England's Voice Actor and 2 Seconds of America

[americanheroal.livejournal.com]

So Scott Freeman landed the role of Arthur Kirkland. This is Scott's first major roll and has been working as a background voice actor for a while with Funimation.

Youtube and FB is buzzing with comments and opinions and so it's our turn. What do you think of the English voice for England? (Or "Bri'en" as America seems to call him)

By the way, if you enjoy watching Hetalia online then I suggest you get the DVDs. It chalk full of extras including interviews with the Japanese voice actors.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR6gyYMUESE

Comments

[haro.livejournal.com]

To someone not from the UK, generally the stereotypes that comes to mind when someone says 'British' are 'English' ones. It's the predominant culture associated with the UK amongst non-Brits for the most part. Say Scottish and they'll imagine kilts for example, but if you say Britain, the first thing to come to mind for a lot of non-Brits (and certainly Americans) is generally going to be London, Big Ben, etc. So since the series is about international stereotypes, even when calling him Britain, it kind of makes sense that they'd go for an English accent. And as you said above, England the character is definitely a stereotype of an Englishman, not a Scotsman or a Welshman.

[ekazoo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you're right. I think the issue I have is that when referring to the character as Britain and acknowledging that the characters represent countries.... he should really be England. Then calling him Britain and giving him an English accent, it's just not accurate. But like you said, people who are not from the UK will automatically think of London etc when they hear the word Britain, so in that case it does make sense because of international stereotypes.

I still think that it would have been much easier and just as accurate to use England instead of Britain, but oh well XD