Go Tokyo Your Experience
The production team of the well-known animated work “We Still Don’t Know the Name of the Flower We Saw That Day” has once again gathered, and the animated film “Touch.” created by director Ryusuke Nagai, screenwriter Mari Okada, and character designer Masakazu Tanaka has recently been released in Japan. However, the promotional strategy of this movie has sparked widespread discussion among netizens in Japan.
Especially in the trailer, the introduction of the voice actor is very prominent, and even the voice actor’s name is presented larger than the character’s name. Many netizens have expressed doubts about this, feeling that the importance of voice actors seems to be overemphasized. Next, let’s take a look at the discussions among Japanese netizens.
A netizen posted, “Can’t we find a better way to highlight the voice actor’s name instead of the character’s name? I want to know the character’s name more
A netizen named ‘ふぇむ’ expressed dissatisfaction with the promotional method of the trailer for ‘Touch’ on X platform, sparking heated discussions.
In the trailer, the display size of the voice actor or idol artist’s name is several times larger than the character’s name.
Many netizens agree with the view of “ふぇむ” and believe that movie promotion should focus on characters. Some people, on the other hand, believe that highlighting the names of voice actors and idol artists is more effective in attracting audience attention from a promotional perspective.
Here are some reactions from Japanese netizens:
I deeply feel the same way
Just check the ending credits for the names of the voice actors
In the pictures and screenshots, netizens provided various reactions, ranging from supporting voice actors as the main focus to concerns about the weakening of character names.
Some netizens believe that “the promotion method is reasonable, and the trailer does not yet understand the plot. Using character names as the main focus may confuse the audience
Someone also pointed out, “When asking celebrities to dub, the names are particularly prominent
It is worth reflecting that dissatisfaction with this trend is not limited to the animation field. As pointed out by netizens, “The same goes for TV dramas, where actor names often stand out more than character names
I really like the balance between the character names and the voice actor names in the opening theme song of Mobile Police
In the anime I watched before, there was a situation where the character names and voice actor names were written the same size in the opening theme song. This caused me, who was still receiving compulsory education at the time, to be confused about who was who. Let’s not worry about how I came to watch this kind of animation when I was a child
I’m just saying it《Hot Kabadi》… ”
It’s always like this, whether it’s animation or tokusatsu
Through these voices, it seems that this propaganda technique has sparked different opinions and evaluations. Finding a balance between characters and voice actors may be a consideration in future promotional strategies for both animation and other entertainment products. The opinions of netizens demonstrate the divergence among the audience regarding the relative importance between the content itself and the behind the scenes masters.