In the States, there seems to be a strange, cult-ish fan following for American voice actors. Contrary to the past, when early anime conventions hosted a fair number of Japanese guests, today the Economics of Cheap dictate that instead of flying over Japanese voice actors (seiyuu) most conventions host a multitude of American-based dub voice actors. The American voice actors, in the past decade, seem to have accumulated an uncanny number of fangirls/boys that follow their every move. Anime News Networks‘ web comic, Anime News Nina, an occasional source of true-to-earth fandom critique, also identified the overzealous passion exuded by most contemporary fans in one comic at the beginning of Fall 2008.
I wonder if, due to greater access to online resources and subsequently to information straight out of Japan, American fans will begin to follow more news about Japanese seiyuu. This is not meant to be a foreshadowing of catastrophic events, in that the American dubbing industry will collapse in the next few years, but more a question as to whether anime fans today are throwing it back to their otaku roots and searching for every minutiae of news from overseas in the morass of infoporn on the Web. I wonder too if the popularity of American voice actors validates that the American dubbing industry will in fact not collapse and, while not necessarily thriving, is not doing that bad, because fans are buying media to follow voice actors. Otherwise, I can just give up and bow to the fact that fans are just rabid for anything, particularly signatures.
But if fans are actually going online to look at Japanese seiyuu activities, they would have in the past few weeks been caught up in the explosion of excitement that following Newtype Magazine’s announcement about the new Japanese voice acting cast for the new, second season of Full Metal Alchemist.