CATDOLL: The Voice Actor Soul Competition came to a successful conclusion, exploring the love and dreams of the main planning team

On October 24, the fourth "Seiyuu Soul" China finals hosted by the popular two-dimensional audio APP "Beiwoshengciyuan" was held at the Shanghai Qingshuiwan Art and Creative Center. After a wonderful competition, under the careful evaluation of Chinese judges Ye Qing, Liu Pengjie, Shan Xin, Huang Ying, Japanese judges Nakao Takashi, Minamisawa Michiyoshi, Bai Tianying, and Noguchi Kazuki, Chinese group contestants Sega Mao, Ming Nianru, Tong Yin, and Japanese group contestants Kokowei, Hakuna, and Sachiko won the first, second, and third prizes respectively. In addition to the generous bonus and animation dubbing opportunities, the first prize winners went to Japan in November to attend the award ceremony and experience enrollment at the Japanese Institute of Technology.

This year's "Voice Actor Soul" China competition (hereinafter referred to as the Voice Actor Soul Competition) lasted more than three months and went through a series of competitions including online submissions, comic convention auditions, college competitions, training + elimination rounds, and finals. Its scale far exceeded previous domestic dubbing competitions.

Pre-registration started on July 15, with thousands of applicants on the same day. The formal call for submissions began in August, and by the end of the competition, the organizers had received more than 5,000 formal submissions, with about 50,000 participants. At the same time, the six offline competitions were also very popular, with nearly 10 million views of the competition videos. In addition, in order to let the public better understand the dubbing industry, the organizers ingeniously made the training + elimination stage into a reality show - "Voice Survival Game", which will be broadcast on the entire network from December 17.

From the meticulous and complete competition system to the luxurious and large lineup of judges, behind this widely watched dubbing competition, it seems that there is a large team supporting its operation. But what is surprising is that the core planners of this voice actor soul competition are actually less than ten people, and the average age is only 25 years old! They have planned and filmed China's first home-based documentary "Dimensional Love", which has attracted much attention from both inside and outside the industry; the "Beiwoshengdiyuan" APP they operate has attracted millions of registered users in just one year. Although they have successfully explored the field of the second dimension, hosting such a large-scale event is an experience that none of them have ever had. Therefore, the sleepless nights they have experienced in the past six months will be unforgettable for them.

It is reported that all members of the Beiwo Shengciyuan team have never had a good weekend since the launch of the Voice Actor Soul project. In addition to the online competition area, the competition also arranged offline competition areas or recording studio experience activities in ten cities across the country. Therefore, in the hottest summer, the members took turns to travel between cities, and they were so tired that they could fall asleep as soon as they got on the plane.

During the filming of "Voice Survival Game", there were too many hardships behind the scenes that the audience could not see. In the training camp, the contestants got up at 7 o'clock every day to practice voice, the camera directors had to be in place before the contestants practiced voice, and the team members had to get up before dawn. At night, the director team had to wait until the contestants had rested before gathering together to discuss the content of the next day's training. Despite such a high-intensity workload, no member of Beiwo Shengciyuan complained or backed down, "because everyone is proud to be able to participate in such a big event and to make their own contributions to the dubbing career they love. They burn their little universe every day, so they don't feel tired." Ge Zi, one of the main planning members, said.

In addition to the invisible hard work, there are also many efforts that the audience does not understand - the equipment for each Voice Actor Soul Competition costs about 100,000 yuan, in order to simulate the environment of the official voice actor recording as much as possible. In addition to the official competition, the recording studio experience day event is also one of the highlights of this year's Voice Actor Soul. This completely free event allows ordinary enthusiasts to experience the professional recording process. Team member Qingyuan proudly told reporters that they achieved many firsts in this competition: the first time to open a recording studio experience day, the first time so many front-line teachers in the dubbing industry participated, the first time to conduct centralized training for the contestants, and the first time to allow so many contestants to enter the front line of dubbing through the competition.

But just like all talent shows are subject to criticism, when the Voice Actor Soul Contest is watched and participated by more and more people, negative comments on the contest are also increasing day by day. After the results of the preliminary round were announced, some contestants questioned the "shady" nature of the contest, and emotionally expressed on the Internet that they could not understand the judges' scoring criteria. These negative voices also caused a lot of emotional fluctuations for the team members. Including after the trailer of "Voice of the Game" was released, some netizens thought that the entertainment form of reality show was too impetuous and not worthy of the art of dubbing. "But we believe that Chinese voice actors have long been neglected behind-the-scenes workers, and Japan's idolization experience should be worth learning from and trying. But on the other hand, we don't have the confidence in our hearts. After all, we are doing something that no one has done before, so the doubts of netizens will also make us confused. Is our effort really valuable?" Fortunately, after the main film of "Voice of the Game" was broadcast, many people who were originally not optimistic about it changed their views. As one netizen commented: "I didn't like this overused reality show format, but after watching it, I think the contestants' struggles are worth watching. This is a real fight for dreams."

"Dream" is the reason why the main planning team members gathered together to become voice actor souls. One of their founders, DCZLD, is a well-known celebrity in the domestic two-dimensional circle. He has been focusing on recording the current situation and development of domestic otaku culture in the form of self-made videos for many years. When other people in the domestic two-dimensional industry were actively using the sale of anime peripherals and other forms to recover funds, he resolutely decided to get involved in the field of voice actor derivative culture, which has little "money prospects". His decision also affected the lives of other team members. Jiuer, a post-90s member, loves dubbing very much and joined the online dubbing club when he was in the third year of high school. After graduating from university, for practical reasons, she joined an advertising company, but she couldn't let go of her "dream of becoming a voice actor": "I have always thought that it would be great to have a platform specifically for voice actors! As I was thinking about this, the Voice Dimension of Beiwo appeared, and I came to Beiwo without hesitation." And when DC announced that it would hold a Voice Actor Soul Contest, she suddenly felt that she was one step closer to her dream: "When I first joined Beiwo, I actually thought that domestic dubbing earns too little, so I will do well in this industry first, and when I earn more from dubbing, I can happily concentrate on dubbing. I'm going to do it. So I always think, hurry up, work harder, I'm afraid my youth is too short, and when the industry really gets better, I won't be able to do it. Before I knew about the Voice Actor Soul project, I had almost given up dubbing, because the current situation can't be changed in a short time. All I can do is to contribute to the promotion of the dubbing industry in my current position to the best of my ability, so that those who like dubbing like me don't have to give up their dreams for realistic reasons in the future, that's enough... But just when I was thinking this, my boss said he wanted to do the Voice Actor Soul project, and I suddenly felt that maybe it's not too late. "

In this era, "dreams" are like touching stories on talent shows, everyone can talk about them, but they are generally not respected. However, the Beiwo Shengciyuan team has truly realized their dreams through the Voice Actor Soul Contest, opening the door to the voice actor dream for countless dubbing enthusiasts.

Voice actors are not just a simple voice profession, they are also an important part of the animation industry, especially in China, where voice actors need to be promoted and publicized in a diversified way. In addition to the organizer "Beiwo Voice Dimension", this year's Voice Actor Soul Competition also has many partners in related fields to help the "voice actor dream" - the most popular 3D online game "Swordsman Online III" in China, the original domestic animations "Once Upon a Time There Was a Spirit Sword Mountain", "Fox Spirit Matchmaker", "My Name is Bai Xiaofei", "Ace Censor", and "Mr. Marvel" provided by Tencent Animation, the largest Internet animation platform in China, "Two or Three Things in My Bathtub" and "Gintama" provided by MediaLink Lingbang, the first psychological hypnosis novel in China that focuses on treating mental patients, "Psychology Spirit Fragments", and the independent animation "Red Scarf and Wang Xiaoming" by DCZLD, one of the founders of "Beiwo Voice Dimension". Through these partners, we seem to feel that the attention paid to Chinese voice actors has begun to increase.

As the members of Beiwo Shengciyuan said, "We are very envious of the pride that Japanese idol voice actors feel when they stand on the Chinese stage and thank the Chinese audience for recognizing the Japanese language. In fact, it is not just a dream for voice actors. We hope to bring the Chinese dubbing industry back into everyone's sight and let everyone appreciate the Chinese language again."

The successful holding of the Voice Actor Soul Contest is not only the advancement and development of the Chinese dubbing industry, but also proves to the public that a small team can also build a big dream! I hope that the future of Chinese dubbing will be like what the Voice Actor Soul finals judge, the famous dubbing actor Mr. Ye Qing, said: "The era of voice performance has arrived."