Regent Calxiyn - Today at 9:12 AM
R u okay

Amaury - Today at 9:12 AM
Who, me? Yes? Why?

Ars Nova - Today at 9:15 AM
He just had a lot to say about it

Hero of Time - Today at 9:17 AM
Because 4kids's rights expired so they had to rebuy but they didn't want to so the Pokemon Company started dubbing iy

Amaury - Today at 9:18 AM
**** 4Kids, then.

Hero of Time - Today at 9:18 AM
I mean, we don't know the reasons so it's not fair to say that immediately but yeah.

Amaury - Today at 9:19 AM
The new voice actors still could have also done a better job to try and stay as close as they could to the originals, IMO.

Hero of Time - Today at 9:19 AM
Why? So that people can compare them and say how bad they are?

Amaury, do you know how hard it is to imitate a voice and still try to sound natural?

Queen Regent Calxiyn - Today at 9:21 AM
Amaury just has lots of Pokemon feels

I understand

Hero of Time - Today at 9:22 AM
I get what he's saying and respect how he feels about it, I just think it's a bit unfair to judge them based on not imitating the originals

Queen Regent Calxiyn - Today at 9:23 AM
There was this anime I watched

And season 2 right

All new voice cast

And I was like ?!?!? Excuse me who r u

Amaury - Today at 9:32 AM
People can already compare, though.

Obviously, I understand the new voice actors' voices aren't exactly the same as the originals', I just think they could have done a little better job to try and fit with the original voices. Compare the battle brain's Medicham's voice, for example, in the Wheel of Frontier episode from Battle Frontier to Grace's Medicham's voice in the Pros and Cons Artists episode from Advanced Challenge. Completely different. Not an ounce of similarity at all.

Pros and Con Artists: 16:09 - 16:18:

Wheel of Frontier: 12:56 - 13:05:

Hayabusa - Today at 9:32 AM
Voice acting in Pokemon is a **** show honestly

I prefer the games for this reason

I mean

For a MILLION reasons really

Queen Regent Calxiyn - Today at 9:33 AM
Amaury make a thread lol

Amaury - Today at 9:34 AM
Okay.

 

I think you overestimated our capacity to continue discussing this tbh