Fist of the North Star- Souther vs Kenshiro

[hyperknees91]

So yeah sorry about the way for this pawt, I'm a slow ass. Not sure if the mixing is balanced because my left earphone kinda died on me in the process haha.



Souther- The Pawt
Kenshiro- paul
Raoh- Sarifus

[JCx]

Fist of the North Star! 8D Holy god that was a lot of blood pshew-ing out of Kenshiro in the middle...

"Well then, come at me bro boy" I was expecting "bro" xD awesome laugh at the end Pawt! I thought you were absolutely great for Souther. Lovely voice for him and you showed off his arrogance quite well :> the line "no a duel between the North Star's...seems like the perfect way to kill some time" didn't feel like it had enough conviction for my taste (I bet it was a bit tough fitting all that into the lip-flap time huh?) but otherwise, nice work!

Paul I absolutely loved Kenshiro's voice at the beginning, but I feel you lost some of that nice gruffness later on :c I would've liked to hear some more vicious Bruce Lee intensity in your "WACHAA"s that weren't the ATATATA ones xD (quite liked the ATATATAs). Not bad at all~

Sarifus didn't have that many lines, but he was perfect for the character. Not surprised xD good job

I would've liked to hear the sound effects with a bit more "punch" to them, particularly when Kenshiro falls down onto the ground at around 3:00. I know that's sort of sand-y ground, but I think it'd feel more satisfying for this scene if it were more powerful. Great clip guyssss

[BossTrigger]

Literally everything JCx said.

[Motly Fool]

Ahhh Fist of the North Star. I admit I've only ever seen the old show (and only limited amounts of that), not the newer OVAs/Movies, so I don't really know how anyone other than Kenshiro is supposed to sound. As such I can really only go off character models, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if you were aiming to match the Japanese or anything like that, I really can't judge. Now then, onto the critique!

Starting with Mr. Pawt: I think your voice for the character fits remarkably well. The character designs in FoNS are fucking ridiculous, so it can be hard filling them out vocally, but I heard no such issues with you. I did, however, notice that here and there you had a few enunciation issues. This was really noticeable of the line "Compared to mine your moves are so incredibly slow it's like you're not moving at all". It wasn't a deal breaker, but it is certainly something to work on. Now, this last bit may be a matter of personal preference on my part, but I felt like there were times were you were overdoing it a bit on the cocky/demeaning attitude. It sounded as though your character was trying too hard to be smug. I find that actual confidence and smugness come from trying less, as apposed to trying more. Tone it down, try being more relaxed. Souther isn't worried about this guy. If you can maybe slow up some of his deliveries (I know this can be hard when lip-flaps are involved, so, yeah, if you can) that makes it sound like he just don't give a shit, Kenshiro's on his time. Like I said, I don't know the character, so this could just be me, but it's something to consider.

Next up we have Hyperknees on Kenshiro: With this...I'll admit, I didn't really like your voice here. My problem is that the gravely tone you are going for just doesn't sound natural. It sounds like you are putting it in a part of your throat that isn't very comfortable to talk in, and as such it sounds very forced. I would've just used your normal voice, or, if you really felt you needed to enhance the voice, I would've just gone for straight up depth. One of the problems that arose from putting the voice where you did was the transitions between him speaking and his "ATATATATATA"s was really jarring. That being said, I thought you did a wonderful job on the Bruce Lee-esque actions noises. Very fun stuff.

Now moving on to the performance itself. These sorts of characters can be so hard to play, since you need to make them sound stoic and badass, but also give them enough life and energy to keep them interesting. I felt like I wanted more verity in your takes, here. Your first line "I'm going to make this imperial procession your funeral" and your line "That's what you think. I've already seen through all of your techniques" were on the same level, with the same basic inflections. I think, like on the voice, you should relax more on the deliveries. There are a lot of subtleties to human speech, and in a performance for someone like Kenshiro, you are going to be relying on those subtleties to make the performance interesting. By trying so hard to BE stoic you aren't allowing for anything else to enter into the performance, and those subtleties are lost.

Last, but certainly never least Sraifus on Raoh: You didn't have enough lines for me to give an in-depth critique of, but...I mean, what can I say? I liked you here. The voice fit, the deliveries were fine. You done good, man. You done good.

Mixing: Some of the SFX were very subdued. Things like Souther's cape and Kenshiro's footsteps at the beginning stand out especially to me. Most of that is leveling stuff, which, I freely admit, I am terrible at, so I don't have too much in the way of constructive criticism to give. Apart from that, the only thing that really stood out to me when watching it was the lip-flaps. There were a lot of times where there were very obvious extra flaps. It's something to note for the future.

Good job overall. I enjoyed watching this, and I always love seeing Fist of the North Star! I really have nothing clever to close this out with, so I'll just say again, good job!

[hyperknees91]

Thanks all for the critiques, this is a rather difficult character type for me to play so it's going to require a lot of practice on my end. There is one more scene from this movie that I plan on doing so hopefully some improvement will be made on that.

[The Pawt]

How the hell did I miss that this was out? D: Uguuuuuuu

Myself as Souther - Wow... This sounds better than I remember my it sounding back in May, when I recorded for it O: Especially my laughters, I remember hating them for sounding so bad and, well, now they really don't sound so bad. What is this sorcery!? I do agree with what both JCx and Motly said. I think for the cockiness, I got too caught up in keeping up with Akio Otsuka's manly performance that it turned out a bit overacted, and as for the "Duel between..." line... Yeah, listening back to it, it really could've used more dynamics. The enunciation problems I agree with as well. Worst, in my opinion, was on the "Lightning-fast fists..." line. God, the s-sounds are sooooo swedish D: Ugh. Oh well, overall I really liked hearing myself as Souther and had a blast and a half playing him!

Hyperknees as Kenshiro - Now, I like both the early growly voice you had for Kenshiro as well as the one closer to your normal voice that you kinda faded into near the end, since in this movie, Kenshiro does have a rather low and growly voice whereas your normal voice is closer to how he sounds in the oldschool anime. But! Since you kinda switched between them, it took away a little from your overall performance. Had you stuck with one of them and really gone all out, I think it would've worked better! I liked your "ATATATATATATA!"s, but one thing Kenshiro does is to end them in a bigger "WATAAAH!" and I feel that that's something I would've loved to hear you do! I think you're good for Kenshiro, but you'll probably have to try to find a more consistent voice for him, for the second clip you're planning, so that you can really bring out all you've got for this guy!

Sarifus as Raoh - I swear, this was one of the most obvious scoutings I've ever done xD You are darned perfect for Raoh and you have a great mix between his original seiyuu's growly, commanding voice and the wiser, planning characterization of his seiyuu for this OVA movie. If this second clip Paul is planning is the one I think it is, I hope you get more lines to show off just how great you fit this role!

Mixing - Levelling was a bit off at some points (as has been pointed out) but I also thought the music was too low. I think it would've brought more mood into the scene if it was more audible, especially during the fight itself. Overall, though, I thought it was good! 8D