I asked this a while ago on another forum and wanted ask it here. As we all know in the original 90s anime, the Sailor Starlights transform from guys into girls. I wonder if they'll have two actors playing the roles?

Moderator's Note:

This thread has been moved into the General SM Discussion area because I think it is more suited there, since this doesn't quite qualify as a theory or debate. Thanks for understanding!

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As for my opinion on the topic, I think this is a really good question, Jess-chan! I could see why they might use two actors because of the vocal differences, but I think that using a voice actress with a lower-pitched/more masculine voice (like Haruka) would work just fine. I don't see why the production company would spend money hiring 2 actors instead of 1, so I also think that this is the more likely scenario. How did they do it in the original dub?

Since the Stars arc never got dubbed officially in English, there's not much precedent for this, but I feel like they'd just do what Sailor Gallifrey suggested and hire one voice actor. There are plenty of women with the voice range to fit them, so I don't see them getting a male and female to do the job. It's not uncommon for women to voice young boys anyway.

Isn't there still a precedent though with what the original Japanese version did?  I'm pretty sure they only had one VA with a tone that could pass for either so I don't see why the dub would do things differently.   I mean it's not like they really tried to pretend they were different characters to fool the audience.  They look the same except boobs vs no boobs.  Plus I always just assumed that all the Sailor Senshi sound different to others  as part of the identity concealing magic compared to how we just hear their normal voices to avoid confusion.  So I would be surprised to see them feel the need to break that trend and actually give them different voices while transformed.

That's also true, but I guess there's always a faint possibility that they could go a different direction from the Japanese dub.

Sailor Gallifrey wrote:

Moderator's Note:

This thread has been moved into the General SM Discussion area because I think it is more suited there, since this doesn't quite qualify as a theory or debate. Thanks for understanding!

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Sorry I didn't realize I posted in the wrong section

The VA's will probably have masculine voices, a la the new Uranus VA, so they can go back and forth with their pitch.

I imagine that the voice actors would have the capability of changing his/her pitch. But, Ranma 1/2 did employ two voice actors for Ranma Saotome, who regularly switched back and forth between male and female. So, I suppose there is precedence in other shows for this sort of situation.

It would make sense to have female voice actors, especially since they are often used for male characters, especially in anime.  I wonder if they'll even do the gender switching, since that wasn't in the manga.

I think with the dub of 90s stars they'll definitely maintain the gender switching as well as the female voice actors, because its been pretty consistent with the original Japanese version, plus changing all the transformation scenes would be a lot of effort for something that would make a lot of people mad.

However, with Crystal, they probably won't even do the gender switching, as you said, since it wasn't in the manga. Even if they did for some reason maintain it, they will probably still only use 1 voice actress for each character.

I suspect they will select female voice actresses. I'm actually wondering if they won't have different-sounding voices between the two forms. I suppose we'll see when they begin releasing the episodes or make announcements about any decisions (such as hiring notices, teasers, etc.). ♥ Even though I'm not terribly invested in the new dub, I am curious to see what they'll opt for.

I imagine they'd hire actresses who have a deeper voice, or who can go deeper. I haven't watched the new dub, but I understand they did something similar with Haruka, so I don't see them doing anything much different with the Starlights.

The voices for the Starlights, Galaxia and Chibi-Chibi have been revealed!

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2019-05-14/viz-unveils-sailor-moon-stars-dub-cast/.146677