The new Naruto Game (Naruto X Boruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections) seems to have some strange choices for line delivery. When a bunch of Twitter users started asking what was with the poor delivery given, the voice actors started questioning it themselves. The voice actress for Naruto outright said that she could guarantee she didn’t give that kind of delivery.
“I can GUARANTEE I did not say that line that way. What’s that from? And I guarantee no voice director of Naruto or the games would have me do that in that way.”
Maile Flanagan (Voice Actress for Naruto)
The voice actor for Kawaki sent the clips to a friend to see if they were AI-modified and got results that stated they were. He wasn’t happy to see the changes:
“Okay, this needs an explanation ASAP. I sent a couple of these clips to a friend. He ran the audio through an AI detection program and look at these results. First is Wake You Up, then power of gaaahhd.
This was a union game. Generative AI use is supposed to be forbidden.”
Michael Schwalbe (Voice actor for Kawaki)
This could be a bad edit, or likely, it could be an AI-made edit of the voices. Even still, these are some terrible renditions of the lines, so I’m not sure why Bandai would choose these. It’s like they wanted the game to be received poorly.
I can see the love of AI lately by companies, but this is why I’m not afraid. This is how good AI actually is, it’s just a cheap knockout that’s been blown way out of proportion. Most people who use it need to do heavy editing just to get it to sound right. At that point, why wouldn’t you just have the voice actor do it correctly?
While we’ll have to wait for a response from Bandai to confirm if it’s true or not, the voice actors’ actions raise questions about how Bandai games are made. Hopefully, it’s just a misunderstanding.
Comments