Perspective Chapter: Voice as Pop Culture Content – Trans-Media, Transnational, and Cross-Language Consumption of Japanese Voice Actors

Abstract

Owing to the recent popularity of Japanese anime, especially those based on manga and light novels, Japanese voice actors have become popular across various media formats transnationally. As a result, concerts and events featuring Japanese voice actors are frequently held outside Japan, and in order to physically experience an anime or a manga character that exists only in fantasy, fans participate in related events as tourists. Moreover, transnational creative activities based around Japanese voice actors have been actively expanding. For example, several video and smartphone games created in China as will be described in this paper, many of which have become popular in the East Asia region, use Japanese voice actors, and the Japanese language. Interestingly, this indicates cross-language commodification and consumption. The games developed in China and featuring Japanese voice actors, who use the Japanese language, are consumed even by Chinese customers. This study investigates the trans-media, transnational, and cross-language (crossing language borders) consumer phenomena involving voice actors and their voices. This study adopts the recently developed framework of contents tourism as a methodology and employs the notion of the experience economy, with the aim to clarify the sociocultural background and the proliferation of such consumption phenomena.

1. Introduction

Studies on the consumption of Japanese voice actors and their voices have been conducted mainly in the field of media and media history studies (for example, see [1, 2, 3] or media marketing (for example, see [4]). Among them, Nozawa’s work is one of the best-argued academic papers on Japanese voice acting culture, and he has successfully initiated “an ethnographic description of the logic of Japanese voice acting and the way it animates the structure of contemporary convergence culture. [3]” This paper shares a common awareness about the issues pertaining to voice acting with his approach to voice actors from the perspective of contemporary convergence culture. However, Nozawa’s study and other previous media studies on Japanese voice actors have rarely mentioned tourism, and they have not discussed the topic from the perspective of tourism studies despite the need to do so. Moreover, to the best of the author’s knowledge, no academic research has analyzed the consumption of voice actors from the perspective of the experience economy. On the other hand, existing studies on the relationship between voice actors and tourism phenomena are conducted mainly in the field of contents tourism. Jang or Sugawa-Shimada’s studies could be cited as representative of this line of research [5, 6]. They looked at the events in which voice actors—identified as crucial to the promotion of contents tourism—appeared.

The trans-media, transnational, and cross-language aspects of contents tourism have been identified in previous pioneering research [7, 8]. In [8], Graburn and Yamamura reported that transmedia and transnational phenomena of contents tourism have intensified in East Asia and noted the importance of focusing on “cross-cultural and transnational perspective of contents tourism” and also suggested that “contents tourism studies are challenges to” observing “the transmedia process of reinterpretation, re-editing, and recreation of contents.” In particular, Yamamura has focused on the use of Japanese in Taiwanese fanzine (doujinshi) circles and has identified a cross-language phenomenon: sharing Japanese narrative worlds and language contents allows for communication across language barriers, both in written and conversational language [9]. Furthermore, in terms of the sound of language, Yamamura identifies that international fans of Japanese anime consider voice as content; the use of the original voices rather than dubbing is considered important. Furthermore, they can often learn some Japanese by enjoying the original contents [9].

Although this study has a similar focus to these previous studies, it aims to further develop research in this area. Since existing research on voice actors and their role in contents tourism has focused only on cases within Japan, and no study to date has used the latest contents tourism framework or systematically investigated the recent transnational and cross-lingual phenomena mentioned above, the present study attempts to fill this research gap.

2. Methodology

The latest findings on the contents tourism framework have been presented by Seaton et al. [10], Yamamura and Seaton [7], and so on, which were utilized as a part of the methodology of this study. The concept of “contents tourism” was first defined in 2005 by the Japanese government as a part of regional and national tourism initiatives as “the addition of a ‘narrative quality’ (monogatarisei) or ‘theme’ (tēmasei) to a region—namely an atmosphere or image particular to the region generated by the contents—and the use of that narrative quality as a tourism resource” [11]. In Japan, contents tourism research later evolved into research on pop cultural pilgrimage and tourism. Simultaneously, English language research has progressed, and several important research findings have been published internationally since 2013 [7]. Based on these abovementioned studies, contents, and contents tourism are defined as follows:

3. Contents

“Contents” can be defined as “information that has been produced and edited in some form and that brings enjoyment when it is consumed” [12]. Moreover, “contents” can be positioned as “the combination of the creative elements” such as “stories, characters, locations,” “music,” and so on [10] “within works of mediatized popular culture” [13]. Based on these definitions, it can be said that contents refer to a narrative world consisting of a combination of creative elements.

4. Contents tourism

Seaton et al. defined contents tourism as “travel behavior motivated fully or partially by narratives, characters, locations, and other creative elements of popular culture forms, including film, television dramas, manga, anime, novels, and computer games. [10]”. Moreover, Yamamura re-defined it as “a dynamic series of tourism practices/experiences motivated by contents. [13]”.

“Multiuse of” contents “across various media formats” [10] has increased in the current era of highly developed information and communication technologies and a complex world of media. In recent years, there has been a surge in such cross-border fandoms in East Asia [8]. Unlike earlier phenomena such as film tourism, contents tourism is not centered around a specific media format but around contents themselves through multiuse that spans different media formats. In this way, the approach of contents tourism allows various tourism phenomena to be better explained under such complex circumstances. Contents tourism research has accumulated many case studies on travel to places related to the multiuse of contents across different media formats. For example, research has been conducted on novels and TV shows and novels and video games, and attempts to model such multiuse [7] have been made.

Furthermore, as the above definition of contents shows, while contents are understood as the narrative worlds consisting of a complex structure of creative elements, the consumption of contents is not limited to this narrative world as a whole but may also include its distinct decomposed components (“stories, characters, locations,” “music,” and other elements [10]). For example, a film may have its elements individually consumed in the form of soundtrack CD, characters-inspired merchandise, and so on. Such distribution and consumption of a narrative world’s decomposed elements is currently a common phenomenon. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no existing research that focuses specifically on these aspects and provides a structural analysis of how these decomposed components connect to specific sites or of their connection to tourism from a contents tourism point of view. In simple terms, in Seaton et al.’s definition [10], while contents tourism is defined as “travel behavior motivated fully or partially by” contents, “partially” is merely a consequence of the decomposed consumption of contents.

To address this gap in contents tourism research, this study focuses on the components of the voice actor and the voice that are important to anime and game contents. Additionally, it aims to demonstrate how the phenomenon of tourism motivated by such components and their consumption can be interpreted as a form of contents tourism. Specifically, this study will look at the phenomena of how exactly voice actors and their voices are distributed and associated with sites that give rise to tourism phenomena. To that end, this study utilizes the concept of “contentsization,” which is defined in contents tourism studies as “the continual process of the development and expansion of the “narrative world” through both mediatized adaptation and “tourism practice” and “contents” tourists access and embody ‘narrative worlds’ that are evolving through “contentsization’ [13]. By examining how contents evolve through restructuring and expansion, this study aims to illuminate how the contents tourism structure is driven by motivation from and consumption of the voice actors and their voices.

5. Segmentation of contents and commercialization of voice

In Japan, a contents business model called media mix (Japanese term for a transmedia franchise) started to gain broad attention when “Kadokawa Shoten (Kadokawa Books) and its affiliated companies” created the “media mix system in the late 1980s and early 1990s,” meaning when the “infrastructure to generate variants optimized according to platforms” was developed [14]. This is when media mixing of content, that is. the cross-media development strategy, or media franchising began to attract wide attention in Japan. It aimed to increase diversified revenue by distributing a single item of content more widely through spin-offs—novels, comics, and games—, that is, by exploiting various media as contents businesses.

A unique feature of their strategy was that they not only used single contents in other media in a multiuse and cross-media style, but they also divided it into elements to be commercialized and contentsizated—a method that has become increasingly popular. That is, a single anime or video game was subdivided into different categories of content, such as voice actors and music, and each category was developed through separate channels. In this way, the voices of characters of anime and games, which is an extremely valuable element for fans, and also voice actors themselves gained distinct value as products.

Naito describes these situations as follows. “In this way, mediatized acceptance of ‘voice actors’ became directly focused on ‘voice actors’ themselves, leaving from the premise of the existence of ‘outer shells’ called ‘characters’ or images of ‘anime’. In this manner, voice ‘actors’ started to be accepted as an independent medium. [2]” As a result, “live performances including song concerts” by voice actors [2] were actively carried out since this period. Simultaneously, “drama CDs” [15], in which the epilogue of an anime is played only through voice actors, and “character song” [2] CDs, in which the voice actors sing songs created to symbolize the main characters, were launched successively.

It is quite interesting to study the cross-media development of voice and its commercialization from the viewpoint of contentsization. The increased separation of voice and voice actors as elements of contents from the original contents has led to the commercialization and contentsization of each element. In previous arguments on contents tourism studies (see [7, 10]), the manner in which single contents (=narrative world) are used in other media formats in a multiuse and cross-media style has not been adequately studied. However, the example of voice actors mentioned in this paper suggests that in the course of contents’ media mix becoming popular, contents are segmentalized and divided, mediatized adaption occurs on each segment, and unique development and expansion of the “narrative world” occurs with linkages to the original contents. According to the words of Otsuka, segmentalized contents “generate variants” of original contents “optimized according to platforms” [14]. Previous contents tourism studies have not discussed this aspect. However, its critical importance for contents tourism is apparent, given the movement of people or human mobilities in live performances or tourism phenomena. It will be necessary to position it as a distinctive process of contentsization that first arises after the completion of contents creation.

However, it is to be noted that contents, equivalent to narrative worlds, are constructed from a complex interaction between distinct creative elements. Therefore, at first glance, it looks like contents tourists consume each divided segment, but the reality is that they “access and embody “narrative worlds” underlying them [13]. In other words, by adopting a contents tourism approach, it can be recognized that they reconstruct narrative worlds through each element by using their imagination and consume them.

6. Contentsization toward experience economy

In the Japanese animation industry, it is difficult to recover high production costs only through TV broadcasts and theater releases, which is a structural problem throughout the industry. The industry has generally attempted to recover production costs by selling DVDs and BDs with high-value additions to fans as collectors’ items after the end of anime broadcasts and movie releases. However, as the Association of Japanese Animations (AJA) reported, in the latter half of the 2000s, with the widespread online distribution of video works, the consumption of anime content changed dramatically, and the sales of DVDs and BDs declined sharply and experienced significant losses in Japan [16].

In their seminal book The Experience Economy, Pine, and Gilmore described that “information is not the foundation of the ‘new economy,’ for information is not an economic offering” and experience is “a distinct economic offering provides the key to future economic growth” [17]. Moreover, they picked up Disneyland and Disney World as good examples to explain the experimental effect and mentioned that “cast members (never ‘employees’) stage a complete production of sights, sounds, tastes, aromas, and textures to create a unique experience” to involve guests “in an unfolding story” [17]. They also considered “interactive games” as one of the “new genres of experience” [17]. Interestingly, we can observe the same effects, such as adaptation for stages/live concerts and interactive games, in the process of contentsization of Japanese voice actors.

Under these circumstances, “idolization of voice actors” [3] has attracted attention from the content production side as a cross-media strategy that exploits these voices. This form of content development is carried out as follows: First, an idol is set as a character in anime and games, and the voice actor is in charge of the songs, as well as the voice of the idol in the play. Further, the voice actor him/herself actually sings and dances on the stage as an extension of the character. These kinds of cross-media strategies involving voices are “most clearly exemplified” by the idol training video game “THE iDOLM@STER,” which was launched in 2005, as one of the pioneering cases [3]. In this game, the player him/herself, as a novice producer, aims to train a female idol and make her debut a success. In addition to the concerts given by its voice actors [18], comic books, drama CDs, TV anime series, a theatrical anime film, and smartphone games have been produced from this video game.

Such contents using so-called idol voice actors have continued to grow both qualitatively and quantitatively. Video or smartphone games, such as “Love Live!” (2010-) featuring female idols, “Uta no Prince-sama” (2010-), and “Idolish Seven” (2015-) featuring male idols, have been released and animated one after another. There have also been many concerts in Japan and overseas where the voice actors have themselves sung and danced on the stage, wearing the costumes of their respective characters [19](“Yume ha IM@S Seiyū”). “KING OF PRISM by PrettyRhythm” (2016) was also launched as an anime featuring male idols first and was later launched as a comic and a smartphone game.

What is interesting about this series of phenomena is the fact that the markets of voice and voice actors have clearly shifted their focus from merchandise to the experience economy, such as interactive games and stages/live concerts, as Pine and Gilmore have noted. In other words, as Matsumoto has noted, the value of products (i.e. marketability and/or substitutability) is shifting from the consumption of commodities, which is “high in substitutability” to experiences, which are “low in substitutability” [20]. It is assumed that such phenomena are emerging remarkably in the content industry, as are the ways in which the content is consumed. The phenomena are also clearly evidenced by the statistics of the Japanese Anime industry focusing on the trends in the market size of Video/DVD/BD and live entertainment. Sales figures of video/DVD of anime works declined from 16.4 billion Japanese yen in 2010 to 8.1 billion yen in 2018, while sales figures of live entertainment related to anime works increased from 1.2 billion yen in 2013 to 3.9 billion yen in 2018 [16]. These data strongly suggest that there was a big shift in the early 2010s. The review of literature conducted by the authors revealed that no statistical data is currently available on the trends in the sales volume of games using voice actors (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Trends in the market size of video/dvd/bd and live entertainment related anime works.Source: The graph was created by the author, and the original data was obtained from [16].

Viewers of anime can not only enjoy watching anime but also support and bring up idols virtually by playing games. Furthermore, by participating in voice actors’ concerts, fans can support the characters in the real world and share a sense of unity with them. In this way, they can virtually and/or physically access and embody narrative worlds, such as the original anime/game contents underlying them. It is noteworthy that these are merchandise consumption behaviors that emphasize the experience economy. These processes of contentsization of voice and voice actors can be perceived as contentsization toward the experience economy in the context of contents tourism (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Content market/consumption model toward the experience economy. Source: Figure created by the author based on [20].

7. Official contentsization and illegal contentsization: formation of the international market of voice

As seen above, in the 2010s, the live entertainment market of voice grew rapidly, and at the same time, multiple video or smartphone games using so-called idol voice actors have also been developing. Moreover, as the Association of Japanese Animations reported, the overseas market of Japanese anime has been expanding rapidly since around 2014 mainly in North America and Asia [16]. Under such circumstances, the content, or idol voice actors, was formed and rose to popularity. Later, this content was distributed, consumed, and accepted even outside Japan. In terms of this cross-national distribution, consumption, and acceptance of Japanese voice actors, the following two major factors should be noted as important background from the perspective of contentsization.

The first is official contentsization caused by copyright holders’ market strategy following the saturated Japanese domestic anime market. In Japan, which has a mature and almost saturated anime market, the voice actor market is saturated as well. Therefore, voice actors and their agencies actively try to find new ways or new markets for voice, such as games and live entertainment. In particular, they are currently focusing on emerging smartphone games. As the Association of Japanese Animations stated, “The domestic market size of smartphone games derived from Japanese anime is already considerably big” [16]. Moreover, those on the production side, who are looking for overseas markets with potential growth, are actively exporting such idol anime and games, and their voice actors are tasked with frequently performing in live concerts at foreign events [16]. As a result, the demand for idol voice actors is increasing rapidly abroad, and the growth of Japanese anime market “has been brought about through the sales in abroad since 2014” [16]. Under these circumstances, it is reasonable to consider that the number of inbound tourists who attend the live concerts of voice actors in Japan is increasing, even though statistical data does not exist to support this.

The second is Illegal contentsization by fandom based on “anime fansubbing” culture [21]. This is because a considerable part of Japanese anime was initially transmitted in the form of pirated copies—voluntary fans “fansub”, or “translate and subtitle” anime contents [22] that were distributed illegally among fandom, usually without any voice-over by local voice actors. It is now very common for fansubbed anime to be distributed online, given the ease of sharing videos on the Internet. This illegal distribution has caused serious damage to the Japanese production side, the copyright holder. However, it is also an important fact that “early anime companies” outside of Japan “had to rely on the existing fanbase” and “that fanbase relied on the circulation of fansubs” as in Ref. [22]. Moreover, it is certain that the fansubbed anime led to the consumption of Japanese anime in the original Japanese, and as a result, it has raised international profiles of Japanese voice actors.

In terms of the consumption of the Japanese language among international anime fandom, Yamamura noted “typical characteristics of otaku ‘geek’ culture” and stated that “they are not interested in merely consuming the dubbed version but prefer the original content; they love to experience the voices of the original actors/actresses, as well as the anison in their original form as each of these individual contents is essential parts of an anime” [9]. Thus, international markets of Japanese voice actors have been built outside Japan, where Japanese idol voice actors are consumed, and the number of the fans has increased regardless of nationality.

8. Reconstruction of Japanese voice outside Japan

With the increasing acceptance of Japanese contents and Japanese idol voice actors, a very interesting phenomenon has occurred, particularly in China where the high-level anime/game production industry is already developed and the smartphone game or “mobile game market has continued to expand” [23]. They employ Japanese voice actors and produce games, with the setting being assumed to be somewhere in Japan, in which characters speak Japanese. These games are not only consumed domestically but are also exported to Japan. In other words, Chinese fans who have received Japanese anime/game culture have restructured such Japanese-made contents; created high-quality Japanese-style games in China, or so-called “Japanese-styled Chinese games” [24]; and exported those back to Japan.

It is now possible to create Chinese games with Japan as the background. The location, characters, and voices in the games are all supposed to be Japanese, and Japanese voice actors deliver lines in Japanese penned by Japanese writers. Further, emphasis has been placed on Japanese idol voice actors speaking the Japanese language. This clearly shows that not only the popular culture shared by fans but also the content industry itself has begun to interact equally and bilaterally between Japan and China. It is a phenomenon that is quite interesting from the viewpoint of contentsization, and it can be said that new contents are created by transnational and cross-linguistic contentsization based on the abovementioned contentsization history.

A typical example is the game app Onmyoji for smartphones, which was launched in China in September 2016 and in Japan in 2017 by NetEase, Inc., a Chinese online game company. Many Japanese idol voice actors appeared in this game, and the dialogs were in Japanese even in the Chinese version. Currently, such type of Chinese-made games with Japanese tastes are generally called Japanese-styled Chinese games and Onmyoji pioneers them. Following Onmyoji, Azur Lane was launched in 2017 by Manjuu Co.ltd and Yongshi Co.ltd, and is also a typical case of Japanese-styled Chinese games, which have become popular in both China and Japan.

Naturally, through these games, Chinese players rediscover and reevaluate Japanese idol voice actors, after which they start accessing other contents in which those voice actors appear. With such voice actors at the core, diverse contents are consumed and reconstructed, including contents tourism, such as participation in concerts or talk shows. For example, in October 2017, Toa Yukinari, a Japanese voice actress who performed as Ubume, a character in the game Onmyoji, participated in Shanghai Comic Convention 2017 (SHCC 2017) for an exchange meeting with fans and to sign autographs [25]. Onmyoji’s second anniversary event was held in Shanghai, China, in October 2018. Romi Park, a Japanese voice actress who performed as the game character Tamamonomae participated in the event and communicated with fans [26]. Moreover, the narrative world of smartphone game Onmyoji itself has already been contentsized. It was animated in 2018. In the same year, a musical based on the game was performed in Tokyo, Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Beijing [27].

Likewise, when considering games other than these Japanese-styled Chinese games, one can observe interesting cases of reconstructing Japanese voice in China. For example, the talk shows by the four voice actresses of the abovementioned Japanese video/smartphone game THE iDOLM@STER were held in Shanghai, China, on December 8–9, 2017. The event tickets were sold for Chinese fans through Chinese E-Commers site; however, a number of tickets were specially prepared for Japanese fans to internationally join the event [28]. More interestingly, BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment, the original seller of the game, has recorded the events and their stay in Shanghai and edited the contents to be released in Blu-ray Disc format in 2018, titled THE IDOLM@STER CINDERELLA GIRLS in SHANGHAI [29].

As observed in the abovementioned cases of events and musical staging, transnational human mobilities based on contents, or transnational contents tourism practices, is growing as Japanese voices are transnationally reconstructed.

9. Conclusion

As discussed in the previous sections, the voices of Japanese idol voice actors are circulating in a transmedia and transnational manner. It can be observed how they are being consumed without localization worldwide, i.e. dubbing in local languages. In such circumstances, content has been reconstructed overseas, and the voices of Japanese idol voice actors have been adopted and directly consumed in countries other than Japan through multiple contentsization process, namely, contentsization toward experience economy, official contentsization, illegal contentsization, transnational contentsization, and cross-linguistic contentsization.

Matsumoto presents two axes for classifying content consumption patterns. They are virtual consumption or real consumption and commodity consumption or experience consumption [20]. Based on this concept of classifying consumption patterns, the above voice consumption phenomenon strongly suggests that consumption in the content market is shifting from a virtual orientation to a real orientation from passive commodity consumption to an experience economy where users actively seek to engage with content. More specifically, it shows that the form of content distribution and consumption is changing from consuming characters, by simply watching anime and reading manga, to experiencing them. In other words, we can see that the content industry itself has set a new goal to increase profitability by emphasizing the experience economy. Fans will virtually experience complementary relationships with the characters by playing video/smartphone games and will feel happier to get closer to the characters in a real environment by attending voice actor concerts and events. The content production side is also shifting its profit structure accordingly. Concerts and events, which are typical examples of content consumption associated with human mobility in a real environment, can now be positioned as typical elements of contents tourism.

Therefore, observing the distribution and consumption of idol voice actors from the perspective of increasing importance of the experience economy is very effective to elucidate the characteristics of the latest contents tourism practices and phenomena, and better understand their structures. In other words, these ideas present an induced structure for contents tourism, that is. how contents consumption induces the practice of tourism. Certainly, the nature of contents tourism can vary greatly depending on whether it is performed to confirm the location of the work or to feel closer to the characters through their voice. In such a case, how will this difference in the nature of contents tourism affect multilateral exchanges and understanding? There has been little actual research on this; hence, further research should be carried out in the future.

As described above, the voice contained in the content, that is. the Japanese language itself, is increasingly consumed as it is, without being localized. In addition, an increasing number of overseas productions, such as the game Onmyoji, have scenarios in which not only the Japanese language but also Japanese cultural contexts are incorporated without any modifications. This phenomenon has a lot in common with the increasing consumption of the Korean language and culture in fandoms outside South Korea thanks to the K-pop cross-border development (for example, see [30]). Cross-border consumption and acceptance of language and cultural context is a very important issue from the perspective not only of contents tourism but also of cultural anthropology and media anthropology. In the future, the study of contents tourism should be systematized by taking into account cultural anthropology or media anthropology perspectives.