Tag Archives: voice actor

Death Note Dub – Episode 2

“I am Justice!”

It’s official; I think my favorite dub voice is Sayu (Kelly Metzger). And Watari (French Tickner) wasn’t too bad either. And to be honest, I really liked Lind. L. Taylor’s (John Murphy1 ) performance, too.
However, it’s sort of sad when your favorite voices are for bit parts that barely have speaking roles, so without further ado: everyone else.

Souichirou Yagami: His voice was decent enough, maybe a little dull but it wasn’t horrible. I’ll give him more time before I really make a judgement call.

Touta Matsuda: If anyone competed for my favorite character in the series, it would be Matsuda. Ryo Naitou did an amazing job as the average, youthful Task Member. He had little inflections in his voice that were wonderful. However, I’m not a fan of Vincent Tong as Matsuda for the moment – he’s not playful, or dumb enough. Matsuda’s always had a light, child-like personality. Than again, he hasn’t had a real chance to show off yet. We’ll give Vincent another chance in the next few episodes.

L: Believe it or not, I was never that attached to L’s original voice actor, Kappei Yamaguchi. It wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t exactly crazy about it either. So, I’m happy to announce that I enjoyed Alessandro Juliani’s version of L very much. It has age to it, without being too old – which works really well because it reminds me L is in his mid-twenties. I hope that it continues to be so pleasant in future episodes. And for the record – L’s computer synthetic voice was a shock. It was so high pitched and well, effeminate sounding that I almost laughed. Maybe they’re foreshadowing L’s little crush2. :D

And to recap some old friends:

Light: You’ve disappointed me Brad Swaile. Your crazy laugh is too airy/rasp – it’s barely there. At first you were tolerable, but now the more I listen to you the less I like it. *sighs*

Ryuk: …a tad bit better.

See y’all for Episode 3!

  1. John Murphy will also be playing the English role for ‘Mogi’ later.
  2. L has a crush on Light. He does. No one will convince me otherwise.

Death Note Dub – Episode 1

Well, watched the Dub of Death Note’s episode one today at adult swim here. I’ve been pretty anxious about the dub since I first heard it was airing, if only because the Japanese cast of Death Note was top notch.

But I digress, let’s talk about the cast! Episode one is basically Ryuk and Light so this’ll be a light entry.

Light: His Japanese actor, Mamoru Miyano, is amazing in his own right despite not having a long list of roles. His vocal range is superb and his voice is easy on the ears. For the English version they chose Brad Swaile. Having only heard Swaile play the part of more, ‘whiney,’ characters, I was worried that Light’s voice would be made more annoying than anything. Regardless, he surprised me with a decent performance and I look forward to his crazy laughs. If Quatre from Gundam Wing was anything to go by – at least Light’s laughter will be up to par.

Ryuk: Shidou Nakamura was the perfect Ryuk. He had a gruff voice, a great ‘hyuk’ of a laugh, and it carried a playful tone that did the shinigami1 justice. However, as nice as Brian Drummond is at playing the part of characters such as Vegeta from DBZ and Zechs Marquis from Gundam, I was disappointed in his performance as Ryuk. It was too smooth, too serious, and rather dull. I can only hope that it gets better as the series progresses. – Though, I will give him one line: “Juicy?” That was pretty good.

In conclusion, Light was decent and Ryuk was disappointing. I can only hope the rest of the cast makes up for it. Most of them are actors I’ve never heard before, so they have hope to be good.

  1. God of Death, Grim Reaper