j1m0ne's blog

I guess it’s pretty common knowledge that sound directors are the members of the staff of an anime production that work closest with seiyuu, but I wonder how many people know that their job doesn’t just begin and end in the recording studio – there are a lot more aspects to an onkyō kantoku (音響監督) than that.

This is secondhand info I picked up from years of listening to and reading interviews with sound directors. I don’t claim to have much technical knowledge of acoustics or musical terms or fancy things like that, so consider this sort of a layman’s guide to Japanese animation sound directing (which is different from other forms of sound directing, such as dubbing foreign shows).

Stuff about sound directors/sound directing :

1. They are in charge of budgeting for overall sound production in an anime work; covering studio recording costs, and the cost of sound effects & music production and hiring the seiyuu.
2. That means they have to present a proposal to the anime’s producers to get approval for their plans.
3. They are involved in the anime production right from the start, working with the chief director and producers to decide all sound-related aspects, from the casting of seiyuu, the direction voice acting should take to the timing of sound effects and the type of music required for a certain scene.
4. In short, a sound director’s job can be split roughly into: recording supervision (録音監督), music supervision (音楽監督) and afureko director (アフレコ演出), roles they may or may not take up in entirety for a given production. They may also have a say in the recording and mixing staff hired depending on the producers and studios involved.
5. Occasionally, anime directors may also handle the sound direction. Jigoku Shojo’s Omori Takahiro and ARIA’s Sato Junichi are such examples.
6. Usually, the music process goes like this:
-The sound director writes up a ‘menu’ of specific songs required for the entire anime production based on what the director wants ie ‘M1 should be an epic, string-laden tune, M2 a sad song with violins, M3 a comical, playful song’ etc and the composer will produce the pieces as required. If the anime’s run happens to get extended, the sound director will then send a request to the music producer and composer for additional songs to be composed.
7. This goes case by case, but sound directors may not take part in selecting the music/songs (composer, music producer and director) nor the actual dubbing process itself (recording and effects guys).
8. Sound directors are heavily involved in the auditioning of seiyuu for the main roles in a production, who are chosen after consulting with the director and producers (sometimes the producers/financial backers get a big say in which seiyuu get cast regardless of suitability for the role). Guest roles on the other hand, are usually cast by the sound director him/herself through personal connections.

9. During recording they’ll be directing proceedings – the mixer guy and recording assistants are the ones fiddling with the dials. Usually sound directors will get the seiyuu to sit in a room, playback the (unfinished) animation reel to allow them to get a sense of timing etc, go through a couple of rehearsals of the lines, telling the seiyuu what sort of expression or delivery they want for a particular line and then final recording can proceed.
10. When an NG (No Good) take happens, recording doesn’t stop. Only when the recording is over does the sound director point out the NG lines to the seiyuu involved and retakes for the scene are done.
11. Rather than seiyuu misreading their lines, more common NGs include ‘wrong’ voice acting (ie the sound director doesn’t like the way the lines are being delivered), volume issues (too loud/soft) and the presence of ‘paper noise’ (the sound of the seiyuu turning the pages of their script).
12. Basically, sound directors are in control of the voice acting aspects of an anime – the seiyuu are producing the lines and sounds that they want so they can tell them to redo a line until they get it right (though there is room for discussion).
13. Therefore, if the voice acting or sound effects in an anime are complete fail , the sound director should shoulder the blame, just as he/she should take (most of) the plaudits for good performances. Obviously, shoddy work can sometimes arise as a result of budget and time constraints (ie they can’t re-record a scene a few dozen times without considering the costs involved).
14. Sound directors usually start off as recording assistants or mixers at studios and gradually work their way up. In seiyuu’s cases, they can pick up bits and pieces of advice from their time in the studio and on stage and gradually move on to sound directing (having good connections with well-known sound directors or studios helps).
15. You can actually take a course in sound directing, Yoyogi Animation Gakuin offers one . The curriculum includes stuff like Pro-Tools, recording techniques and sound effects basics in the first year, and handling seiyuu auditions, mixers and stage sound in the second year. I would like to believe that getting a degree in audio engineering would be more useful in general…

Other bits and pieces
1. It’s obviously not unusual for sound directors to regularly cast the same seiyuu in their productions, so cast prediction is easier if you already knows who is in charge of sound. Like how every other Aketagawa Jin anime seems to have Kawasumi Ayako and/or Noto Mamiko in it.
2. Seiyuu who became sound directors: Goda Hozumi, Nakajima Toshihiko, Shioya Yoku, Tsujitani Koji, Chiba Shigeru and Miyamura Yuko (under her real name Seki Yuko)
3. Others like Inoue Kazuhiko and Mitsuya Yuji have participated in ‘afureko directing’, which is just handling the in-studio recording sessions while others are in charge of the music and sound effects.
4. Kikuta Hiromi is just about the only ‘regular’ female sound director around. It’s said that she’s often mistaken for a guy because of her given name (浩巳 is more commonly a male name) and once got assigned to the male dorms when undergoing training.
5. There are probably less than 30 sound directors who regularly work on new anime productions.
6. For example, there are 16 different sound directors employed on the 22 new anime from the current winter season.
7. Sound studios and sound directors tend to go hand-in-hand with animation studios ie Rakuonsha/Tsuruoka Yota + Kyoto Animation.

That pretty much covers most of what I know about sound directors.

Techno Sound

Nakajima Toshihiko and Seki/Miyamura Yuko work for Techno Sound , a sound production studio involved in lots of anime – this season alone they are producing RIDE BACK, Shikabane Hime Kuro, Hajime no Ippo, Gundam 00 Season 2 and Linebarrels. The president of the company is Mima Masafumi, a well-known sound director who has worked on many productions through the last two decades such as Card Captor Sakura, Yaiba, Initial D, Fullmetal Alchemist and My-HiME. Mima himself first got his start at Magic Capsule studios, headed by Aketagawa Susumu (wiki says they’re related?) whose son Jin is also a sound director, before starting up Techno Sound.

Nakajima and Mima both run blogs on the Techno Sound site, as well as hosting a radio show that invites guests, both seiyuu and sound producers, to talk about sound directing. The guests have all worked on Techno Sound productions in the past and are familiar with the two sound directors to different extents. Takayama Minami and Mima for example, go back a long time – they first worked together on Yaiba (which was made in 1993).

Most of the seiyuu featured share similar viewpoints about what sound directors do, like how both Takayama and Ohtani Ikue described them as master chefs (or orchestra conductors) cooking up a production to fit the director’s and viewers’ tastes. Hayashibara Megumi thinks good sound directors should always have open communication with both directors and the seiyuu. Amusingly, Mizuki Nana didn’t know that sound directors were also oversaw the music aspects of an anime until sometime within the last three years.

I found the interviews pretty interesting to listen to (though maybe only because I’m a seiyuu nerd). At least I did get to know that seiyuu sometimes have as little clue as to what a sound director actually does as I do. Anyway, I hope this short(?) guide provides a useful glimpse into what goes on behind the scenes and in the recording studio, maybe there are people out there who might be interested in this kind of thing.

Points of reference :
Interview with DEATH NOTE sound director Yamada Chiaki
Interview with Kaibutsu Ojo sound director Takakuwa Hajime
Interview with Ginga Eiyu Densetsu sound director Aketagawa Susumu
Interview with Meitantei Conan sound director Kobayashi Katsuyoshi
Interview with Dark Cat sound director Tsuruoka Yota