by Anna Kunnecke
I got my first break in the Tokyo voice acting scene when I was cast to do the voice of a character in the fourth installment of a popular video game. Fourth, people. It wasn't exactly like voicing the newest Miyazaki anime. But I was thrilled to have the work and do something that would get me on imdb.com the internet movie database for those who don't know (except it didn't, and that's another story).
That led to some more gigs, and as a barely-making-rent-but-technically-professional-actor I was elated each time my phone rang. I didn't ask a lot of questions. So one day I showed up to a job still totally wet behind the ears and was handed the regulation sheaf of script. But something was wrong. These weren't lines spoken by the warrior character I'd been told about over the phone; this was the voice of a little girl. And bad things were happening to this little girl. Very very bad things. And she was asking for more; in this script, see, she liked it.
I handed back the script and said I wouldn't do it. Can I even begin to tell you how much courage this required of me, or how foolish it seemed in terms of my fledgling career? The agent looked at me with disgusted fury. She reminded me that they could charge me for the entire cost of the studio and the engineer and director's time, that they could sue me for breach of contract, and that furthermore if I walked out now I would never ever work again. I countered by saying that kid porn was not what I agreed to do. But there was no contract. It was all verbal, her word against mine.
Another foreign voice actor in the studio, someone whose acting prowess I greatly admired, turned to me with mild concern and counseled, "Really, Anna, be professional. It's just acting, it's just an illusion. That's what it's all about."
I felt sure that there was a difference between 1) voicing painful and wrenching scenes when they served a larger and important story and 2) pretending to enjoy being raped so that someone could get off on a video game about torturing kids. But I couldn't really articulate the argument at the time, what with all the adrenaline coursing through my veins.
I stood my ground anyway.
Needless to say, I never heard from that agency again.
But after following the debate over this Japanese video game http://www.slate.com/id/2213073/ , I'm glad to say that after all these years, I'm pretty darn sure--no, make that 120%-proof-positive--that I'm not sorry at all.
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