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Armin is male. There are good reasons why females voice young male characters. This may explain why a female, Marina Inoue, voices Armin in the original Japanese, BUT then there are good reasons why a male, Josh Grelle, voices Armin in the dub, see: this answer, where Grelle seems to say it's more flexible for a male to voice Armin because of potentially how far the characters could grow up to be.

At that time we didn't know where it was gonna go if there was ever going to be a time skip or anything like that. But just because of the sheer possibility of being with these characters for a while and having Armin eventually potentially grow up into a man, he wanted to have someone's voice that could cover the full age range. And that's one thing that at least I'm able to do.

So, what, the Japanese version regrets casting a female or at least something like they would've cast a male had they known how far the characters were going to grow up? Or, what, Marina Inoue can also do the full age range?

BCLC
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    Related/possible duplicate: [Is there any specific reason why female voice actors act for male roles in anime?](https://anime.stackexchange.com/q/6589/2516) – Aki Tanaka Apr 28 '22 at 20:22
  • @AkiTanaka Yeah those are the generic reasons BUT NOW with what Josh Grelle said I'd think maybe those reasons might not apply either during the audition or in hindsight – BCLC Apr 28 '22 at 21:12
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    @BCLC What’s wrong with a generic answer? Unless we get specific reasonings from every voice actor, generic is the best there is – Wondercricket Apr 28 '22 at 21:25
  • @Wondercricket That's not what I'm asking. If I were asking that then it would be a duplicate. I'm asking now in the case of AoT. Perhaps generic reasons were actually the case for AoT as well but AFTER that they realised the manga had gone really far, are they perhaps regretting their decision a little OR might they have made a different decision had they hypothetically known? (I haven't read the manga since 2015 and haven't watched since s1 but I remember I was pretty up to date with the chapters. Based on what I've heard about the show now I think they've gone many years into the future.) – BCLC Apr 28 '22 at 21:47

1 Answers1

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3 things:

  • There are 2 ways to pick voice actors: audition & direct offer. Either way, the goal is to select the most suitable actors for the characters. (The first season of Attack on Titan had an audition)
  • Western dub localization has limited resources (moreover for simuldub situation, which also applied to Attack on Titan), while there are abundant voice actors in Japan, making them so competitive.
  • Thus, they could just change the voice actor for The Final Season, if it was necessary.

Marina Inoue tweeted this after the official announcement of Armin's profile for The Final Season.

正直声が変わる事も覚悟していたのですが、アルミン はあまり身長伸びていない&声変わりしていないという事で引き続き演じさせて頂ける事に感謝しています。

To be honest, I was prepared for Armin's change in voice, but since he has not grown much in height and his voice has not changed, I am grateful to be able to continue to voice him.

(Emphasis mine)

Thus, in addition to the character's setting hasn't changed so much, there would not be any regret or hindsight whatsoever since they could just replace the voice actor if necessary.

Aki Tanaka
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