Cross-Dressing Voices

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Anne Hathaway (voiced by John Linnell): I guess I'm the type of girl who loves foley work.
David Remnickopf (also voiced by John Linnell): You mean you're doing a girl's voice?
Anne Hathaway: No, no. [sigh] I am a girl. I'm a girl.

They Might Be Giants, "(She Was a) Hotel Detective in the Future Commentary"

Sometimes, an animated character is better suited for being voiced by a voice actor of the opposite sex. Maybe a higher voice is needed for a male, or a lower voice for a female.

A common version of this is for young boys, usually 12 and under, to be voiced by an adult woman. This is because real little boys' voices deepen when they go through puberty. Not to mention that it's easier to find experienced actresses than experienced prepubescent male actors. The producers don't have to deal with child labor laws that limit the amount of time a child can spend in a studio, either.

There are exceptions, of course—sometimes an adult man or an actual child will voice a little boy. In films, this is the rule rather than the exception, as voice recording for a film generally takes much less time than for a TV series.

And on a related note, sometimes, for comedy purposes, a deep-voiced woman will be played by a man.

Compare Crosscast Role.

Examples of Cross-Dressing Voices include:

Straight Examples

Anime

  • In Tears to Tiara Rathty is voiced by Greg Ayres in the Sentai English dub.Except Rathty's a girl.
    • Justified in that Rathty is mistaken for a boy when she first appears.
  • Surprisingly, a female voices the 16-year-old Sai Saici in G Gundam, whereas the male Kappei Yamaguchi voiced him in the Japanese version.
  • In the world of Mexican Dubbing, Luffy is voiced by the same actress that dubs Jessie from Pokémon (Diana Pérez). Also, Ben Tennyson and Naruto Uzumaki share voices with Mimi Tachikawa, Unazuki Furuhata and Dee Dee (Isabel Martiñón). Also, Bart Simpson and Orihime Inoue by Claudia Mota.
    • We could have a field day with LA-VA actresses who do the same stunt, like Gabriela Willert (Ukyou from Ranma ½, Child!Trunks from Dragonball Z), Rossy Aguirre (Ami Mizuno from Sailor Moon, child and teenage!Krillin from Dragon Ball and the first episodes of DBZ) and Laura Torres (Mai Valentine from Yu Gi Oh!, the three Sons from DBZ - Goku, Gohan and Goten - as children).
    • Averted in the Cardcaptor Sakura dub, where the three elementary school-aged boys who are seen the most (Syaoran, Yamazaki and Eriol) are played by males (Uraz Huerta, Gerry Meza and Alfredo Leal, respectively). In fact, Uraz had gone through puberty and had a much deeper voice, yet he still played Syaoran in The Movie.
    • Also averted in Neon Genesis Evangelion: Shinji is played by Victor Ugarte, subverting the example below...
  • Megumi Ogata is known for voicing young boys (Shinji Ikari of Neon Genesis Evangelion is probably the best-known example, if not just for the Ho Yay) as well as tomboyish girls (e.g. Haruka Tenoh/Sailor Uranus).
  • The Big Bad of Slayers NEXT, Hellmaster Phibrizzo, is a demonic being who takes on the appearance of a highly feminine-looking young boy. He was voiced by the female Kazue Ikara in the original Japanese version, which subsquently created a good deal of Viewer Gender Confusion at the time for viewers. The English version fixes this by having him voiced by Wayne Grayson.
  • Rina Sato was the voice of ten-year-old Welshman Negi Springfield in Mahou Sensei Negima. (In an interesting twist, Negi's voice in the North American dub is provided by an adult man who manages to sound convincingly like a ten-year-old boy.)
  • Both Yami Bakura and Ryou Bakura from Yu-Gi-Oh!! are voiced by a woman (Rica Matsumoto, to be specific). The strangest part about this is the fact that Yami Bakura is a psychotic murderous thief whose original form was a psychotic, murderous thief KING/grave robber with an eight-pack.
    • Originally, You Inoue voiced Bakura until the end of the Duelist Kingdom arc; when Inoue-san was diagnosed with lung cancer and retired (then died), Matsumoto took over.
    • Dartz, the antagonist of the Doma Arc, was voiced by Yuu Emaou, a former otokoyaku of the Takarazuka Revue.
    • Yugi (and the Other Yugi) were voiced by Megumi Ogata in the Toei series, while in the Duel Monsters series they averted the trope by having Dorama actor Shunsuke Kazama to do it. Mokuba, on the other hand, always followed the trope, being voiced by Katsue Miwa in the first series, and Junko Takeuchi in Duel Monsters.
  • Kimba the White Lion has five voice actors, so it's no surprise that nearly every if not every child is voiced by a woman, including Kimba, the manliest character in the show.
  • All the male characters in Simoun are played by women. (Although given the nature of the show, that shouldn't be a surprise.)
  • Melissa Fahn as "Specs" ("Megane") in the North American dub of Gate Keepers.
  • Both of the Elric brothers in the 2003 anime adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist were voiced by women in the original Japanese version; Anime!Wrath and Envy were also voiced by women in both the Japanese and English versions.
    • In fact, Edward's seiyuu, Romi Park, is actually pretty well-known for providing voices for angsty male teenagers quite a lot. Tao Ren from Shaman King, Hitsugaya from Bleach... Katsushiro from Samurai 7...
    • Averted in the dub of the 2003 series, where Ed was voiced by an adult man and Al was voiced by an actual preteen boy. However, Al's new VA in the Brotherhood dub is a woman (Maxey Whitehead). (His original has now gone through puberty, so he's too deep voiced He plays teen!Hohenheim instead.)
    • The Latin American dub of the 2003 series also averts it, with both Elrics being voiced by adult males (José Manuel Vieira is Ed, Johnny Torres is Al). Sames goes to Wrath, played by the male Hector Indriago (in his true form) whereas his seiyuu was Nana Mizuki.
    • Same for Spain's dub in Ed's case. He's performed by Ricardo Escobar, an actor specialized in teenager characters.
    • In Brazil, all male characters voiced by women in the original version listed above are voiced by adult men as well, though Ed and Envy's V As (Marcelo Campos and Sílvio Giraldi, respectively) were in their mid-to-late thirties by the time of the dub, while Al and Wrath's (Rodrigo Andreatto and Fábio Lucindo) were in their mid-to-late twenties. Marcelo and Rodrigo also played their respective characters in all their appearances as children during the series. It's also worth to note that all voice actors mentioned in this trope example not rarely play characters much younger than themselves.
    • Don't forget Selim Bradley (Pride).
  • In almost every version of One Piece, Chopper was voiced by a female. This includes both the original Japanese voice (Ikue Otani) and her brief substitute (Kazue Ikura). 4Kids had Lisa Ortiz... using the exact same voice she used for Musa on Winx Club, to boot. The FUNimation dub continues this with Brina Palencia. In his normal form, this is OK, but when he frequently transforms into a six-foot-tall Yeti creature, the results are kind of weird.
    • Not as weird as when 4Kids gave his giant forms a masculine but cartoonish voice.
    • Such is the case for Luffy as well. He is voiced by Mayumi Tanaka, who also voices Krillin, in Dragon Ball. She also voices Daiya from Gaiking, which is rather amusing since he falls into the line of Hot-Blooded, "Gar" mecha pilots.
  • In the dub version of the feature-length Anime Steamboy, 22-year-old Anna Paquin plays 13-year-old James Ray Steam. In the Japanese version, the role was played by 17-year-old Anne Suzuki.
  • Sarah Strange was the original voice of boy-type Ranma in the North American dub of Ranma ½. (When she left after the third season, Richard Ian Cox took over the role.)
    • In the Spanish (Spain, not Latin American) dub of the series, the same actress portrayed both sides of Ranma. This led to a pretty much spot-on performance as female Ranma... and a male Ranma that sounded like an eight-years-old boy. Or a castrato.
    • The Mexican dub was even stranger: the voice of Wholesome Crossdresser Tsubasa Kurenai, while in disguise or dressed up as a schoolgirl, was performed by a woman. As soon as he revealed he was male, he was given the voice of a very gruff male actor who in no way resembled, or even tried to, the actress' performance in the slightest.
      • The Brazilian dub was even stranger with Tsubasa; he was voiced by Julia Castro, whose career in voice acting is almost restricted to voicing little boys. But truth is, her voice for little boys sounds great and can even fool anyone with an untrained ear, while her voice for women is... atrociously horrible.
  • Both the Japanese and (nearly any) dub version of Naruto (except for Poland, Germany, Spain and Italy at least) have the title character voiced by a woman (Junko Takeuchi and Maile Flanagan in Japan and the US, respectively), where as all other male children are voiced by men in both the English and Japanese versions, except for Haku and the kids that are younger than Naruto of course.
    • A weirder example is Orochimaru, who's Japanese voice is a woman despite him being a very effeminate adult male. His dub voice is instead a man who imitates the mannerism of the woman who voiced the body he was disguised as when introduced.
      • In the Latin-American dub, Orochimaru first has a female VA as he goes under his Grass Ninja disguise. Once his true identity is revealed, he's voiced by a male voice actor who does a similar trick as Steven Blum.
      • The Spain's dub does exactly the same. Though in his case, David Robles (Orochimaru's Spanish voice) instead of imitating feminine mannerisms, goes for a subtle-yet-obvious evil tone approach. Too bad his voice sounds too young for the character, like a man in his 20s. Early 30s tops. Orochimaru is supposed to be over 50.
  • Notorious in the original Japanese version of Dragon Ball/Z/GT where every character who was introduced as a child more or less keeps the same voice actress even after the character has grown up. This is no more obvious in the main character Goku who, despite being well over 40 years old in Dragon Ball GT (when he is not shrunken into his child form), still sounds like a little kid. This has a rather jarring effect, especially among those who were only familiar with the dub (which did change the voice as the character changed ages).
    • It should be noted that the same woman also voices his sons Gohan and Goten as well.
      • And Bardock and Turles.
    • The Latin American Spanish dub also did this. Goku was originally voiced by a woman named Laura Torres, as well as young Gohan and Goten. The older Goku is voiced by Mario Castañeda, of MacGyver's fame. Older Gohan and Goten are voiced by Luis Alfonso Mendoza and Víctor Ugarte, the latter being recognized for appearing in most (if not all) of the major anime dubs (including but not limited to Neon Genesis Evangelion (Shinji), Naruto (Sasuke), Digimon (Jou Kido) and Bleach (Ishida).
      • The Brazilian dub, based in the Latin American one, had both Goku and his kids dubbed by women when children (Gohan and Goten were even dubbed by the same actress, Fátima Noya). Their voices were also masculine when adults, though. It was really funny to see the same actresses who dubbed Goku and his sons as children dubbing Hotaru and Chibiusa.
        • The voice actress for Goku in the then-unaired episodes of the original Dragon Ball series, Úrsula Bezerra, would go on to voice Naruto Uzumaki. She worked in Dragon Ball GT as well, to voice the de-aged Goku.
    • The English dub has Freeza voiced by Linda Chambers Young, who is an old woman.
    • Averted in the LA-Va dub, where he's voiced by Gerardo Reyero who has a bass tone. He speaks very slowly and with a very formal speech, which becomes more and more rude as he gets angry.
    • Averted as well in Spain. The voice sounded like a middle-aged man, but strangely it suited Freeza's physique, since it was not too deep.
    • Averted in Dragon Ball Z Kai, where Freeza is voiced by Chris Ayres (AKA Johnny and Mr. 11). His performance as Freeza is superb, on par with Ryusei Nakao.
  • Ash Ketchum from Pokémon has had three voice actors in the English dub, all of whom are female. Naturally, his original Japanese voice was female, too (Rica Matsumoto, better known around here as a member of JAM Project).
    • Veronica Taylor, Ash's first English actress, also used the exact same voice for GaoGaiGar's Mamoru Amani.
    • The German dub didn't even try. While his first voice was quite passable, his second voice came from the same actress who voiced Sailor Jupiter throughout the years of Sailor Moon. The shows would occasionally air back-to-back, too.
    • Averted in Spain. He is voiced by Adolfo Moreno, a voice actor that, despite being over 30, has a voice that can adapt from 10-year-old boys to young adults in their mid 20s with surprisingly ease. He is also Sasuke Uchiha's Spanish voice before the Time Skip, among many others.
    • Also averted in Catalan, Turkish, Swedish, Norwegian, Indonesian, Italian, Hebrew, Canadian French, and Danish.
    • As well as in the LatAm version, in which Ash used to be voiced by Gabriel Ramos (a.k.a. "Gabo"), the only dubber famous enough to have his own program in MTV. And as years pass, you can't help notice that Ash's voice has become rougher with time. In the last chapters of the season 11, he was voiced by Irwin Daayan, and then, in the season 12, Gabo returned as the Ash's voice, recording from Argentina, where he is now. In the season 13, due to the studio change, and other factors, he will be voiced by Miguel Ángel Leal, better known as the second voice of Jaden Yuki in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX.
    • Exactly the same case of the Brazilian dub, in which Ash´s been played by Fábio Lucindo, who, as mentioned above, was also cast as Wrath in FMA, since the series´ beginning and in all movies and specials. Unlike Ramos, however, he still voices the character, though in Movie 6 Ash would have been played by Gustavo Nader (Ron Stoppable in Kim Possible) if not by the blatant reaction from the fandom.
    • Also done (sorta) with Meowth, whose second voice actor, Maddie Blaustein, was a male-to-female transsexual who underwent a sex change during the course of the series.
      • Meowth is voiced by a woman in Japanese as well.
    • Hun of Team Rocket (in English) and Saturn of Team Galactic (in Japanese) are also voiced by women, and obviously so. Neither is even trying to sound masculine, despite both characters being referred to as men.
  • Kenshin Himura in Rurouni Kenshin, an adult male, was played by a woman, Mayo Suzukaze. Which is unusual in that the character is 28 by the start of the series, sometimes even mistaken as older, and a Retired Badass.
    • Averted in the dubbing in... well... probably every single language the series has been dubbed to.
    • His real-life counterpart, Gensai Kawakami, was indeed said to be rather effeminate (as in pretty and small).
    • The actress is also a former otokoyaku (or player of male roles) for the Takarazuka, so she had some experience playing adult men. She does a very convincing tenor as his serious Super-Powered Evil Side; with his usual boyish voice, she falls in and out of believability.
    • Also 18-year-old Bishonen Soujirou Seta, voiced by Noriko Hidaka.
    • Averted in Spain in Yahiko's case. A 10-year-old boy was voiced by a male actor, David García Llop.
  • Yuki Sohma in Fruits Basket was played by Aya Hisakawa, despite being in high school.
  • Yoruichi from Bleach. While she has a perfectly normal voice, she has a man's voice as a cat.
    • Same in the Latin American dub.
    • A rather confusing example occurred in the recent filler arc. Mitsuki Saiga (a woman!) provides the well defined, MALE voice of Zabimaru's baboon side, who looks like a well endowed woman. Wrap your brain around THAT.
  • Sixteen-years-old Shinkuro in Kure-nai is voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro. Sawashiro is a great voice actress, but it's still slightly weird.
    • Not to mention, IIRC Shinkuro was a big Playing Against Type role for Mrs. Sawashiro, who until then played Moe girls rather than anything.
  • Subversions in Project A-ko: Captain Napolipolita and Agent D are often mistaken for men, especially the latter, but they're actually women (their entire race is all-female). They're voiced, in both English and Japanese versions, by men. On the other hand, Mari, a hulking schoolgirl that is an eight-feet-tall mass of muscle and menace (and an obvious parody of Fist of the North Star,) by all rights should have a deep, manly voice, but she opens her mouth... and a cutesy, high-pitched voice comes out.
    • Spy D is voiced by Tessho Genda, who is a well-known Japanese live-action actor renowned for his "tough guy" roles. In fact, Spy D's personality and physical appearance were based on Tessho Genda. It is reported that he had no idea the character was female until he saw the finished movie.
    • The cutesy, high-pitched voice in the first movie makes the English line "What? I ain't no boy, just 'cuz I shave every day!" even more amusing upon first hearing it.
  • This is lampshaded in the Gag Dub of Crayon Shin-chan.

Shin: ... You have the body of a first-grader, and the ass of a baby... (Shin's voice switches to Laura Bailey's natural voice) and the voice of a grown woman.

    • And another time, he said something along the lines of "What I've learned is that women are evil, but we still need them to voice boys in cartoons."
  • Voice actress Junko Minagawa is known for voicing young boys as well as older women. Such examples are Echizen Ryoma of Prince of Tennis, Aoyagi Ritsuka from Loveless and brief character Ryuu-oh from Tsubasa, who was voiced by an adult male in his original work. All those while voicing Ayaka Yukihiro from Negima and Cornelia Li Brittania from Code Geass!
  • In both the Japanese and English versions of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, every young male is voiced by a female. In the original version, said voice actresses sometimes take the role of actual females in the series as well, which can lead to some interesting surprises, like learning that Vivio, Nanoha and Fate's adopted daughter, shares the voice actress of Yuuno, the enemy of the Nanoha/Fate shipping faction.
  • The male Jakotsu in Inuyasha is voiced by a woman in both the English and Japanese versions. The character, however, was pretty much a woman anyway.
    • And in the Latin American dub. By two women, actually!
    • Subverted by Kohaku in the LA dub, who's voiced by a male (Eduardo "Lalo" Garza, who'd then play Gaara in Naruto and Ichigo in Bleach)
  • Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch has a few. Lady Bat makes the most sense, being a Villainous Crossdresser to begin with, and the voice actress, who had previously played Maria on the show (and came back to reprise her first role twice), managed to sound like an effeminate man. Not to mention she was shown talking to herself, since she also played Fuku. The others were a Weasel Mascot, a White-Haired Pretty Boy (not to mention an androgynous looking angel) and an excitable underclassman boy, all of which are also popular choices for women to play.
  • Near is voiced by a woman in both the Japanese and English versions of Death Note. Unusually for this trope, the character is supposed to be an adult, albeit a young one; Word of God gives his age as 21 at the end of the series.
  • T.K. has different voice actors between Digimon Adventure and Digimon Adventure 02 due to this trope. At age 8, he is voiced by the female Hiroko Konishi and Wendee Lee, while at age 12 he is voiced by the male Taisuke Yamamoto and Doug Erholtz.
    • Regarding the Japanese version of Digimon, it's easier to list who doesn't fall under this trope.(Matt, Joe, and Tentomon season 1. TK, Wormmon, Hawkmon season 2. No one in Tamers, and Kouji, Kouichi, and JP in Frontier.) The English version generally had men voicing the male characters—probably to help hide how young they all are. Takato's official age in the Japanese version is 10, while the old Fox Kids website listed him as 13.
    • Especially jarring when they give Mega level Badass digimon such as War Greymon the same voice as their rookie level.
      • Savers mostly averted this, as perhaps because the male characters on the show were much older than earlier seasons, Marcus, Thomas, and their Mons all have Male VAs.
  • Loran in Turn a Gundam. Another Romi Paku voice. Then you add the fact that Loran crossdressed for a few episodes early in the series...
  • Gundam Wing's Quatre was voiced by Ai Orikasa. Averted in the English dub, where he's played by Brad Swaile.
  • Black Star in Soul Eater is voiced by a woman (Yumiko Kobayashi in Japanese and Brittney Karbowski in English). This is more evident in Black Star's character song "My Star."
  • Masako Nozawa has portrayed many "young boy" characters over her career. In addition to Goku as mentioned above, she was "Kitaro" (1st and 2nd Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro series, and "Hakaba Kitaro"), and Tetsuro Hoshino (Galaxy Express 999), among other roles. She was also the original Japanese voice of Esteban in "Taiyo no Ko Esteban" (AKA: The Mysterious Cities of Gold). These days however, she prefers "elderly woman" such as Honoka's grandmother in Pretty Cure.
  • Akihiro Miwa, a male actor and cabaret singer, has played female roles in two Miyazaki films: The Witch of the Waste in Howl's Moving Castle and Moro in Princess Mononoke, who is a giant wolf for which a deep growling voice is actually quite appropriate.
  • Mitsuki Saiga has played many male roles in anime and video games, including Makoto Kousaka in Genshiken, Jing in King of Bandit Jing, Rossiu Adai in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and Elk (and Endrance, who shares the same real-life identity as Elk, only older) in the .hack// universe. (She also voiced Tsukasa, who may or may not count for this trope.)
  • Kumiko Watanabe as Keroro Gunsou, from his days as Chibi Kero (elementary school age thereabouts) to present-day full-grown galactic invasion commander.
  • The younger male characters in Utena are voiced by female seiyuu, most notably Aya Hisakawa as Miki.
    • And then the English dub plays them as male—maybe understandable as teenage Miki, but Tsuwabuki is a third-grader who sounds at least twice, perhaps three times his age (damn, Akiko Yajima). Given that his young age is a major point of the character, it's pretty jarring.
  • Three examples in Hayate the Combat Butler: The titular character himself is voiced by Ryouko Shiraishi, Wataru is voiced again by a girl, Marina Inoue, and Sir Taiga is voiced by Rina Satou, who also voices the robot inventor Shiori Makimura.
  • Mamiko Noto as Yukinari Sasaki in Girls Bravo.
  • Sheyenne Rainstorm in WildARMs: Twilight Venom was played by Brianne Siddall, using the pseudonym Ian Hawk, for a double gender-bend.
  • Half-example: On Sailor Moon, The Sailor Starlights are played by women, which isn't odd at first as in the manga they are women like all Sailor Senshi, just crossdressers like Haruka.... until one realizes that in the Anime version, the Sailor Starlights physically become men in order to hide their identities and pose as a pop group singing about a woman, namely their Princess. Once they transform and turn back into women, they are no longer cross dressing voices. The musical versions might match up too however, as Henshins happen offstage (Or on a darkend stage with the aid of body doubles) and it is not stated if the charcters are actually physically male or just crossdressing ala the manga.
  • A very, very strange example of this is seen in The Great Mission to Save Princess Peach. One would expect the male character voiced by a female to be Kibidango, the cute little puppy who helps the Mario Bros. through the adventure. But no, he's voiced by a guy. The character that got subjected to this trope was Bowser Koopa, being voiced by Japanese soul singer Akiko Wada. He got a male voice actor in the Super Mario Amada Series though, where he was voiced by Masaharu Satō.
  • Allen Walker from D.Gray-man is voiced by Sanae Kobayashi.
  • A rather interesting (and literal) twist in Gundam 00: In one of the drama CDs, Tieria poses as a female student to infiltrate the high school that Louise and Saji attend. While disguised, his voice is provided by...his normal voice actor, Hiroshi Kamiya, who can apparently pull off a rather convincing female voice. Who knew?
    • This is repeated in the second season, where Tieria dresses as a woman (with Gag Boobs, hence the Fan Nickname "Titeria") to infiltrate a party the bad guys are throwing. Considering Tieira was a major source of Viewer Gender Confusion before the show aired...
  • Billie Lou Watt was among the first American voice actors for anime dubbing. She specialized in voicing young boys including the title characters of Astro Boy, Jungle Emperor Leo (known as Kimba the White Lion in America), and Taro The Dragon Boy, and Jimmy Sparks from Gigantor, Jack from an anime version of Jack and the Beanstalk, and Christopher Peepers from Superbook.
  • Another early American voice actress in anime dubbing was Corrine Orr. She voiced Spritle in addition to voicing Trixie for Speed Racer.
  • The protagonist of Saber Marionette J is voiced by a woman in Japanese, which would be unremarkable if not for the voice actress not doing a terribly good job at it (making Otaru sound almost as much like a woman as the marionettes around him)
    • The same actress, Yuka Imai, did far better as Nabuca in Now and Then, Here and There—as one of the older members of a child army, he rarely sounded like anything but a teenage boy.
    • Averted in the Mexican dub of the series, where actor Irwin Dayaan did an excellent portrayal of a youthful yet manly sounding Otaru.
  • In Boku no Pico (curiously a crossdressing anime), even though the cast is never revealed, it's quite obvious that the boys in that series are voiced by women, to the point where they make little effort to sound like a real boy (probably to please its target audience).
  • In the Streamline dub of Akira comes one of the strangest examples one of the council members (the little grouchy old man) was dubbed by Barbra Goodson.
  • In the English dub of Haré+Guu, young Haré is voiced by Philece Sampler (who also voiced Cody in Digimon Adventure 02), while in the original japanese his voice is done by Rikako Aikawa. Secondary character Toposte got a dub subversion, though, voiced by Konomi Maeda in the original, and David Duncan in the dub.
  • To date, at least three Hungarian dubbed Animax series did this unintentionally. Both Kurama from Yu Yu Hakusho and Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist were not only given female voice actors, but clear female voices. Kiyone from Bleach on the other hand ended up with a defined and manly tenor for at least two episodes before the directors realized that she's got BOOBS.
    • The latter was even more facepalm-inducing since Sentarou even called Kiyone the Hungarian equivalent of "bitch"...
  • The anime for Axis Powers Hetalia features Yuki Kaida as China and Romi Paku as Switzerland. The latter also doubles as a Shout-Out to Fullmetal Alchemist, as his sister Liechtenstein is played by Rie Kugimiya.
    • In the CD dramas, Kugimiya also plays Latvia. However, in the TV series Latvia was voiced by the male Kazutada "Kokoro" Tanaka, who also plays Poland.
    • China is also played by a woman (Clarine Harp) in the English dub as well, although Switzerland is voiced by John Burgmeier.
    • Subverted in the cases of Iceland, Norway and Hong Kong. There were many online rumors pointing out to them getting female seiyuu for the animated series, with some even including prospect names (Mitsuki Saiga for Iceland, Miyuki Sawashiro for Norway, and Junko Minagawa for Hong Kong). However, the anime had them voiced by males instead - with Ayumu Asakura as Iceland, Masami Iwasaki as Norway, and Motoki Takagi as Hong Kong.
  • Sasha from Seikon no Qwaser is voiced by Yuko Sanpei.
  • Of the 6 princes on the Wonder Planet, only two (Auler, Bright) are voiced by guys. Junko Minagawa is the voice of one of the others. In season 2, one of the new princes is voiced by a girl, prompting a bit of gender confusion at first when he was originally listed as a princess (his hairstyle didn't help any).
  • Randoll from Future GPX Cyber Formula is voiced by Youko Matsuoka in all of the series' entries.
  • In the Kaze to Ki no Uta OVA, Serge, Gilbert, Rosemariné and Sebastien are voiced by Noriko Ohara, Yuko Sasaki, Yoshiko Sakakibara and Yoko Ogai, respectively.
  • Agito/Akito in Air Gear.
  • In the Violence Jack anime Mad Saulus' lover Blue is voiced by a man in the English dub, well it does make kind of sense because Blue is a hermaphrodite.
  • Joshua Christopher is played by a female seiyuu in Chrono Crusade—although in the drama CDs and English and German dubs he's played by an adult man, instead.
  • Monster's Dieter was voiced by Junko Takeuchi and Laura Bailey.
  • Dio Eraclea in Last Exile was voiced by Junko Noda in the Japanese version. Not so in the English dub, where he was voiced by Joshua Seth.
  • In the anime adaptation of the popular manga Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin, Gin (the main character) is played by the Japanese voice actress Eiko Yamada. In the next series, Ginga Densetsu Weed, Gin's son, Weed, is played by Japanese voice actress Sachi Kokuryu.
  • In ICE, Julia is played by a man in both Japanese and English.
  • Three of the animal "mascots" of Amagi Brilliant Park are Moffle, Macaron, and Tirami, voiced respectively by Ayako Kawasumi, Ryoko Shiraishi, and Ai Nonaka. Not only are these three heterosexual (and perverted) adult males, but they can take on human form, and an illustration from the light novel shows that Moffle in particular looks quite virile as a human.


Films

  • The androgynous Tobio in Wild Zero was played by a man and voiced by a woman.
  • In the film version of Lionel Bart's successful stage musical Oliver!, the singing voice of Mark Lester, who played the eponymous hero wasn't up to snuff, so his singing was dubbed Kathe Green, whose father Johnny was the film's music arranger. It makes for very eerie watching.
  • The male Babe is voiced in the first film by Christine Cavanaugh and in the second by Elizabeth Daily, both female.
    • And both also voice actors on Rugrats.
  • Disney's Peter Pan subverted this, in that his voice actor was male, although the character was traditionally portrayed by a woman on stage.
  • In An American Tail, the thick New York accent of Tony Toponi is actually portrayed by a woman, Pat Musick.
  • The brainchild behind several Oscar-winning Pixar films, Brad Bird had been in the process of describing how the fashion designer "E" of the movie The Incredibles should talk. It was quickly decided thereafter that no one could or should do her voice but him.
  • In Monsters, Inc., the character Roz is played by male storyboarder Bob Peterson.
  • In Pee-wee's Big Adventure, when Pee-wee arrives at the Warner Bros. studio lot and starts looking for Rusty, he asks two passersby, one male and one female, where he can be found. They respond, the male in a somewhat feminine voice and the female in a deep, male-sounding voice.
  • The Ugly Stepsisters in the Shrek films are both voiced by males with a deep voice - Larry King (Jonathan Ross in the UK version) and Regis Philbin.


Literature

  • Every narrator for an audio version of a book not done with a full cast fits this trope. In particular, Jim Dale, the American reader for the Harry Potter series, received an award for doing over 500 distinct voices for Order of the Phoenix, including Hermione, Ginny, Minerva McGonnagall and Dolores Umbridge.


Live Action TV

  • Parodied in an episode of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. Zack calls up the school that he and Cody goes to and "disguises" his voice as his mom, while it is obvious that they taped his mom's voice for the scene and he is lipsynching.
  • One episode of Hannah Montana sort of qualifies. Oliver tells Miley and Lilly that he has to leave soon lest he invoke his mother's wrath. Cue a decidedly not feminine voice to ring through the air, telling Oliver to hurry up.

Miley: I thought you said your mom was driving you.
Oliver: Yeah, when she gets mad, she uses her "man" voice.

  • Exploited for one episode of Star Trek: The Original Series (the original series). To portray a genderless alien race, they used women (in form-concealing robes and bald caps), then redubbed with male voices. One of the more inventive solutions in the series, it worked pretty well.
    • Another alien in that series was played by a seven-year-old boy with a forty-year-old man's voice dubbed over his speech.


Music

  • The singing voice of Studio Killers' lead singer Cherry is provided by Finnish male singer Teemu Brunila.
  • In Queen's song Brighton Rock, the vocals are supposed to be a duet between a man and a woman, but Freddie Mercury ended up doing both voices.
  • Dudley Moore's "Die Flabbergast" is likewise a fake "male/female" duet, but played for laughs.


Puppet Shows

  • In Spitting Image, Margaret Thatcher was voiced by Steve Nallon.
    • Nallon actually appeared in live action as Thatcher in an episode of The New Statesman, though to hide his gender he had to be shot in sinister silhouette.
  • Janice from The Muppet Show was puppeteered by Richard Hunt.
    • Not to be outdone, Miss Piggy is voiced by Frank Oz.
    • In the 1970s episodes of Sesame Street, many female Muppets were voiced by males. One main example was Gladys the Cow, performed by Richard Hunt. Additionally, Hunt and Jerry Nelson and Frank Oz did many other incidental/one-time female characters, many of Oz's female characters sounding almost exactly like Miss Piggy.
  • Gypsy of Mystery Science Theater 3000 was played by Jim Mallon until 1996, when he handed the role off to Patrick Brantseg. Josh Weinstein played her during the KTMA era. All three did it by inhaling as they spoke.


Radio Drama


Software

  • Len Kagamine.
    • Valshe, a female singer, does quite a few covers of Len songs, leading to a recursive example of this trope.


Foreign Dubs of Western Animation

  • In the Latin American Spanish dub of Animaniacs, Wakko is voiced by a woman, Giset Blanco, who is rather inconsistent with his voice: sometimes, it's low and hoarse; other times, it's nasally; still other times, it's very high pitched.
  • In the Japanese dub of SpongeBob SquarePants, Patrick and Plankton are voiced by women who sound nothing like their originals. Plankton has a very cutesy voice despite being very small and irritable. In the movie dub, both characters are voiced by men.
  • Most foreign dubs of Looney Tunes have Tweety voiced by a woman.
  • Some foreign dubs of Pinocchio have Pinocchio voiced by a woman.
  • In the Russian dub of The Nightmare Before Christmas, Shock is voiced by a man, this is because they were voiced by a rock band.
  • Some foreign dubs have Piglet from Winnie the Pooh voiced by a woman.
    • Disney is slowly trying to avert this trope. Notably in Mexico (Yamil Atala), Spain (Pablo Tribaldos), Germany (Santiago Ziesmer), and France (Herve Rey).
  • The Japanese dub of South Park has Eric Cartman voiced by a woman, Li Li Co, and for the movie Stan and Kyle's singing voices were done by women but their speaking voices are done by men.
    • Likewise, the Italian dub currently has Francesca Vettori as the voice of Cartman.
    • Similarly most dubs have Butters voiced by a woman, and Kenny is voiced by a woman in the German dub.
    • Kyle's voice in the Ukrainian and Latin American dubs is done by a woman.
  • In some early Japanese dubs of the classic Mickey Mouse shorts, Mickey was voiced by a woman (including Masumi Goto, Ikue Sakakibara and Eiko Yamada), but recent versions have him voiced by a man (Takashi Aoyagi).
  • The Japanese dub of Doug has the title character played by a woman. This could be because of his high-pitched voice in the Nickelodeon series (the Disney series never made it to Japan). Oh, and he wasn't voiced by just any woman; he was voiced by Masako Nozawa.
  • In an interesting reversal of the usual case in the Japanese dub of Codename: Kids Next Door Numbuh Five is voiced by a man.
  • The Czech dub of The Simpsons has Marge voiced by a man.
  • The Japanese dub of Recess has T.J. voiced by a woman (Wasabi Mizuta, the current voice of Doraemon), as oppossed to him being voiced by a young boy like in the U.S.
  • In the Japanese dub of Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends, Mac is voiced by a woman (Makoto Tsumura, who currently voices Astro Boy).
  • All dubs of Kaeloo, like the original French version, had the title character voiced by a man.
  • The original Japanese dub of Peter Pan had the title character voiced by a woman (Masumi Goto), but is now voiced by a male (Mitsuo Iwata).
  • The French-Canadian dub of Tom and Jerry: The Movie had the burly, brutish cat appearing in the Non Sequitur Scene portrayed by a woman, since he ironically spoke in a high-pitched voice.
  • The Japanese dub of Invader Zim has Zim, Dib and GIR voiced by women (respectively, Nao Nagasawa, Ayumi Kida and Wasabi Mizuta).


Video Games

  • Tiny Kong in Donkey Kong 64 is voiced by Kevin Bayliss. This was eventually subverted, as in subsequent appearances she and Dixie are voiced by Jen Taylor.
  • Colleen O'Shaughnessey plays Genis, a 12-year-old boy, in the English-language adaptation of Tales of Symphonia. In the sequel, the 14-year old Genis is voiced by the still-female Tara Sands.
    • In the Japanese version, Genius is spoken by Ai Orikasa. Big Bad Mithos is spoken by Minami Takayama.
  • Laharl from Disgaea was voiced by a woman in both the Japanese (Kaori Mizuhashi) and English (Barbara Goodson) voiceovers.
  • Of the few times the roles have been reversed, in Shadow Hearts: From the New World, the Mega Neko Mao is voiced by a man. (In the English version, it's the same actor as Frank.)
  • Tails, Sonic the Hedgehog's sidekick, has been voiced by a young boy in most of his earlier appearances... and as of Sonic X, he is now voiced by a woman to avoid any further voice changes (Tails has had a lot over the years), and they took it well. Now, his voice done by Kate Higgins as of Sonic Colors, which has been generally been received as more boy-ish and an improvement over the last voice actor.
  • Slippy from Star FOX was voiced by a female in Star FOX 64, the first game in the series that had voice acting. Not only did that voice help his scrappiness, it also caused quite a few people to think that he is female, or at least make jokes about it.
    • Female voice actress Kyoko Tonguu voiced him in all of the Japanese versions, though, and her cutsey voice for him actually made him popular in Japan.
  • Luke from Professor Layton and the Curious Village and Lucas and Pit in Super Smash Bros. Brawl are voiced by a woman—the same woman who voiced Rouge the Bat. Or did, until 4Kids decided she was 40.
    • That same voice actress, Lani Minella, also voiced one of the male characters in Evil Zone on the PS 1. She also voiced pretty much every female character, but considering the game was from the late 90s, you probably could have guessed that on your own.
  • Speaking of Smash Bros., Ness and Kirby are also voiced by the same woman.
  • Surprisingly averted in the first Mega Man Legends game, in which Mega Man was voiced by a 14-year-old boy. Played straight in the sequel, in which he had the same actress as Sailor Jupiter.
    • On the other side of the Pacific, Rock Volnutt shares the actress of Luffy.
  • Maddie Blaustein, mentioned above in the Pokémon entry, also provided the voices of four Valkyrie Profile characters: the deviant, nerdy Stalker with a Crush Lezard Valeth, noble Bishonen Lawfer, undead king Barbarossa and Big Guy Arngrim.
  • Final Fantasy X: Child Tidus is voiced by Cree Summer and the child Fayth who became Bahamut is voiced by Debi Derryberry.
  • Cortex from Crash Twinsanity was voiced by Debi Derryberry in a flashback to his school days. His appearance as a baby in a previous game is an aversion.
  • Klonoa is voiced by Kumiko Watanabe, except for the English voices of the Wii remake of the first game, in which he is voiced by Eric Stitt (see the "Exceptions" section).
  • Most boys in the Backyard Sports series, with the exceptions of Achmed and Amir Khan, are voiced by women.
  • In Mega Man 8, the titular character was voiced by a girl/woman.
    • The same girl/woman (Ruth Shiraishi) went on to voice X in Mega Man X 4; which is the reverse take on this trope, since he is voiced by a man (Kentaro Ito) in the Japanese version.
  • Link is voiced by a woman whenever he's under 12 years old. Before The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker it was Fujiko Takimoto and now its Sachi Matsumoto. Adult Link is always voiced by males. Of course "voiced" is a bit of a stretch, since Link doesn't actually talk beyond a few grunts and "Come On!".
    • Sachi passed on the baton to Yuuki Kodaira in The Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks, who is slightly more pleasant to listen to most time, but her (slightly too high pitched) voice can get annoying when Link takes a lot of damage in a short-time span. In a Real Life case of Meaningful Name, Yuuki is japanese for "Courage", the attribute most commonly associated with Link, raising the question if she was cast for her name alone.
  • The main character of Loco Roco is supposedly male, and voiced by young actress Melody Chubak and Alex Yamato Flaherty.
  • Most of the male cast with voices in Patapon (like general Gong) have female voice actors.
  • In Tales of the Abyss Ion/Sync/Florian are voiced by Ikue Ohtani (Yumiko Kobayashi for the anime) in the Japanese version and by Erin Fitzgerald in the English version.
  • The Xenosaga series has Jr. as a notable example, quite obviously voiced by a woman (Brianne Siddall, to be exact, who voices a lot of young boys in English dubs of various anime series).
  • In an unusual inversion to the trope, Moro, the giant wolf-goddess is voiced by the very male Akihiro Miwa, who amusingly is a drag-queen in Real Life. The point presumably was to make Moro sound like a talking wolf, rather than human woman. The English dub just went with Gillian Anderson, however.
  • Dogen Boole (a male character) from Psychonauts, is voiced by Nika Futterman.
  • An unusual example that incorporates Vocal Evolution can be found in Jason Spisak's performance as Bartz between the two Dissidia Final Fantasy games.[1] His voice holds a slightly deeper tone in the first game than in the prequel, which means that, while slightly jarring given that all of the cutscenes from the first game were reused in Duodecim (alongside his new battle lines), he gets the voices of the newly-added female characters down to a startling degree of accuracy when mimicking their attacks.
  • In Sengoku Basara, Otomo Sorin is voiced by a woman in the English version likely due to his status as a Sissy Villain.
    • In Japan, Uesugi Kenshin is voiced by Romi Park. This could be a subversion of the trope, though, considering that there are theories that the real-life Kenshin may have actually been a woman.


Web Original

  • Jenny in Park Bench.
  • Sniffles the anteater from Happy Tree Friends.
  • Homestar Runner: Matt Chapman, who voices almost all the characters on the site, also voices Cheerleader, So and So, What's Her Face and The Ugly One in the Teen Girl Squad series. In this case, it's also in-universe; it's actually Strong Bad doing the voice-overs of his comic series.
    • In an unfinished cartoon, Tis True, Pom Pom, Tis True, Marzipan, typically voiced by Missy Palmer, is instead also voiced by Matt, making her sound rather like Strong Sad.
    • In the crude-looking cartoons that are created by The Cheat, the Homestar characters, including Marzipan, are all voiced by a male (in this case, Matt's brother, Mike).


Western Animation

  • Tara Strong voices Timmy Turner of The Fairly OddParents, Omi of Xiaolin Showdown, and Ben Tennyson of Ben 10, among others.
  • Except for Chuckie, all the Rugrats retained their same voice actress from their first episode all the way to the Spin-Off, spanning more than 10 years for most of the cast. (For Chuckie, Nancy Cartwright replaced a retiring Christine Cavanaugh in 2001.) The same voice actresses even remained for their older counterparts in All Grown Up!, having to somewhat struggle to alter their voices.
    • In the Latin American dub, the aforementioned Laura Torres was the voice of Tommy.
  • Bart Simpson of The Simpsons is voiced by adult female Nancy Cartwright. Cartwright in fact does the voices for most of the boys at Springfield Elementary.
    • That is, Bart, Nelson, Ralph, Kearney (the bald bully who, despite looking like a teenager and being in elementary school, is really an adult), Louis (the black kid who was friends with Bart in the early episodes and is now pretty much an extra), and Todd Flanders (even though neither Rod nor Todd is shown as a student of Springfield Elementary). Springfield Elementary isn't very big; the other half are voiced by Pamela Hayden (she voices Milhouse van Houten and Jimbo Jones, the bully with the purple hat and the black skull shirt) and some by Tress MacNeille (she voices Dolph, the bully with the red hair and the green shirt), who are also women.
      • Lampshaded in a chalkboard gag when Bart repeatedly writes, "I am not a 32 year old woman".
    • Also Russi Taylor voices Martin, Uter, and a few other young boys.
    • In the show itself, Homer is amazed that Itchy & Scratchy are voiced by a woman.
    • In "A Streetcar Named Marge", Jon Lovitz voices Mr. AND Mrs. Sinclair.
  • Jimmy Neutron is voiced by Debi Derryberry. His two best friends are voiced by Rob Paulsen and Jeffrey Garcia, however.
    • Aside from the younger boy characters, the only other older boy character with a female voice actor is Nick Dean, voiced by Candi Milo.
  • The main character of Moral Orel, Orel Puppington, is voiced by Carolyn Lawrence.
  • Regina King plays both Freeman brothers on The Boondocks.
  • Between her size and having Charlie Adler as her voice, it's very easy to forget that Cow on Cow and Chicken is supposed to be Chicken's younger sister.
  • In Hanna-Barbera's version of The Little Rascals, Julie Dees and B.J. Ward had five boy roles between them. Julie played Alfalfa, Porky and Woim, while B.J. played Butch and Waldo.
  • June Foray is the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel. She is also the voice of Jokey Smurf in The Smurfs while Brenda Vaccaro is the voice of Gargamel's nephew Scruple.
  • In Code Lyoko, the characters of Ulrich and Jérémie are played by women. This is particularly funny in Jérémie's case, as both he and his girlfriend Aelita are played by the same actress.
  • In Muppet Babies, Skeeter, the twin sister of Scooter, is voiced by Howie Mandel (with the same voice he uses for Bobby and Gizmo). More conventionally, Russi Taylor (better known as the modern voice of Minnie Mouse) voiced Gonzo, and Katie Leigh voiced Rowlf.
    • Howie Mandel was later replaced by Frank Welker for Skeeter (Welker had already been voicing Kermit and Beaker), and Dave Coulier for Animal.
  • Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers provides an interesting example. Chip and Gadget are both voiced by Tress MacNeille. However, due to the audio processing used on Chip and Dale's lines to give the two chipmunks such high-pitched voices, you'd never suspect the reality.
  • Tress MacNeille also provided the voice of Toast on Histeria!, where she also voiced Pepper Mills and Susanna Susquahanna.
  • In a few episodes of Rocko's Modern Life, in addition to Charlie Adler voicing Mrs. Bighead and Gladys the Hippo Lady, Tom Kenny provided a few female voices, mainly incidental characters, such as Joyce (a female cow in the episode "Who's for Dinner"), Al (a female salamander in the episode "Dear John") and a female member of a sausage cult (a monkey in the episode "Schnit-Heads").
  • Bobby Hill of King of the Hill has been voiced by Pamela Segall Adlon from day one; despite being over 13 years old, he did not reach puberty over the show's run.
    • Adlon has also voiced young Baloo on Jungle Cubs and Lucky in One Hundred and One Dalmatians the Series—the former sounding quite a bit closer to Bobby Hill's actual age.
    • Played straight, then subverted with Joseph Gribble. From season one to the early half of season 5, Joseph Gribble was voiced by Brittany Murphy (who also voiced Luanne Platter). From the middle of season five to the show's end, Joseph Gribble was voiced by Breckin Meyer (who was 26 when he first voiced the character) and the voice change was written off as Joseph going through puberty, according to the episode "I Don't Wanna Wait for Our Lives to Be Over".
  • Unusually for a kid's show, all of the voice actors for D.W. on Arthur have been boys.
  • Unusually for an adult male character, Woody Woodpecker from the late 1950s to early 1970s was voiced by a woman (Grace Stafford Lantz), but previously he had been voiced by Mel Blanc and Ben Hardaway. Billy West is his current voice actor.
  • In many Peanuts specials/movies, Peppermint Patty and/or Marcie tend to be voiced by males.
    • Likewise, Charlie Brown is voiced by a female in the late 1980s miniseries, This Is America, Charlie Brown.
  • Calvin and Juicy, the two boys who live in the Projects from The PJs, are voiced by Crystal Scales and Michele Morgan, respectively.
  • In The Brave Little Toaster series, despite being an adult male character the toaster is voiced by a woman (Deanna Oliver).
    • Actually, the Toaster is never specified to have a gender.
  • Parodied in an episode of Eek! The Cat where Eek takes the audience on a behind-the-scenes tour of the show and discovers that he and his girlfriend Annabelle are both voiced by actors of the opposite sex. Eek was actually voiced by Bill Kopp, and Anabelle was voiced by Tawny Kitaen.
  • On the Looney Tunes cartoons, despite having two (uncredited) female voice actors, Bea Benederet and June Foray, Mel Blanc often voiced female characters — or, to be more precise, male characters who pretended to be female for the sake of a gag (like Bugs Bunny whenever he dresses in drag).
    • In Space Jam, the Nerdlucks, despite being male, were all voiced by women; out of them, Nerdluck Pound [the orange one] was the only one who sounded like a boy.
    • In the short "The Blow Out", the Mad Bomber villain, despite being male, was voiced by a woman (Lucille La Verne, aka the wicked queen/witch from Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs).
    • Sniffles the mouse is voiced by three female voice actors throughout all of Chuck Jones' Sniffles shorts: Gay Seabrook, Bernice Hansen, and Sara Berner. Bernice herself also voiced the three squirrels in the 1939 Jones short "Robin Hood Makes Good".
  • Dingo Pictures take Cross Dressing Voices to the extreme, at least in their English dubs where women not only voice young characters, but sometimes also middle-aged and old men. Vice versa also applies. In most of their animations, character roles are spread quite randomly between two voice actors and results are quite... awkward.
  • In the animated series for Jumanji, Peter is voiced by Ashley Johnson.
  • The titular character of Widget, the World Watcher was voiced by a woman: Russi Taylor.
  • In the first three seasons of SpongeBob SquarePants', Mr. Krabs' mother was voiced by a man, writer Paul Tibbit. In the seasons after the movie, a woman now voices Mrs. Krabs.
  • In The Critic, Christine Cavanaugh is the voice of Marty Sherman.
  • In the Italian dub of Transformers Animated, all the Starscream clones are voiced by the same man. Even the one that's a girl.
  • In Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, the latter Foil to Bats is voiced by Dana Delaney (who would later play Lois Lane) as Andrea Beaumont and Stacy Keach as The Phantasm.
  • In Biker Mice From Mars, Mad Scientist Dr. Karbuncle, despite being a grown man, was voiced by a woman (Susan Silo), but she did give him a rather weird ambiguous gender voice.
  • In a few shorts, Popeye was voiced by Mae Questel, who also voiced Olive Oyl and Betty Boop.
  • In the Rankin/Bass Productions version of Cinderella one of the ugly stepsisters was voiced by Paul Frees.
    • The studio's iconic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer special had the titular character being voiced by Billie Mae Richards, who was ironically credited as Billy Richards from 1965 onward, as mentioned in obituaries mourning her death in September 2010. She also voiced Tenderheart Bear in the first two Care Bears movies and first cartoon series, while she was Brightheart Racoon in the second one.
  • In The Venture Brothers Doctor Girlfriend is voiced by co-creator Doc Hammer, to sound like a deep-voiced man from Brooklyn.
    • Hilarity ensues when The Monarch tries to get a regular non-male-voiced hooker to do Dr Girlfriends voice.
      • LOWER AND DEEPER
  • In South Park, Ms. Choksondik is voiced by Trey Parker.
  • In the Goof Troop episode "Calling All Goofs" Goofy's Aunt Goofilla is voiced by Bill Farmer who is basically Goofy doing a falsetto.
  • In Bob's Burgers, Linda and Tina Belcher are voiced by men John Roberts and Dan Mintz. Mintz doesn't even try to sound like a girl.
    • Sarah Silverman and her sister Laura voice the Pesto twins who sound rather feminine.
  • Adventure Time has Pendleton Ward voicing Lumpy Space Princess.
  • Chum Chum of Fanboy and Chum Chum is voiced by Nika Futterman.
  • In the direct-to-VHS Alvin and The Chipmunks movies, Theodore is voiced by the same woman that voices the Chipettes.
    • This also occurred in the 80s series as well.
  • My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic has Spike, a baby male dragon apprentice, voiced by Cathy Weseluck.
    • This is not the first time she has voiced a male character, extraordinarily well at that, given her uncanny ability to mimic the voice of a boy.
  • Birdz has two examples: the lead character Eddie (Susan Roman) and Sleepy Bat (Julie Lemieux).
    • Lemieux has two more examples on her résumé: Rupert and Batty.
  • Despite being a male character, Hoppity Hooper is voiced by a woman, Chris Allen.
  • Tabitha St. Germain plays Tinny of Rollbots and the title character of Captain Flamingo.
  • Desirée Goyette voices Nermal the Cat in Garfield and Friends, with a rather androgynous voice. Justified in that Nermal is the self-proclaimed "cutest kitten in the whole wide world" and a foil to Garfield.
  • Jules de Jongh, a woman, voiced Skunk on Skunk Fu!.
  • In the pilot episode of Schnookums and Meat, the house is being robbed by two criminals despite them both being men the taller of the two was voiced by Tress MacNeille.
  • Kaeloo, a young female frog is voiced by Emmanuel Garijo.
  • Both of Dexter's voice actors on Dexters Laboratory were women (Christine Cavanaugh and Candi Milo). As mentioned above, both of these actresses, particularly Christine Cavanaugh, have done this several times.
  • An early episode of Home Movies, “I Don’t Do Well in Parent-Teacher Conferences,” features a female babysitter with an obviously male voice (Sam Brown).
  • In Toot and Puddle, the lead characters are voiced by women.
  • Dudley the Dinosaur, the mascot of the American Dental Association, is voiced by a woman in commercials and shorts.
  • In her very first appearance Daisy Duck, the girlfriend of Donald Duck was originally voiced by the same man as her boyfriend: Clarence Nash. He gave her the same squawking voice as Donald but it was slightly lighter so the two could be told apart.
    • This was somewhat revisited some fifty years later in a TV special called Down and Out With Donald Duck, in which Daisy is voiced by Tony Anselmo, the same actor who also voices Donald presently.

Exceptions

Anime

  • Grave of the Fireflies deserves special recognition for hiring an actual five-year-old actress to voice the protagonist's young sister.
  • The English dub cast of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water is notable for casting three actual kids in the lead roles, although one child actor has to do a sometimes-convincing, sometimes-overdone French accent.
  • The English dub cast of Beyblade is also voiced by kids who are more or less closer to the characters' ages.
  • Likewise, Hitomi of Vision of Escaflowne was voiced by a teen actress who was discovered through an extensive talent hunt aimed at finding a "real girl" to play her.
  • Nine to 14- then back to 9 up to 13-year-old Alphonse Elric from the English dub of Fullmetal Alchemist was voiced by 12-year-old Aaron Dismuke throughout the whole series. Played straight for the dub of Brotherhood, as puberty hit him pretty hard, and he's being replaced by Maxey Whitehead; though Aaron Dismuke is apparently playing some role.
    • Young!Van Hohenheim.
    • Also, the 10- to 15-year-old Edward Elric was voiced by then 42-year-old Vic Mignogna, even in the Whole Episode Flashbacks to when he was younger.
      • Something similar happens in the Spaniard dub with male actor Ricardo Escobar (15-year-old Edward) and female actress Blanca Rada (10-12 year-old Edward). Rada voices Ed in most flashbacks, but in some short ones (two-three lines tops), Escobar keeps voicing little Ed. The results are kinda jarring, since even though Escobar's voice is believable for a teenager (although a kinda deep voiced one at that), it definitely isn't for a little boy...
  • In the English version of Monster Rancher Genki was voiced by then child actor Andrew Francis. Puberty hit Francis pretty hard during the gap between seasons two and three but rather than recasting a younger or female actor the American producers decided his deeper voice represented Genki's emotional maturity.
  • Similarly, when an established character remembers their childhood, a separate actress is often brought in to provide the younger voice; however, Soichiro Hoshi continues to voice Goku (Saiyuki) and Oujirou (Angelic Layer) in flashbacks.
    • The English dub actor Chris Patton has played the younger versions of two of his characters as well: Joshua Christopher in Chrono Crusade (who was played by a woman in the Japanese version) and Fakir in Princess Tutu. In the audio commentary for Chrono Crusade, it's revealed that they used a mixture of Chris speaking higher and some editing to make it work.
    • Similarly, in the dub of Naruto, Yuri Lowenthal voices Sasuke even when he was a kid and later he voiced Simon of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann both before and after the Time Skip, though not in the Distant Finale (which happen the same in the original language as well). The same goes for Rossiu, though only in the dub (while in the Japanese version he retains a female voice actor even when we briefly see him in his fourties)
  • Spaniard dub of Naruto is a massive exception example. Every single main male character over the age of 10 is voiced by a male actor, and most of them are believable. Javier Balas, Naruto's voice actor, explained in an interview that it was done like that because when the series arrived to Spain, in Japan the manga had already reached the Time Skip. Hence, they casted so every character could keep their voice actors after that point.
    • Which happen for all characters... except Sasuke. Before the Time Skip he was voiced by Adolfo Moreno, a 30-something voice actor famous for voicing Ash Ketchum from Pokémon, Sora from Kingdom Hearts II and Scott Pilgrim, among many others. However, after the Time Skip he was replaced by Eduardo Bosch, whose voice sounds way more mature... so much that some people believe they overdid it.
  • Akira Ishida himself is a popular inversion. His distinctive effeminate voice means he regularly gets parts normally played by women.
    • This has come to the point where he voiced an actual woman. Now that is something that you don't hear every day.
    • It's probably worth noting that Greg Ayres (the actor of Negi from Negima mentioned above) has been cast three times in dubs for young characters voiced by Akira Ishida in the original: Kaworu Nagisa of Neon Genesis Evangelion, Chrono of Chrono Crusade and Satoshi Hiwatari of D.N.Angel. In fact, Greg himself tends to be a walking aversion—he was originally hired as a voice actor in the first place because his natural voice sounds so young.
  • Sixteen-year-old Tsukiyono Omi of Weiss Kreuz is played by Yuuki Hiro, actually the oldest of the four lead voice actors of the series; his youthful voice means that he is often cast as cute young boys.
    • If you can't get a woman to play a boy, you can get Yuuki Hiro.
  • In a complete inversion of the usual situation in Dragon Ball Z, Trunks was originally introduced as a 17-years-old, played by actor Takeshi Kusao. The role was not recast when Trunks later appeared as an 8-years-old; instead, Kusao used a higher, raspier voice for the character until he grew up again. However, the English version (and pretty much every other dub) cast a female as the younger Trunks.
    • Vegeta was played by his male actor, Ryo Horikawa in his young appearances. Most dubs use a female actor for this role, but the Funimation English dub, like the Japanese Version, used his adult actor, Christopher Sabat as the young Vegeta.
      • However, for the Dragon Ball Kai dub the younger Vegeta has now been voiced by a woman.
    • Christopher Sabat also voiced the child form of Piccolo in Dragon Ball, while in most other versions including the original Japanese version cast a woman for this part.
  • In both Singaporean and Brazilian dubs of One Piece, Luffy's voice was done by male voice actors Chuck Powers and Vagner Fagundes, respectively. The Italian dub cast Luigi Rosa for the first 255 episodes and first five movies, with Renato Novara eventually taking over. Before it switched to subbed episodes, the European Portugese dub also used a male.
  • Averted in the Code Geass series. V.V. is voiced by Kazato Tomizawa, who was 10 years old when V.V. first appeared near the end of the first season.
    • But played straight in the English dub of the same series, in which he's voiced by Cindy Robinson, whose age is unknown but is quite female and definitely an adult.
  • Somewhat averted with Death the Kid from Soul Eater, who has two different VAs. In the drama CD, he was voiced by Takako Honda (a woman), while in the anime, he was voiced by Mamoru Miyano.
  • Another dub-only exception is Shinji in Neon Genesis Evangelion, and most character voiced by Spike Spencer (with a few exceptions which were old enough to be played by a male in both versions).
    • This trend was followed by most of the other dubs worldwide; in fact, the Japanese version seems to be the only one in which Shinji was voiced by a woman, which some fans perceive as Lost in Translation, as his effeminacy was a major point in his character design.
  • The 2008 Yatterman series marks the only time in the franchise's entire history (the live-action movie aside, for obvious reasons) that Gan/Yatterman-1 had a male actor (Hiroyuki Yoshino in this case); otherwise, he had a female actress.
  • For all things it did wrong, Nelvana's dub of Cardcaptor Sakura (Cardcaptors) at least averted this trope quite well with some characters. The 10-years old main character Sakura was voiced by then 11-years old Carly McKillip, while 10-years old Syaoran was voiced by then 14-years old Rhys Huber. When the second movie was brought over by Media Blasters the trope was again played straight, with Syaoran voiced by voice actress Mona Marshall.
  • The Harukanaru Toki no Naka de franchise has Kouki Miyata as 14-year-old Shimon Nagareyama, the youngest of the original Hachiyou. Like Yuuki Hiro, Miyata can convincingly voice younger male characters. By contrast, Sefuru the Oni, who is deduced by Shimon to be around his own age, is voiced by a woman (Yuu Asakawa).
    • In theory, all Hachiyou are voiced by men, so depending on your view, a few more of them can count as aversions, such as Inori (15 years old, voiced by Naozumi Takahashi) or Eisen (17 years old, voiced by Soichiro Hoshi), though Shimon is still the most noticeable case. The NeoRomance line does a good job when it comes to finding voices for the hordes of Bishonen...
  • The children in Wandering Son are voiced by kids, though in Nitori's case his actors voice was breaking when he hadn't.


Films

  • Exceptions to this can easily date back as early as when Walt Disney himself decided to continue his legacy of full-length animated feature films after the success of Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs with Pinocchio by casting 11-year-old Dickie Jones to voice the titular character.
  • Chihiro from Spirited Away was voiced by an actual young girl in the English dub, then-11-years-old Daveigh Chase.
    • Yubaba's baby was originally voiced by an actual little boy (who was also in the Japanese dub of March of the Penguins) but was replaced in the English dub by a female voice actor.
    • Both Chihiro and Haku are voiced by children of their respective genders in the original Japanese version.
    • An adult man Jason Marsden voiced Haku in the English dub.
  • In The Nightmare Before Christmas, Lock and Barrel, the male ghoul children, are voiced by Paul Reubens (better known as Pee Wee Herman) and composer Danny Elfman.
    • Likewise in the Kingdom Hearts series, they were voiced by Jess Harnell and Jeff Bennett.
  • In An American Tail, Fievel was always voiced by a little boy: Phillip Glasser in the first two movies and Thomas Dekker in the Direct to Video sequels when Phillip Glasser got too old.
  • In Monsters, Inc., toddler Boo was voiced by Mary Gibbs, the little daughter of Pixar employee Rob Gibbs. The crew followed Mary around with a microphone and assembled Boo's lines from the things she said while she played.


Puppet Shows

  • One who is familiar with the trope would think that the squeaky-voiced 4- to 6-year-old Elmo on Sesame Street is voiced by a woman. No, he's voiced by Kevin Clash, an African-American man who is almost 50. Clash also performs Hoots the owl.
    • He also voiced the mischievous Baby Sinclair from Dinosaurs whom like his name suggests is a baby, with a voice similar to Elmo's.


Video Games

  • Sonic the Hedgehog games originally averted it with Tails, who was voiced by the then-teen Corey Bringas in Adventure 1 and 2 and William Corkery in Heroes, Battle and Advance 3 after Bringas hit puberty. He's then been voiced by women from 2005 on.
  • In the original Lunar game for the Sega CD, Lunar: The Silver Star, 15-year-old protagonist Alex is actually voiced by a then preteen Ashley Parker Angel. For the first remake, Silver Star Story, Working Designs was considering on replacing Angel because he hit puberty, but they let him return anyway, feeling that this "new" Alex was a bit more "grown-up" than the original. This trope is played straight for the third remake, Silver Star Harmony, where Yuri Lowenthal plays Alex.
  • Fourteen-year-old Sora in Kingdom Hearts and its sequel was voiced by then-14-year-old actor Haley Joel Osment. When the sequel was released three years later, Haley's voice had obviously changed. However, Sora also had aged enough between games to justify the lower pitch. All in all, a rare VA example of both actor and character experiencing a puberty voice change.
    • However, Re: Chain of Memories, which takes place right where the first game ends, Haley's still playing Sora. He, of course, sounds too deep.
  • The English version of Persona 4 is an exception of sorts with Naoto. At first it is thought Naoto is a teenage male with a pretty appearance, so the female voice actor (Susan Dailan in the United States, Romi Paku in Japan) makes it confusing. It turns out she really is a girl, which startles the main characters quite a bit.
  • Klonoa is voiced by Eric Stitt for the English dub of the Wii remake of Klonoa 1.
  • Baby Mario and Baby Luigi are voiced by the 54-year-old Charles Martinet, as per their adult counterparts.
  • In Dissidia Final Fantasy, The Onion Knight, a Kid Hero who's explicitly the youngest of the heroes. (Which puts him at fifteen or younger) Was voiced by the 19 years old at the time Aaron Spann.
  • Oracle of Tao has most characters played by females, with the exception of one bit part (Bakamaru). God and Estheriel is voiced by actresses, but both roles are androgynous, since angels are generally considered sexless. On the other hand, Nevras is actually cast this way, which is possibly ironic, since the character is a Wholesome Crossdresser in the game.
  • According to the official Japanese website for the game, this averted by Gotcha Force's English version. This is not a good thing.

Western Animation

  • Aang of Avatar: The Last Airbender is voiced by Zachery Tyler Eisen (b.1993). Another main character, Toph Bei Fong, is voiced by Jessie Flower, who turned twelve the very same year her character was introduced. Any other kids their age or younger are voiced by children of the same gender and approximate age, and most teenager are played by same gender voice actor that are usually at least a bit older (for instance Sokka is 15 and his VA was 18 when they started).
    • A new interview reveals that the series creators "really wanted" a real kid to play Aang, rather than Cross-Dressing Voices, and that as Eisen's voice has been deepening, the show's sound people have been artificially pitching it up, without the creators even noticing.
      • The practice is spoofed in the episode "The Ember Island Players". When the Gaang goes to a play featuring them, Aang is shocked to find that the actor playing him is a woman. Later, Toph ends up being played by a big burly man (she's delighted).
    • At first the trope seems to be played straight with Smellerbee, but later we learn that the character is a girl.
  • Most child characters in Hey Arnold! were voiced by actual children, and most of the boys' voice actors were replaced many times over the series run; Arnold himself had four. (Gerald's voice actor is an exception. There's even an episode that explains why his voice changed, "Gerald's Tonsils".)
    • In addition to Arnold, Curly and Eugene were voiced by several actors; one of the Eugenes (Ben Diskin) went on to become an adult voice actor despite having to be replaced. However, a few of the actors for the boys were kept all the way through along with Gerald: Harold, played by a post-pubescent, as the character was 13; Stinky, whose voice did break, though it was simply ignored and not justified like Gerald's was; and Sid, who managed to evade puberty for the entire five-season run, until the last three episodes, produced years after the rest of the fifth season. He was replaced, appropriately enough, by his younger brother.
    • The first actor to play Arnold was given a new recurring role after his voice dropped, as the fifth-grade bully Wolfgang; the second Arnold made a one-shot appearance as his cohort, Ludwig.
  • Ten-years-old Nigel, Hoagie and Wally of Codename: Kids Next Door are voiced by adults, but male ones. (In fact, Ben Diskin, who voices Nigel and Hoagie, was one of the child actors who voiced Eugene in Hey Arnold!.)
  • Mac from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is voiced by Sean Marquette, who, surprisingly, was not replaced after he had gone through puberty, but instead had his voice digitally pitched up. Though it is still obvious if one compares episodes from Season 1 to episodes afterward. Marquette had also previously been on the Nicktoon Rocket Power.
    • This example is particularly interesting when one realizes that Mac's 13-years-old brother, Terrance, is voiced by a woman (Tara Strong) even though the character has a fairly deep voice.
  • In Goof Troop all the characters are voiced by actors from the same gender, except Max who is voiced by Dana Hill.
  • The Possible Twins, Jim and Tim, from Kim Possible, are both played by Shaun Fleming. He was 12 while recording season one, when the "tweebs" were 10. According to producers, Tim and Jim got a redesign and height boost in season four, either to justify Shaun's voice change or to justify a new actor.
    • In the end, Disney went with a new actor, also a young boy: 13-year-old Spencer Fox, better known as Dash from The Incredibles. Of course, by season three, Fleming's voice had obviously broken, and no attempt was made to hide it. This had the bizarre result of the "tweebs" looking older but sounding younger than they had in the previous season.
  • Charlie, Lola and all the characters on Charlie and Lola are voiced by actual children. Although the children refer to adults, even asking them questions, no adult voices are ever heard.
  • In Hanna-Barbera's Little Rascals series, Shavar Ross and Scott Menville were young boys (age 10 or so) cast as Buckwheat and Spanky, respectively. The dwarf actress Patty Maloney, who had played furry male roles in the 1970s, was aptly cast as Darla Hood.
  • Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy is almost a perfect exception: All but one of the boys are played by male voice actors. Kathleen Barr voices Kevin, who just happens to be the most masculine regular in the cast.
  • Code Lyoko contains both straight examples and exceptions. One such exception is the character of Odd Della Robbia, played by Matthew Geczy, who is in his 40s. He also holds the distinction of being the only Lyoko Warrior (unless you count William) voiced by a male.
  • A lot of the more recent Nick Jr. animated titles seem to go along with ensuring that actual children portray child characters now. The Backyardigans and Go! Diego, Go! are two of the more notable examples. The weird part is, Uniqua in the former is voiced by a girl, but has a fairly deep voice for her gender and age.
  • The three main characters in Danny Phantom (Danny, Sam, and Tucker) are all voiced by appropriate gender counterparts as are the rest of the cast; even getting kids to play any major children guest-starring in the series.
  • All of the main kids in Recess were also voiced by like-gender children (apart from Spinelli, voiced by the 40-something Pamela Segal). Apart from TJ, who went through four actors during the show's course, the voices stayed the same throughout the show.
  • The main kids in The Off-Beats segments on Nickelodeon's KaBlam! were voiced by young children, most notably Mischa Barton as Betty-Anne Bongo. The later episodes had several of the kids' voices sounding a bit lower, including the females (who were voiced by girls). The only adult voice actor was series creator Mo Willems, who voiced September the dog and Grubby Groo.
    • Both Henry and June were done by teens, which is obvious due to their changing voices through the show's run.
    • Loopy and Larry of Life With Loopy were also done by teens.
  • In the DCAU, Teen Titans, The Batman, and Batman the Brave And The Bold, any Robin has only ever been voiced by a boy (in the case of DCAU Dick Grayson and Teen Titan Robin, an adult man; of course, Dick started as a college student in the DCAU and of unspecific-but-still-sufficient age in Teen Titans).
  • The title character of Chowder is voiced by Nicky Jones (age 12).
    • Panini, Gorgonzola and Ceviché are also voiced by children.
  • Averted in Capeta. For the first arc (first 14 episodes), the title character was voiced by Naoto Adachi, who was 12 years old at the time.
  • All of the male children in South Park aside from the kindergartners and lead sixth grader are voiced by men, mainly by series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone; they use computers to speed up their voices so they sound like kids.
  • In The Bullwinkle Show, Sherman of "Peabody's Improbable History" was voiced by the 40-some-years-old Walter Tetley, whose voice never matured—officially due to a hormonal condition. Legend, however, says that his mother actually had had him castrated at a young age. Look up castrati, and learn that this practice is Older Than You Think.
  • In The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, the title character is voiced by Mark "Thurop" Van Orman.
    • Originally, Flapjack was supposed to be voiced by Paul "Pee Wee Herman" Reubens, but Reubens never appeared for an audition, so Van Orman took over.
  • In Bobby's World, 4-6-years-old Bobby Generic was voiced by the then 30-some-years-old Howie Mandel. Every other male child in the series including his older brother Derek (after his original voice actor grew up) were voiced by women.
  • All of the Peanuts characters were played by children through all of their animated specials; in the first (A Charlie Brown Christmas), the actress playing Sally was so young she could not read the script and had to have her lines cued to her.
    • Played straight occasionally with Peppermint Patty and Marcie, who had young boys voice the characters in some of the first specials that character appeared in and in a few specials afterwards.
  • "The Loud House" sees Lincoln, Clyde, Chad, Chandler, Liam and Zach all being voiced by adult women even though they are male (mainly Cathy Weseluck as Clyde and Zach, & Andrea Libman as Lincoln, Liam and Zach, Chandler and Zach are voiced by Kathleen Barr).
  • In The Powerpuff Girls, their male counterparts the Rowdyruff Boys are voiced by men; Rob Paulsen voices Brick and Boomer and Roger Jackson voices Butch.
  • Almost completely averted in The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy; with the exceptions of Irwin, Pud'n, and Nergal Jr., all of the male children are voiced by men.
  • Completely averted with the 12-year-old cast of Doug. Nearly all of the boys with the exceptions of Chalky and Al and Moo in the Nickelodeon version were voiced by 40-year-olds Billy West and Fred Newman. In the Disney version, most of the characters voiced by West, including Doug and Roger, were replaced after he left, but still voiced by grown men.
  • Voice actor Dick Beals voiced many young boys in several cartoons: 8-year-old Ralph Phillips from Looney Tunes, 10-year-old Davey Hansen from Davey and Goliath, Gumby, 8-year-old Arthur Spacely from The Jetsons, Buzz Conroy from Frankenstein, Jr.., Reggie Van Dough from Richie Rich, Jon's nephew Rosco from Garfield and Friends, Speedy Alka-Seltzer and many others. His convincing childlike voice came from the fact that he has a glandular problem which prevented him from growing past the age of 10 and retained his high-pitched voice. Beals continued to do child voices in radio shows and occasionally guest starred in cartoons in his early 80s. He died May 29, 2012.
  • Daws Butler occasionally played young boy voices in Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, The Jetsons (as Elroy) and several others. He was also Raggedy Andy in a few specials and the voice of Chilly Willy when he spoke.
    • After Butler died but before the Jetsons movie could be recorded, another grown man, Patric Zimmerman, voiced Elroy.
  • Cleveland Jr. from Family Guy and The Cleveland Show was originally voiced by Mike Henry and later by Kevin Michael Richardson.
  • 12-year-old Finn from Adventure Time is voiced by Jeremy Shada, who was 13 when the voice recording first began.
  • All the child characters on Tale Spin were played by actual children.
  • In an episode of Futurama where the cast begins to regress in age, they just kept their same voice actors.
  • Oh boy, this is a complicated one...Derpy Hooves has caused a bit of a stir with her halting Simpleton Voice portrayal because some people find it offensive. But no one actually set out to give Derpy a Simpleton Voice; they just asked Tabitha St. Germain to do the voice, and Tabitha thought Derpy was supposed to be a boy. So she thought she was doing this trope, but she really wasn't.
  • The preteen-aged Gumball and Darwin from The Amazing World of Gumball are voiced by (at the time of production) 13-year-old Logan Grove and 12-year-old Kwesi Boakye, respectively.
  1. For context, Bartz is a Ditto Fighter who mixes and matches the moves of his allies, owing to his status as a 'mime' character. On top of this, he takes on a different tone of voice whenever he uses certain attacks; for instance, he uses a more gruff tone when copying one of Squall's moves, and takes on a more gallant register when copying the Warrior of Light or Cecil