Voice Acting in Anime: An Interview with John Swasey

 

 

 

Back in April, I released a video about the history of Darker than Black. And, in it, I briefly touched on the English release, but I wanted to learn a little bit more about what happened in the creation of the English dub. So I reached out to John Swasey who plays Huang in the first season of Darker than Black. He was gracious enough to agree to an interview, and that’s what I’m here to share with you guys today. In it, we talk about how he got the role, what his mind set is, and a bunch of other things relating to not just Darker than Black, but voice acting in general. So I hope you all enjoy it. John Swasey has been voice acting in anime since 1996, when he played the director in Golden Boy. Since then, he's voiced several popular characters in anime, such as: 

• Gendo Ikari, Neon Genesis Evangelion 
• Kogoro, Sgt. Frog 
• Van Hohenheim, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood 
• Lord Death, Soul Eater 
• All For One, My Hero Academia 

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Timestamps

00:00 Introduction 

00:28 Learning about Darker than Black's dub 

03:50 Introduction to Huang 

08:47 Darker than Black supporting character: Naoyasu Kirihara 

10:13 Recording sessions 

11:27 Interacting with other voice actors 

14:38 What are cues and how do they work? 

17:38 Timecodes and lip movements 

18:13 Reading the script 

22:50 Reviewing past performances 

25:11 Any interesting anecdotes from your time working on Darker than Black?