Japanese voice over for Japan and export

By who is speaking to whom, which you tell us at brief stage. Japanese marks respect in the grammar rather than the tone, so it is fixed in the writing and cannot be adjusted while recording. Customer-facing corporate work, internal training and consumer advertising each sit at a different level. We review the script for register before the session and flag anything that reads as too blunt or too deferential for the audience.

Yes, more than in most languages, because Japanese distinguishes words by pitch pattern and the standard is the Tokyo one. A voice actor from a Kansai background reads with a different pattern that Japanese listeners hear immediately, which is right if the content is deliberately local and wrong for national work. We cast to the Tokyo standard unless you ask for otherwise.

Send the script, the deadline and who the listener is meant to be — a customer, an employee, a regulator. In Japanese that changes the verb endings throughout, so it is a casting question as much as a translation one. We shortlist, record, edit and deliver, with the quote free and itemised.

We set the register — polished keigo for corporate, warmer for consumer — from your audience before recording. Send your brief and we'll confirm the tone on the quote.

Yes. Our Japanese voice actors can perform in Standard Japanese as well as regional variants, and we help match the choice to your project's tone, audience and content type during casting.

Most compact projects turn around in a day or two — timing scales with script length and talent availability, and you will have a confirmed deadline before we start.

One thing worth budgeting for in Japanese that does not appear in the word count: a pronunciation pass. Personal and place names written in kanji can have several legitimate readings, and there is no way to work out from the characters alone which one a given company or person uses. Getting that wrong is the error Japanese listeners notice fastest. Beyond it, the quote is a session fee plus a licence sized to the media, itemised, with our Price Match Promise.

Yes, and subtitling Japanese has its own constraint: the writing has no spaces between words, so line breaks have to fall at grammatical boundaries a non-speaker cannot see. Left to an automatic wrap, a caption can split a word in half.

Japanese encodes the relationship between speaker and listener in the grammar itself, and it is not optional — every sentence commits to a level of formality whether the writer intended one or not. That is why a native director sits in on our Japanese sessions: the register has to be right across the whole read, not just in the sentences someone checked.

Expect your Japanese recording in the format your project calls for — WAV, MP3, AIFF and others — at broadcast quality, delivered as individual files or one mix.

Japanese is in heavy demand for automotive, technology and gaming, anime and entertainment, beauty and cosmetics, and the corporate and tourism content produced by Japan's many global brands. We cast and direct to the category — precise and premium for tech and automotive, warm and characterful for entertainment and consumer work.

Register matters enormously in Japanese. We set the level of politeness — from friendly and casual to formal keigo — to match your audience and brand, and direct for the natural, contemporary delivery Japanese listeners expect rather than a stiff or literal read.

Less than people expect: the script, or the draft of it, its total running time or word count, where the recording will be used, and the date you need it by. If the script is not signed off yet, send the draft anyway — we would rather quote on what exists than wait for a version that eats your deadline. A named project manager comes back with an itemised quote, normally within four working hours.

More than half of enquiries get a reply within thirty minutes during office hours (Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm UK time), and the itemised quote normally follows within four working hours. After that you have one dedicated project manager who owns the job from brief to final file — not a ticket queue, and not a different name on every email. If it is easier, call +44 207 095 5730 and ask for them by name.

Yes, and it is one of the commonest reasons people get in touch. Tell us it is for a pitch and you get a figure you can put in front of your own client, itemised so it stands up to being picked apart, with no obligation and no follow-up sales calls if the pitch goes elsewhere. If it lands, the quote still holds and we already know the project.