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brainbuffering · 3 months

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Disability Discrimination in Anime Dubbing

Disabled Characters are becoming more and more common in manga in recent years, with releases such as “A Sign of Affection”, “Ranking of Kings”, and “Josee, and the Tiger and the Fish”, all getting Anime Adaptations! However, only one of these series features a Disabled actor in the lead role. That being Emily Fajardo in Ranking of Kings (directed by Caitlin Glass) as Bojji. Emily has (understandably) undisclosed disabilities, and has said how ecstatic and proud they were to get to play a disabled role - a sense of triumph and emotion I do not wish to take away from them. However their disabilities do not match those of the character they play. Bojji is non verbal and deaf, Emily is not.

Yet this is a vast improvement upon the continuing apparent refusal to find disabled actors. There is a solidarity found amongst disabled people, and whilst our experiences in this world are different, we have a shared history. A shared understanding of what it is like to live in a world that rejects you. Be that the epileptic teen who can't go to the cinema with their friends, or the wheelchair-using adult unable to find a job because nobody sees their value.

The only time I can think of where a Disabled Anime Character has been voiced by someone with a matching Disability was Lexi Marman Cowden in “A Silent Voice” as Shoko. Lexi’s performance was absolutely incredible, heartfelt, and true in every sense. Comparing her performance to that of her able bodied Japanese counterpart (Saori Hayami) you can tell that Lexi has real life experience to draw on, her emotions feel real. It's obvious that Lexi has been through what Shoko has. It's why, despite its flaws as a story, I still consider “A Silent Voice” to be one of the best ever English Dubs. They bought something new to the series that the Japanese team didn't. Stephanie Sheh and her colleagues at NYAV Post understood the need to have stories told by the people they're meant to represent - a sentiment that has bled through into their other work such as casting Trans Actress Shakina Nayfack as Hana in “Tokyo Godfathers”.

And whilst this wonderful dedication to accurate casting in terms of gender, racial, and sexual minorities is being reflected throughout the industry – for example the Majority POC Dub of “Horimiya” and the Majority Queer Dub of “Given” – it is simply not being reflected with regards to Disabled People who are once again left out in the cold. It also feels incredibly hypocritical and hurtful to see people criticise non-accurate casting within some minorities, and completely ignore it when disabled people are involved.

An example of this would be “Josee, the Tiger, and the Fish”. Whilst it is to be celebrated that there was a Majority POC cast in the film, director Jerry Jewell still chose to cast an able bodied actress in the titular role of Josee, a wheelchair user. Suzie Yeung’s performance very much felt like that of an Able-bodied person mimicking a disabled person. Whereas Lexi had real life experience to draw upon, Suzie was making it up as she went along. This was especially clear to me when Josee was forced to self-hoist for the first time.

Suzie played it as a tragic moment of upset frustration and proof that Josee needed help but was too stubborn to ask. Meanwhile, my own experience as a person with Myasthenia Gravis was that the first time I collapsed and couldn't stand up on my own, being able to clamber from the floor to the sofa was a moment of personal triumph. This is an emotion I have heard other disabled people talk about. It's not proof of helplessness, it's evidence that you do have strength, power, and independence. Yes, part of this was probably just the way the film was made, but I still felt that a disabled actor with mobility issues would have understood the nuances far better, and would have made for a better film.

At the time, I said I would only forgive Director Jerry Jewell for casting an Ablebodied Actress in a Disabled Role, if he hired a Disabled Actress for an Able-bodied role… which he did later the following year when he cast the wonderful Risa Mei (who has dwarfism) as the protagonist in “My Senpai is Annoying”. Whilst this his was not Risa’s first role at Funimation (now Crunchyroll) having played Shirley/Rum in “Shadow’s House” and Nadila in “Kakushigoto”, it was her first lead role. The anime itself didn't have the best reception, however Risa has continued to be cast in more and more roles across the Anime and Gaming World including more Popular Series like “My Dress Up Darling”, “Sing a Bit of Harmony”, and the upcoming “Sand Land” Video Game by Dragon Ball Creator Akira Toriyama.

I had hoped that perhaps this would lead to more disabled actors breaking through into the industry! That Lexi had proven, without a shadow of a doubt, that Deaf people could do Dubbing and do it better than Hearing People! That Risa had proved that there are thousands of talented disabled actors out there if you were just willing to look! Yet with the announcement of Lara Woodhull as Yuki in “A Sign of Affection” it is clear to me that Voice Over still has a long way to go with regards to hiring disabled people. Which is a real shame, since you would think that the success of remote recording during the ongoing pandemic would allow for more disabled (and especially immunocompromised) actors getting cast.

Many would argue that I am perhaps being hypocritical here. If I am saying that disabled voice actors can play able-bodied roles, then why can’t able-bodied people play disabled roles? This is perhaps a fair question, but from my perspective, disabled people are fully aware of what it is like to be able-bodied. Many of us are already forced to act as if we are, or have had to experience going from being able-bodied to being disabled. So where as disabled people absolutely have the life experience needed to play non-disabled roles, able-bodied people do not.

This isn't to say that there has never been any examples of non-disabled people playing disabled characters well! Eun-bin Park as Woo Young-Woo in the Korean Courtroom Drama “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” springs to mind. Her performance as the Autistic Woo was incredibly well researched and prepared for. She took great care to talk to real-life autistic people to play the role as authentically as possible. However, this is an exception, not a rule. The majority of able-bodied actors are not willing to put in the same level of time and effort that Eun-bin has. Equally, Disabled people should still be able to speak for themselves, and not have able-bodied people control the entire narrative.

An argument is often made that Disabled People do not have enough experience to play lead roles. However, how are actors meant to get this experience if they are not even being cast to play themselves? And surely Lexi once again stands as an example of how someone with no experience in Voice Acting or Dubbing can give award worthy performances?

It is perhaps especially sad that no Hard of Hearing actors have been cast in “A Sign of Affection”, since it would have been the perfect dub to start out on. Due to trauma related to how her voice sounds to others, Yuki has an entirely internalised monologue. This means that the actor playing her doesn't need to match any mouth flaps. This makes things much easier for those new to dubbing, as it allows them to focus on just their acting rather than the more technical side of things.

Where as some might argue that Yuki’s internal monologue means that it would be ridiculous to cast a person with a Deaf Accent. Ignoring the obvious fact that Yuki may very well have a Deaf Accent in her internal monologue, and that it's down to Hearing People to learn to understand those accents, many d/Deaf people do not even have that accent! Not all d/Deaf folks are born without hearing, many lose it later in life and so maintain their original accents. Equally, not all d/Deaf people are completely without hearing, hence the term “Hard of Hearing”. They might still have full hearing in one ear, or have cochlear implants to improve their overall hearing before it gets to the point of complete loss. Not to mention the increasing effectiveness of regular hearing aids. Whilst naturally a person who has partial hearing is going to have a different lived experience to someone who was born without hearing like Yuki, they would still have far more in common with the character than an Able-bodied actor would.

It would simply appear that Dub Directors like Jason Lord are simply not willing to put the effort in to find Disabled Talent. But we are out there! We’re working hard and making moves. We’re doing everything that able bodied actors are doing, backwards and with wheels. There are over 350,000 d/Deaf people living in Texas, I am certain at least one of them has a passion and talent for acting.

So please. Let the Blind Samurai be voiced by a Visually Impaired Person. Let the Robot Armed Star Fighter be played by a person with a prosthetic. Let the sweet deaf girl who is falling in love and discovering the world for the first time through her own hard work and the support of her friends as it becomes accessible to her for the first time, be played by someone who knows exactly what that feels like.

I do not want to have to write another post like this when the next series with a Disabled Protagonist is announced. I want to be allowed to join in with your celebrations, and not to left looking in through the window as I sit on my scooter in the cold wet rain. Once again refused entry to the party because of the elaborate staircase built by able-bodied people.

#a sign of affection #yubisaki to renren #a silent voice #anime #anime dubbing #actually disabled #voice acting

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