J-Cast reports (Japanese) that times are getting tough for Japan's voice talents. Many professional voice talents have carved out decent careers providing the voices for the numerous anime characters in TV and movies. Recently, however, producers have begun to recruit high profile celebrities in their place. Although the price of hiring actors, models and TV stars is higher, the payback tends to come with greater media coverage and the chance to appeal to a wider audience. One instance which caused controversy recently was the casting for the recent Simpsons film. The team who had provided the voices for Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa for the TV versions and DVDs were dropped in favour of popular celebrities (pictured above). This trend has been in place for some in America so it is not surprising that producers would look to match the star power of the cast of a major Hollywood production like Shrek but the article mentions that local productions are also increasingly bypassing professional voice talent. This year, idol Aya Ueto was used in "Piano no Mori", Meisa Kuroki, Shinosuke Tanihara and Yasuko Matsuyuki appeared in "Vexille" and Mina Monta has recently been cast in "ONE PIECE". Anime fans are unhappy at the trend. When Takuya Kimura of SMAP was cast in Hayao Miyazaki's "Howl's Moving Castle", many felt that it would be difficult to separate his profile from his character which is easy to do with a relatively anonymous voice actor. One producer rebutted the criticism by pointing out that many of the celebrities being used are talented performers who can quickly pick up the skills necessary to voice a character effectively and anyone who can't doesn't get used. Although voice actors are unhappy at losing out on jobs, the article ends with the suggestion that they will have to broaden their appeal into acting, singing and variety TV to remain on level terms.
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