Female Voice Actors in Male Anime Roles

[Silvia Groniewicz]

I agree that is is actually pretty common. Especially young males are 
often voiced by female voice actors (the main characters from Hagane no 
Renkinjutsu, Hikaru no Go, Hunter X Hunter to name just a few), children 
of course (Conan from Meitantei Conan, Chiriko from Fushigi Yuugi, 
Momiji from Fruits Basket) and the occasional adult male with very 
child-like or feminine features (see Kenshin, Satoshi from Gakuen Heaven).

To get an idea how common it is, just try browsing through the top 200 
titles on http://www.animenfo.com. They always list at least a few of 
the voice actors and it's not difficult to see in which cases females 
get chosen for male roles.

Best Regards,
Silvia Groniewicz

Michael McCaskey wrote:
> When I was doing a class on "Samurai X" recently, I realized for the first time that the Kenshin Japanese voice is that of a female voice actor.
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> All of the Japanese Kenshin voice roles were done by Sukukaze Mayo. But when Sukukaze appears in live action films, she plays female roles. Her other anime voice roles are also as women - except possibly in the anime Blackjack: The Movie (1996), where she does the voice of Joe Carol Brain, and I'm not sure yet whether that is a male or a female part.
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> The English Kenshin voices are done by Richard Hayworth, and in some cases by another male voice actor.
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> The only other similar case I can readily think of is Otomo's anime "Steamboy," where the lead young male role of Ray Steam is voiced in Japanese by Anne Suzuki, and in English by Anna Paquin.
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> Does anyone know if it's fairly commonplace to use female voice actors for male anime character roles? Or is it quite unusual?
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> One of my students wants to know, and I have no satisfactory answer for him as yet.
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> Maybe 15 years ago, I used to hear a female storyteller on NHK, I think once a week. She voiced both males and females in her stories. I realize now that the male voicing I heard was close to the Kenshin voice.
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> Michael McCaskey
> Georgetown Univ.
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