Anime Bad voice acting in early eps. -> Good voice acting in later eps.

[Bloodseeker]

I was watching Ranma earlier (Yapapa! Yapapa!), and it reminded me of this.

Have you guys noticed that a lot of times in the 2-3 episodes of a show, the voice acting is terrible, but then it suddenly gets a lot better?

Like with Inuyasha. The voice acting in episodes 1-2 made me cringe. Kagome sounded like an elementary student reading a book, and Inuyasha's laugh was so fake that it wasn't even funny.

Or with Tenchi Muyo... Ryoko's "stuttering" in episode one (How dare you call me a muh monster!) and Ayeka's bad delivery of pretty much every joke in episode 2.

Or in Ranma, Akane's father couldn't deliver a joke for his life, and Akane sounded like one of those fly zapping lights when she was screaming.

Yet in all of these, the characters were eventually portrayed at least believably (Tenchi), if not superbly (Inuyasha).

The funny thing is that I don't really see this in live action as much. (probably because they ARE the characters, as compared to being just the voice) Its seems to be really common for voice actors to screw up their roles at the beginning.

[Dagger]

Revolutionary Girl Utena is an excellent (if rather extreme) example of this. Season 1--the first thirteen episodes--features some really atrocious acting. Seasons 2 and 3 (especially season 3) together boast one of the best dubs I've ever heard. But in this case, there was an extenuating factor; while the cast remained the same between all of the seasons, there was a very long break between when season 1 was recorded and when the rest of the seasons were recorded.

~Dagger~

[2010DigitalBoy]

I noticed this woth Pokemon. (Even though I discovered this long ago, Im not afraid to admit I still like Pokemon.) Anyway, in the first 10 episodes, Ash sounded like crap, and James sounded way evil for a cross dresser, so in episode 10 they completely changed theor (and a few other peoples) voice actors. James really doesn't sound any better though...

[Solo Tremaine]

[COLOR=#503F86]It was the same with Zoids: Guardian Force. I think it's a case of the actors warming into their characters and getting used to how they react, and also finding new ideas to incorporate into their voice- it's a natural process of acting. They also probably find out more about the stories as they go- the more episodes they do, the more places (emotional states, perhaps) they find that their characters haven't been before, and hence more depth is added to them as they go. Although I'm reluctant to say Pokemon has any kind of depth, but that's debateable ^_^;[/COLOR]