Voice Acting Agency
A voice acting agency (声優事務所, seiyū jimusho, lit. "voice actor office") refers to an entertainment agency focusing on voice acting. Also called voice actor production (声優プロダクション).
Basically, it refers to a production company in which the majority of the talent are (full-time) voice actors.
There are also theatrical troupes (acting company) and agencies with a large number of actors who work as voice actors but mainly appear in the media, but if the talent is not mainly involved in voice work, it is not often called a voice actor agency. However, this article also introduces such theater companies and entertainment agencies.
There are also many production companies that serve as casting agents for freelance voice actors, actors, talents, singers, and other non-professional voice actors who belong to other agencies, in the form of "voice-only deposit" or "business tie-up".
Characteristics
The following is a list of some characteristics of a voice-over agency compared to a typical entertainment agency (note that the contributors are amateurs, so do not rely on them too much, but use them only as a reference).
- Casting for productions, especially for supporting roles, minor roles, guest characters, and one-off productions, tends to reflect the opinions of the sound staff (sound director (or "director" in the case of dubbing), producers of sound production companies, etc.), and even the agency to which the main actors belong does not have much say. For this reason, the power of the agency is relatively weak in relation to the voice actors belonging to it. Aoni Productions is somewhat of an exception, but even so, it is not as powerful as a typical entertainment agency.
- The Actors Guild (Japan Actors Union) is well established, and although there is no division of labor, there is a certain amount of casting expertise, which is rather closer to the world of actors in Hollywood and other foreign countries than to the Japanese entertainment industry (except that the pay is about four digits lower on a daily basis when compared to top-class salaries).
- If you have the ability to be nominated by sound production companies to receive work, you can work as a freelancer. The disadvantage is that auditions are also not accepted without a nomination.
- In the general entertainment industry, transfers and independence are often the subject of mass media coverage, but in the case of voice actor agencies, it is often a smooth process (although there have been cases of trouble), perhaps reflecting the aforementioned power relations. Negotiations with the new company are done after the contract is up, and it is a general rule of thumb that no one is pulled out from one agency to another, so transferring is not always easy, but there are fewer ties than with a general entertainment agency. There should be no such thing as a "no go" to performing together at the behest of an agency.
- Many talent agencies have voice actors involved in their establishment, and it is not uncommon for voice actors to serve as representatives (both are rare for general entertainment agencies other than theatrical companies, with the exception of private agencies).
- Managers do not usually accompany the recording of animation or dubbing (they often do for events, etc.).
- Many of them have their own affiliated training schools or are based on training schools. The only major voice acting agencies that do not have a permanent training school are Office Osawa and vi-vo (comedy agencies also have many training schools, but it is thought that voice acting agencies have a higher percentage of their revenue from training schools than from voice actor agencies).
