Unsurprisingly, Amazon is now streaming anime with AI dubs. I feared AI voice acting could prove catastrophic, for it can more sneakily replace human performances than, say, a dead-eyed humanoid screen actor straight out of uncanny valley. Luckily, my fears were unfounded.
The first anime streaming on Amazon to get caught using AI voice acting was Banana Fish, a popular series among the LGBTQ+ community that features beautiful animation, and that, at some point, featured some actual great voice acting made by humans. Nowadays, however, it sounds like this:
If you've been to LinkedIn once, you certainly have already been assaulted by some post claiming that making a short animated film will cost you $100,000, whereas making AI animation via Sora will only cost you 4 dollars and the brain mass that'll rot out when you witness the final result. If the claim is true, Amazon's decision to overdub an already good dub has set them back an inexplicable $100,004. That should sound beautiful to anyone, but especially for gamers who grew up in the '00s, as they'll likely see the bar scene above and immediately reminisce about the beautiful scene from Shenmue below, where protagonist Ryo Hazuki goes around asking bartenders about some sailors in the most monotone tone you've ever witnessed, prompting the bartenders to reply in the most awkward tones imaginable.
In case you're new, you might be wondering why I'm showing you a video from a game seemingly so low-budget its production couldn't even afford actual actors. But they did hire "actors" and pay for voice work; it's just that Shenmue came out when people were starting to pay attention to voice acting in games, so it sticks out in comparison to the remainder of the game. If you want some truly terrifying voice acting, something so bad it'll remind you of Amazon's AI dubs even when both properties share no themes or aesthetics, then what you want is House of the Dead 2.
Shenmue was actually the most expensive game of all time back when it released, and it paid extreme attention to all manner of non-voice-related details. Shenmue was so costly that for it to turn a profit, every Dreamcast owner would have had to buy two copies. I wonder if that's yet another parallel Amazon definitely wouldn't want us to draw with their beautiful emerging tech.
The Amazon AI dubs are such a blessing that they even made me miss bad acting in anime, and sent me down a rabbit hole of re-searching for all the worst anime dubs I could remember.
... and they're still better than what Amazon just pulled off. In fact, most crappy low-end YouTube channels featuring AI narration do a better job than Amazon, so Bezos, please step up your game.
The post The Amazon AI anime dubs made me nostalgic for Shenmue and House Of the Dead’s legendary voice acting appeared first on Destructoid.
