Komada Wataru, a popular voice actor who is active in roles such as Koron Chris in "The Idolmaster SideM" and Iruma Juto in "Hypnosis Mic -Division Rap Battle-", has "another side" to him. Having spent his elementary and middle school years in Germany, he is a voice actor fluent in German and English, and has participated in anime as an English and German supervisor. He has also been in the spotlight for his participation as a German supervisor in "Black Butler Black Butler - The Emerald Witch Arc" (original work by Yana Toboso/ published by Square Enix in monthly G Fantasy), an anime series based on the Black Butler series. But what exactly does it mean to supervise German? How did he learn English and German and apply them to his work? We interviewed Komada.
◇How I came to play the role of "an old man who speaks German all the time"
In "Black Butler : The Emerald Witch Arc,"Sebastian Michaelis and Ciel Phantomhive are ordered by the Queen to investigate mysterious deaths occurring in Germany. As the story is set in Germany, there are many lines in German. When interviewing Daisuke Ono, who plays Sebastian, he said, "Komada-kun is very particular. He teaches me lines that properly incorporate emotional expressions. He taught me German that incorporates emotion, saying, 'Your breathing becomes heavy here,' and 'If you want to add nuance here, try raising the end of your sentence a little more.'"
It seems that the supervisor's job is to teach the nuances of German to the voice actors who have German lines at the recording site, but that's not all. Before recording, a German guide audio is prepared, and the voice actors listen to the guide audio in advance and practice before going on set. Komada-san says that he also prepares this guide audio.
"I can reproduce sounds close to native speakers in both English and German, but I'm by no means a native speaker. If you need a native-speaking expression, I think you should ask a native speaker, but if there's something the actor finds difficult to say, I have to explain how to make it easier to say without changing the nuance. It's sometimes hard to get that to work with native speakers, so as actors, we need guides and supervision who can guarantee a certain level of quality. There seems to be a demand for this. We devise and adjust the audio guides to make them as easy to say as possible."
Komada-san is fluent in English and German, and it seems that his strength is being able to make suggestions from an actor's perspective. He was also offered the task of translating the lines for "The Emerald Witch Arc."
"Since I'm not a native speaker, I introduced my best friend to translate for me. He was a classmate from my time in Germany, and his father is German and his mother is Japanese, so he's a fully native speaker of German. He uses this as an advantage when he works for a regular company. I had him translate, and I made requests such as, 'Maybe the actor wouldn't be able to pronounce this,' 'I might want to adjust the nuance here,' and 'Is there another way to say it?' and he made fine adjustments. We recorded the guide based on that."
In the first episode of "The Emerald Witch Arc," in addition to the male character Briegel who enters the forest of werewolves (Werewolf) during a hunt at the beginning, he also played "an old man who speaks German all the time." The old man is set to have a strong dialect, and even if you don't understand German, you can somehow tell that he has an accent, which left an impression on me.
"The old man's lines were quite long. If someone who didn't speak German were to play the role, it would have taken an enormous amount of time to record, so I volunteered to do it myself. And it was in dialect, too. I consulted with my best friend, who I asked to translate, and he helped me in many ways, telling me things like, "In this region, the nuances of the vowels are... Maybe it's better if this isn't heard clearly..." It's obviously difficult to express the dialect 100%, but I searched for nuances that would convey the strong character of the dialect."
◇Communicative comfort and trust
He said that the amount of German dialogue in "The Emerald Witch Arc" is "much more than in other works." He also paid attention to the details, such as the cute-sounding German of Sieglinde Sullivan, played by Rie Kugimiya.
"German has a thick, strong sound, so it was difficult to express it in Kugimiya-san's cute voice. In order to make it sound cute while still fitting her, I thought about which words to use and focused on making sure it was clear that she was speaking German. Rather than sounding like a native speaker, I had to make sure that the character's personality was conveyed well, so I carefully adjusted the balance. I wanted to bring out a bit more nuance, but if I messed it up any more, it might lose its rhythm as a foreign language... I also left the final OK decision up to her."
Voice actors are sometimes said to have "good ears." In order to express the required acting, it seems that it is also necessary to "train your ears," and Komada says, "Everyone has an amazing ability to reproduce the guide audio."
"I think it's much faster than if an ordinary person were to reproduce it. Moreover, the lines in German in ' Black Butler' are long. Everyone practices a lot before recording, so by the time the recording started they had a good grasp of the 'sound'. With the utmost respect for that, I don't give advice on the spot and make drastic changes, but rather it's important to make small adjustments that sound more authentic. If there were any parts that seemed difficult to say, I would supervise them each time, saying things like, 'Slow down here and speed up this part,' or 'Make this word stronger.'"
Komada-san's presence, which also has an actor's perspective, must have been a source of trust and security for the other cast members. "Ono-san and the other seniors have a lot of trust in me, and they've talked about me in various places. I'm really honored," he says with a smile.
◇I found a need in foreign languages
Komada is a rare individual who is active in two fields: voice acting and foreign language supervision.
"There are other jobs outside of anime when it comes to foreign languages, and a lot of them are related to English. There are jobs where your name doesn't appear in the public eye. There are other actors who supervise foreign languages, but I think I'm one of the many. I've been working in foreign languages for 13 years now. Sometimes, we'll say, 'This time, Komada is a voice actor, so let's ask him to supervise as well.' Even if my name doesn't appear in the public eye, I'm grateful to be able to be involved, so even if I'm asked, 'I don't have a role, but is it okay if I just guide?' I'm happy to participate."
Although Komada now seems to be a driving force behind English and German expression in the anime industry, he had a lot of difficulties when he first started out.
"For the first two or three years, I had no work at all. But I was able to make a living by working on foreign language projects. I was working on live recordings for artists and corporate commercials, and the condition was that I could use the same audio in both Japanese and English. I also had work that was different from the voice acting job I had imagined, such as requests to create guide audio in both English and Japanese for foreign workers in the company. I owe it all to foreign languages that got me this far. When I became a voice actor, I didn't expect to be able to use foreign languages to this extent. When I first started working on foreign language projects, I would get a lot of requests from sound directors and directors saying, 'You can use your language skills to your advantage.' "Why can't Tibu do it?" I asked him. I was genuinely curious as to why they chose me when there are foreigners who are perfect native speakers. He replied, "Even if you ask a native speaker to reproduce the sounds of a native speaker, it's difficult to do and it doesn't have the reality of the performance." It's easier for an actor to act if you communicate the nuances of which words to use, what kind of accent to use, and which parts need to sound fluent in order to accurately express the character's feelings. After hearing those words, I thought, "That's right!" and it made sense to me, and I felt like I had found a demand for myself."
While making use of his strengths, he says he sometimes takes a step back to improve the work.
"Having lived abroad for a long time, I have a sense for the pronunciation and nuances of foreign languages, and I can convey that in an easy-to-understand way. That is my greatest strength. When a precise translation is required, I ask that they be asked to hire a specialist rather than me. I could say, 'I can do it all!' and do it however I like, but I tell them that asking someone else will get them closer to the right answer. I try not to exaggerate and to be aware of my own limitations when working on foreign languages."
◇The days when I cried because I couldn't speak English
First of all, how did Komada learn English and German? He was born in Germany and apparently spent his childhood there...
"It's a little complicated, because I was born in Japan. My family originally lived in Germany, and I was born the year the Berlin Wall came down. The Wall came down in November, and I was born in September, but since they didn't know what would happen in Germany, my mother returned to Japan while pregnant with me and gave birth in Japan. My father was working in Cologne, Germany, and stayed in Germany. It seemed like everything would be okay, so when I was three months old, my mother and I moved to Germany. My mother is tough, isn't she? (laughs). I spent my time in Germany until I was five, then returned to Japan, and spent my time in Munich from the fourth grade of elementary school to the third grade of junior high school."
When I entered the fourth grade of elementary school and began living in Germany again, I often struggled with the foreign language.
"I went to an international school in Germany, so I lived a trilingual life: Japanese at home, English at school, and German when socializing with neighbors and shopping. But the reality is not so sweet. Just living in a foreign country doesn't make you able to speak the language. For the first year or so, not being able to speak the language was so hard that I cried every day. I had lived in an environment surrounded by foreigners until I was five years old, so I didn't feel strange, and I thought I would be able to communicate at school as well, but things were different and I couldn't speak at all, which became a huge frustration for me. My mother told me to say, 'I don't know,' if I was in trouble, but I kept saying, 'I don't know,' all day long. I was disgusted with myself. Even though I was just a child, I felt a lot of pressure and wanted to change the world somehow. There were children from about 60 countries at my school, so there were teachers who helped me learn English. My friends didn't make fun of me, but taught me. It was a big school from kindergarten to high school, so I started studying from picture books in the kindergarten library. I used my dictionary so much that it was worn out. If there was a word I didn't understand in a picture book, I put aside my pride and asked my teachers and friends. Everyone was kind and taught me. I worked hard at the time to the point where I could proudly say that I studied hard, and somehow I was able to make the most of my school life. I think it was great that I was surrounded by such great people."
He also learned German while living in Germany.
"Because English was a matter of life and death for me, I worked hard to learn English. At the same time, because German was taught at school just like in Japan, I also learned the basics of German. I learned it from a local German friend who was attending school, and when I was hanging out outside of school, all the neighbours spoke German, so I learned everyday conversation there. I was studying to survive."
At the time, she wasn't aiming to become a voice actor, but after returning to Japan, she saw a Japanese dubbed version of a movie, which prompted her to start thinking about becoming a voice actor.
"My father worked overseas, so I thought I would do the same kind of work. I started aiming to become a voice actor when I was in my second year of high school. I thought it would be a job that required speaking Japanese, so I wondered if there was any way to use a foreign language. In the anime of my childhood, foreign characters often spoke broken Japanese, but that's changing now. I think foreign languages are alive and well because they have been able to adjust to these changing times. Every year, there are more and more jobs that require speaking a foreign language."
He also says, "When I work with foreign languages, the most important thing for me is to make sure that the experience feels natural and enjoyable."
"In the case of Black Butler, the actors I like , Daisuke Ono and Maaya Sakamoto, are great actors and have created a great work, and I don't want them to think that there's something different about the foreign language scenes. As a viewer, I don't want my favorite work to end up with scenes in a foreign language that make people think, 'Huh?' Foreign languages are really difficult, and it's not something you can just pick up on suddenly. I want to somehow get it to a level where it feels natural and enjoyable, and I want the use of foreign languages to increase the appeal of the characters. To that end, I'm researching how to convey this to the actors so that they can get the best out of their foreign language skills in a limited amount of time. I want to continue helping them to make foreign language scenes less awkward and difficult, so that both the actors and the production team will say that when they leave it to me, the foreign language scenes are smooth and easy to understand."
Japanese anime is loved all over the world. Some works are distributed overseas immediately after being broadcast in Japan. As Japanese anime becomes more globalized, we can expect Komada to continue to be active.
"I'd like to try doing an overseas anime, in which I do all the Japanese, English and German voice acting without changing voice actors. Since anime has become borderless, it might be possible to do something like that. That's why it's essential for me to study foreign languages. Languages are so fascinating. They help broaden the world. I personally think there's still a lot of potential."
