Talk:Porco Rosso

Identifying voices
Since the BTVA.com forums will be down for the weekend, I’ll share whatever I can find regarding the JAL Dub here.

Firstly, I think I’ve identified Mike Worman as a minor role. I feel pretty confident in saying he’s the Bank Teller who only has 2 lines (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fhq1qCbt7Ps). His voice fits Worman’s typical voice pretty well, only more aged and relaxed in comparison to previous roles like Aladdin or Swan Lake, obviously due to being dubbed about a decade after those 2 examples.

Aladdin Frontier Dub (Worman starts at 35:55): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW5LGbzl6jo

Swan Lake (Worman starts at 0:16): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YjP2nvpy__4

I also can’t help but get the feeling the son of the Munitions Engineer (Barry Gjerde) is played by Jeff Manning. Which is weird because Manning’s never played any child roles as far as I know, it’s obvious it’s a grown adult doing a young boy voice but for some reason my mind keeps reading it as Manning. Any thoughts? That being said, the Journalist guy is definitely Jeff Manning from the sound of it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qBFoIeqTyKo

--Graystoked (talk) 09:41, August 3, 2019 (UTC)

So I recently watched the dub of the Tezuka OVA Rain Boy (Amerfuri Kozou) on animefive.com based on the fact Lynn Harris was credited as being the titular character on ANN and the listing was correct, it was definitely Harris’ voice. Harris could also be heard voicing a few minor young girl characters which leads me be to believe that all the Kidnapped Girls were voiced by Lynn Harris and I feel really stupid for not coming to this conclusion sooner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_0_ofaPZAM

Speaking of the Rain Boy OVA, 2 other familiar voices also showed up in the dub (This dub has no credits), the main character’s dad definitely sounded like Mike Worman and there was also a narrator who briefly said things like “A year later” and “40 years later” that was unmistakably William Ross.

--Graystoked (talk) 21:33, August 3, 2019 (UTC)

Okay so I was recently looking over the voices again, and I found THIS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0Ts5hSsixU&app=desktop

Like woah.

--Graystoked (talk) 10:13, August 6, 2019 (UTC)

Listening to Worman's role in Covert Ops - Nuclear Dawn, you may be correct. I myself am not too sure; Worman's pretty distinct and I'm not really hearing it. The voice has more of a Ted Lehmann/John Baddeley quality to it that Worman typically doesn't have. https://youtu.be/KtJklwON2rs?t=265

As for Ross, I'm not too sure about that because it seems there's not a whole lot to work with beyond that one line. One thing to note is that Ross had a habit of casting himself in more major roles so him only having a one-liner seems odd (assuming he and Frontier was behind the JAL dub at all).

Everything else sounds correct, but I'm not too familiar with Tokyo's talent pool. --Bladez636 (talk) 17:56, August 7, 2019 (UTC)

Watched a little bit of Swan Lake again and looking back, I think there’s also a chance the Bank Teller was played by Don Johnson because his Benno voice has a similar sound to it.

--Graystoked (talk) 20:57, August 8, 2019 (UTC)

I’ve been doing my best to avoid speculating about the voices of major characters in the dub such as Piccolo and the Mama Aiuto Captain because they have pretty stereotypical cartoon voices literally anyone could do which is why I’ve been mostly focusing on characters who have less exaggerated voices who’d be easier to identify but now I feel I must try to tackle the big question. Porco’s voice.

I’ve recently come down to a couple of candidates but I have my reservations, so I’m not going jump to any conclusions. There’s every chance our guy was just some person who did this role as a one-off and never did dubbing or voice acting again.

Porco’s Voice: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6GTsfQuJpG8

Lanny Broyles: His Harlock voice (https://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/Lanny-Broyles/) gives off a similar kinda vibe but of cause similar doesn’t equal same. I’d still say there’s a slither of a chance he could’ve done it.

Walter Caroll: I don’t own either Mystery of Mamo or Cyborg 009 to go over every line of his but I have seen My Youth in Acadia recently and luckily there’s a 009 sample (https://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/movies/Cyborg-009-Legend-of-the-Super-Galaxy/Cyborg-009-Joe-Shimamura/) on BTVA to go off. Of what I’ve heard of him his 009 voice sounds the most similar of his roles to Porco in the dub but Broyles sounds closer so he’s the lesser of my candidates.

Richard Nieskens: This an assumption based pretty much on his narrator voice from Dagger of Kamui which sounds closer to Porco than either Broyles or Caroll but considering Nieskens moved to Hong Kong and lived there during the early 90s it seems unlikely he go back to Japan and do another dub there since he probably got a lot more work in Hong Kong. That being said, considering one actor could usually record their main role in just a day in the Tokyo and Hong Kong dubbing world he could’ve gone back to Japan at anytime on holiday or something. If I remember correctly in his interview he might’ve stayed in touch with Will Ross by letter so who knows. A possibility but considering his circumstances, doubtful.

Patrick Harlan: This is the newest guy I’ve come across and I’d say he’s the one I feel the most confident about. He came to Japan in 1993 but only moved to Tokyo in 1996, with the dub premiering on Laserdisc in August that same year. Unfortunately I couldn’t find an English source for when exactly he came to Tokyo so this is really cutting it close as far as the timeline is concerned. Harlan would’ve had to have come to Tokyo during the same year the dub was produced for Japan Airlines AND the dub would’ve had to been released on LD not long afterwards if he really was in the dub. The big advantage this guy has over all the others is he has both a naturally deep voice and one that sounds similar to Porco’s voice. Unfortunately he didn’t do a whole lot of voice acting so there aren’t a lot of roles of his to compare to Porco as he works as a comedian. He also has no official way to contact him as far as I’m aware but the similarities in voices are worth bringing up I think.

Harlan in Resident Evil Survivor: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SKxn-488wSs&list=PL808A5CDDC7DAB439&index=23&t=0s

Harlan’s regular voice: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5CRBbJWVejc

Porco’s voice: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6GTsfQuJpG8

That’s about all for now, one of the Mama Aiuto Gang Pirates also show up in the English dub of the Rain Boy OVA but considering that dub has no credits on it I can’t really do anything about it. --Graystoked (talk) 08:05, August 14, 2019 (UTC)

EDIT: Apparently Lanny Broyles came to Japan in 1987, which was also the year the edited Arcadia of My Youth dub which he starred in was released on VHS. So perhaps there is the possibility of the Porco Rosso dub recorded the same year it was released on LD if Patrick Harlan did indeed voice Porco. Looking back, I think there’s a bigger chance either Lanny Broyles or Walter Carroll voiced Piccolo rather than Porco.

JAL Piccolo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptzwlyprkks

--Graystoked (talk) 11:39, August 16, 2019 (UTC)

I don’t have much to share, though I did put together this little video of clips of Patrick Harlan’s voice in Resident Evil: Survivor (2000, PS1) and excerpts from the JAL dub. Whoever voiced Porco does this airy thing with their voice whenever he’s supposed to shouting or raising his voice, Harlan does something similar in Survivor which is supposed to give off the impression of him talking quietly/not trying to attract attention I guess. Both instances come off very amateurish in a similar sort of way. Harlan also appeared in couple of other PS2 games that I’ve yet to check out.

Survivor/Porco Comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSuJQOxS-ok

Survivor Cutscene playlist (The guy who made this playlist was kind enough to disable in-game music so that makes things easier): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnAReKO5WRU&list=PL808A5CDDC7DAB439&index=3

--Graystoked (talk) 11:18, August 29, 2019 (UTC)