Lindsay Jones, Kara Eberle, Arryn Zech and Barbara Dunkelman have come a long way in their voice acting careers since they first stepped into their RWBY roles nearly a decade ago. With RWBY: Ice Queendom being set between Vols. 1 and 2 of the original series, all four women have the unique opportunity to revisit the younger versions of their characters as more experienced voice actors. They're also dubbing their own characters for the first time as opposed to being the primary performers, which has created a whole new experience and different challenges.
Compared to recording for the main series, dubbing for Ice Queendom means RWBY's English voice cast is doing the exact opposite of what they normally do. When working on the main RWBY series, the voice actors' lines are recorded first and the characters are later animated to their vocal performances. Since Ice Queendom was produced in Japan, the characters were animated first and RWBY's Japanese voice cast recorded their lines during production. After the anime was completed, the English voice cast began recording their lines, but they did more than sync their voices to the characters' mouth movements; they also relied on the performances of their Japanese counterparts to guide their own delivery, which resulted in both similarities and key differences between the two versions of Ice Queendom.
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Lindsay Jones Is a More Mature-Sounding Ruby Rose
In the original Japanese version of RWBY: Ice Queendom, Ruby Rose is voiced by her Japanese dub actor, Saori Hayami. Between dubbing for the main RWBY series and being the primary performer for Ice Queendom, Hayami's performance as Ruby doesn't really change. Since Ruby during her Beacon days is written with child-like innocence and childish aspirations, Hayami recaptures this aspect of her character in Ice Queendom. She achieves this by raising the pitch of her voice and giving Ruby more explosive emotions to express her easy excitability, just as before.
For the English dub of Ice Queendom, Lindsay Jones reprises her role as Ruby but doesn't portray her the same way she did a decade ago. Not only has Jones evolved as a voice actor since her earlier days, but she's also polished the way she portrays Ruby, even the younger version. For her new take on Ruby in Ice Queendom, Jones still recaptures the character's child-like innocence by elevating the pitch of her voice but is now much more nuanced in how she conveys her emotions. As such, the English version of Ruby sounds a bit more mature than her more childish Japanese counterpart in Ice Queendom.
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Barbara Dunkelman Is a Warmer, Nurturing Yang Xiao Long
When it comes to Yang Xiao Long, she is once again voiced by her Japanese dub actor, Ami Koshimizu, who leads the character's portrayal in Ice Queendom. Just as her original depiction in the main RWBY series, the Ice Queendom version of Yang is once again adventurous and easily excitable. Yang is also famous for being something of a jokester during her Beacon days and is known to speak without a filter. Koshimizu easily recaptures these aspects of Yang's character through her highly energetic elocution and exploding with emotion in the scenes that demand it. As such, Koshimizu's Yang is easily one of the most expressive characters in Ice Queendom.
For the English dub, Barbara Dunkelman once again reprises her role. Like Jones, however, Dunkelman has also refined her portrayal of Yang, especially since there is now more backstory compared to what was originally known about the character in Vol. 1. Before Yang revealed she was a parentified child in the Vol. 2 episode "Burning the Candle," it was easily assumed Yang was just the fun older sister who was the life of the party. While Dunkelman recaptures this aspect of her character by being highly expressive in the scenes that demand it, she also hints at the character's tragic backstory with a warm, nurturing delivery. As such, English Yang doesn't always explode with emotion the way her Japanese counterpart does in some scenes.
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Arryn Zech Is a More Downbeat, Cynical Blake Belladonna
RWBY's popular bisexual Faunus, Blake Belladonna, is once again voiced by her Japanese dub actor, Yu Shimamura, in Ice Queendom. Known for her calm and quiet demeanor, Blake was known to keep to herself during her days at the Beacon Academy and rarely let anyone get close to her, including her teammates Ruby and Yang and especially Weiss Schnee. Shimamura once again recaptures Blake's reserved personality in Ice Queendom by presenting her with a soft, soothing voice that doesn't convey strong emotion but does express profound distrust in humanity. When Blake wants to assert her boundaries with people she doesn't want to associate with, Shimamura gives her a slightly forceful voice.
For the English dub of Ice Queendom, Arryn Zech also reprises her role as Blake, but compared to Jones and Dunkelman, there isn't much difference in how she portrays the character. Just as with her previous portrayal of Blake in the main series, Zech once again presents the character with a calm and soothing voice that conveys a lack of interest in human interaction. Zech will also speak slightly more forcefully in scenes where is clearly annoyed with someone. While this makes Zech's performance nearly identical to her Japanese counterpart, she differs from Shimamura in how she captures Blake's internal sadness. Whereas Shimamura depicts Blake as hiding this aspect of herself, Zech hints at it with slower elocution.
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Kara Eberle Is a More Snobbish Weiss Schnee
As the main character of RWBY: Ice Queendom, Weiss Schnee's Japanese dub actor, Yoko Hikasa, had the hardest job among her cast mates. For Ice Queendom, Hikasa voiced three different versions of her character: normal Weiss, nightmare Weiss and Weiss as a child. To capture the emotional depth of each version of the character, Hikasa uses different nuances in her delivery. To recapture Weiss's original characterization from her Beacon days, Hikasa uses sonkeigo and a haughty elocution to strongly convey her narcissism. To portray her character's nightmare version, Hikasa uses a colder, hostile voice to capture her internalized anger. For the child version of Weiss, Hikasa elevates the pitch of her voice and uses a more child-like elocution.
While only the first two episodes of the English dub are available for streaming, Weiss's original voice actor, Kara Eberle, is already demonstrating her new take on her character. Gone are the days when Weiss originally showed up at Beacon Academy with a hard valley girl accent and a "mean girl" personality. In her place is a more nuanced Weiss who is burdened by the weight of a traumatic childhood that will become the centerpiece of the Ice Queendom storyline. Though Eberle still depicts Weiss as condescending to her future teammates, her narcissism is more toned down and is presented as less hostile, which is different from Hikasa's portrayal.
With this difference already in place from the Japanese version of normal Weiss, it will be interesting to see how Eberle depicts the nightmare version of the character and her childish counterpart. In the same way that these different versions of Weiss resulted in Hikasa using her full vocal range as an actor, Eberle could also find herself expanding her range to capture the violent hostility of nightmare Weiss and the child-like innocence of little Weiss.
