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Not Even Bothering with the Accent
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Prince John: And why should the people listen to you? Robin: Because, unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English accent. Crowd: (gasps)
When an actor decides not to bother putting on an accent, either because they can't pull it off without sounding silly or because they believe it'll hinder their ability to act.
Of course, if they are playing a character who is supposed to be speaking a different language than the one we hear, there is no particular reason for the actor to use the accent. By extension, averting the Queen's Latin is not (normally) an example of this trope, though it can certainly feel like it.
If this trope is averted, you're more or less dealing with someone with a Man of a Thousand Voices
Compare with Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping and What The Hell Is That Accent?.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Watch any anime not set in Japan in the original audio. No accents will even be attempted.
- Except Sketchbook. Canada, Eh??
- Zettai Karen Children too.
- China in the Axis Powers Hetalia anime speaks with a (stereotypical) Chinese accent, aru.
- Also, in the Rurouni Kenshin manga Enishi started out having a Chinese accent which was later mostly forgotten (apparently the mangaka found it too much of a hassle). But he still screams and groans in Chinese (that is, with Chinese characters).
- And Taka-tin, in Gintama, who has a stereotypical "Westerner" accent.
- Accidentally subverted in Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto. On the artificial island of Dejima, Nagasaki, some of the main characters stumble upon a stand-off between three Japanese thugs and two American gunmen. Complete with real American voice actors.
- Animated example: one Trinity Blood story arc is set in Albion, a post-apocalyptic version of Great Britain. In the English language dub, Vic Mignogna is the only one of the actors playing an Albion character who even attempts an British accent.
- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya may be an example; given that the show is not-quite-explicitly set in Nishinomiya, Japan, Kyon, Haruhi, and their classmates should be speaking with a Kansai Regional Accent. Of course, given the stereotype associated with such an accent, the absence is understandable.
- Similarly, in Sketchbook only one character (Natsumi) tends to speak in Fukuoka-ben, even though the show is clearly set in the Fukuoka prefecture.
- Particularly jarring in Anime like Code Geass, I's (pronounced "eyes") and Samurai Champloo, that are supposedly set in Japan, but They Just Didn't Care. So Mugen, that wanabe actress, and a Japanese terrorist/Freedom Fighter have American accents. In fact, this is so common that it even has it's own page, Anime Accent Absence.
- Code Geass is all screwed up. The main character is from an alternate Universe Britain that's where the Americas are in the real world, attending a boarding school in Japan for people from his country yet they all speak with American Accents or Japanese depending on the version. It's implied they're speaking French too..
- Samurai Champloo, on the other hand, is entirely based on Rule Of Cool and thus doesn't give a shit.
- In Gundam 00, the international cast of characters all of course speak perfect Japanese. However, even in the English dub, where Lockon could have easily been given his Irish accent, no accents were attempted.
- Played with in the original Mobile Suit Gundam. When a pair of Zeon spies sneak onto the White Base, one of them says "Your Zeon accent's too strong. Let me do the talking." His companion's voice, of course, sounds completely normal.
- Kimbley Yates makes a half-hearted attempt at giving Yomiko Readman an English accent in the first episode of the Read or Die OVA, but completely gives it up in the other episodes. It's kinda weird, since the other British characters all have accents (although most are very obviously fake).
- Chad from Bleach, who spent about a decade in Mexico, speaks Spanish with a thick Japanese accent, his voice actor not even attempting a Mexican accent.
- To be honest, it will be difficult for a Japanese VA (or any Japanese person in general) to speak with a Mexican accent without living in Mexico, since most of the Spanish-learning schools in Japan teach the European Spanish dialect rather than the Mexican (or Latin American) ones. And hearing Chad (or any Japanese VA or actor) speaking like a Spaniard could sound utterly ridiculous even for the Spaniards themselves.
- The dub of the final episode of the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime actually contains a aversion, where the very German Karl Haushofer was portrayed with a German accent. Then The Movie was dubbed, and we get another aversion: his accent was dropped (hell, he was played by the same guy), and they didn't bother giving it to any of the other German characters. One of the characters did speak German, though, so...
- Most likely because of Translation Convention. We're hearing them speak English when they're really speaking German throughout the entire series.
- Pretty much every non-Japanese character in Love Hina. One shining example is Sarah MacDougall, an American girl. In one episode she's talking about dreams. She mentions she doesn't know the Japanese word for it, and says "dream" in English, but in a Japanese accent so thick you could spread it on bread.
- In Hellsing, most of the characters have pretty believable English, German and Scottish accents except for the main character, Alucard, who has an ordinary (albeit, eloquent) American accent.
- Averted when Alucard has a dream of back when he was still Dracula/"Vladycard". He speaks in a very believable Romanian accent.
- Jan Valentine is supposed to speak like a typical English chav, but he and his brother are both without English accent.
- In Brazil, no one had a correct accent except one of the more important characters.
Film
Live-Action TV
- In the semi-dramatised British documentary series Nuremberg: Nazis on Trial, every German character is played with an English accent. Fritz Sauckel is even played with a mild Scouse accent.
- In the Doctor Who episode "Day of the Moon", Rory poses as a Secret Service Agent to the Apollo 11 scientists. He lets Nixon do the talking through the scene until Rory accidentally breaks part of the Lunar Lander model on the table. He then feebly tries to cover it up by saying in his regular accent "America...salutes you!" and walking away.
- William Petersen in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation uses his own Chicago accent for the California-originating Gil Grissom.
- Australian actress Phoebe Tonkin fails at sounding even vaguely American in The Secret Circle pilot. Her accent appears to improve as the series goes on.
- Dennis Franz also sounded more Chicago than Brooklyn on NYPD Blue.
- Julian Sands in Season 5 of 24 used an English accent to play someone from the Caucasus, which led to him being described as the Englishman by Sky's audio description.
- Glasgow native Robert Carlyle puts on a generic Irish accent in 24: Redemption, even though his character is supposed to have been in the Special Forces together with Jack Bauer and is presumably American. This prompted complaints about his unexplained 'Glaswegian accent' from American viewers.
- Khan Noonien Singh from Star Trek: The Original Series is from somewhere in northern India, but speaks in Ricardo Montalban's actual Mexican accent.
- Actually, this trope could apply to just about any role played by Ricardo Montalban that doesn't require him to play someone Latin American (witness his playing a very Mexican-sounding Confederate ex-soldier called Noel Bartley Vautrain in The Wild Wild West).
- Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Jean-Luc Picard is played by Patrick Stewart, a Brit, even though Picard is from the French countryside. He doesn't seem to modify his accent for the role; on the rare occasions when he uses French terms, however, his accent is impeccable. Whenever his relatives appear, they also speak with English accents (or Scottish in the case of his brother) — except for a vision he has of his mother in the first season, who speaks with a French accent.
- Another Star Trek example: Commander Worf was raised (and presumably, taught English) by a heavily-accented Belarusian couple, yet has a pretty vanilla American accent.
- Memorably averted in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy when Stewart plays KGB mastermind Karla. He doesn't speak. At all.
- Something of a subversion occurs in the extremely short-lived British sitcom Heil Honey I'm Home!
 , which features Hitler living next door to an annoying Jewish couple and pretends to be a long-lost American TV show. Hitler speaks with an American accent, as does everyone else, except for Neville Chamberlain.
- It's also sort of a legitimate use of the trope, as Hitler and the neighbor have the worst fake American accents ever. Debate stands as to whether this was intentional.
- On Lost, Croatian Mira Furlan plays Danielle Rousseau, who is ostensibly French. She uses her own accent. Fans have questioned this numerous times, and the producers joke about it often in interviews and podcasts. Presumably this is just a quirk of casting and doesn't mean anything.
- Lampshaded in a video made for the Consumer Electronics Show: "Things which don't make any sense. Polar bears, monsters, a French woman with an Eastern-European accent."
- To give the producers credit, they honestly try to get the British accents correct. Australian accents? Not so much.
- The situation with Danielle is complicated further when we see a younger version of her, portrayed with a French accent.
- It could be explained that she simply lost it, as she never spoke to anyone in 16 years before the first series. Then again, Fridge Brilliance could fall into play when you realise that Rousseau never actually stated she was French, only that she was part of a French expedition. As she was awaiting rescue, it makes sense that she'd write her notes and maps in French, as well the sending out a distress signal in that language. It was these things that lead to the main characters starting to call her the French Woman. As was demonstrated when she interrogated Sayid, she speaks several languages fluently.
- Furlan also spoke with her native Croatian accent as the Minbari Ambassador Delenn in Babylon 5. Most other Minbari had either American or British accents. Dukhat (Reiner Schone), Lenonn (Theodore Bikel) and Sech Turval (Turhan Bey) all used their actors' native accents (German, Yiddish and Austrian, respectively).
- Susan Ivanova is Russian, but is played by Claudia Christian, who speaks with her natural American accent.
- In Burn Notice, Jefferey Donovan speaks with the same upper-middle-class North Shore accent he uses in every other work he's in, despite his character having been born and raised in Miami. One episode lampshades this when he has to fake a Boston accent and does it horribly, and another in which Fiona's brother comments on his terrible American accent. The Irish accent Gabrielle Anwar (who is English) attempted in the pilot was so bad that subsequent episodes, except when she's talking to her brother, have her faking an American accent "to fit in"... and sounding just like an English woman faking an American accent, which is at least closer to an Irish woman faking an American accent than her Irish accent to an Irish woman speaking normally.
- David O'Hara in The Tudors, who managed a convincing Irish accent in Braveheart and a rather less convincing American accent in Wanted, plays the Earl of Surrey, one of the foremost nobles in England, with apparently little effort being made to hide his moderately strong Glaswegian accent (the Earl had a notoriously foul temper so maybe they decided they wanted a Violent Glaswegian).
- In addition to the Eddie Izzard bit involving Robin Hood, he fails miserably at attempting a serviceable imitation of John F. Kennedy during his Dressed to Kill special, and instead substitutes his James Mason impression. The same voice he gives God (if only because God's real voice is "a bit weird").
- Izzard has only two impersonations: James Mason and Sean Connery. He's lampshaded this on occasion, as when he plays Henry VIII as Connery: "Oh, that's a much better name. Church of England. Although I am Scottish myself." or the above JFK as Mason: "People of Berlin, I have come to you to tell you something about the American states. I sound a bit like God, don't I?"
- Additionally, in his bit about Pavlov's dogs/cats, he starts with what is presumably supposed to be a Russian accent, but loses it. "Day 3, rang bigger bell, dog ate more food. Very exciting, very exciting, have become Welsh."
- Accents varied widely among the cast of The Dukes of Hazzard. The producer claimed at one point that if the Dukes had truly authentic accents for that part of the Deep South, they'd be unintelligible to most of the television audience.
- In the Hercules/Xenaverse, the only person who ever attempted a European accent was Michael Hurst as Iolaus, which he dropped at some point. Despite the fact that half the cast was Kiwi, it seemed easier to make everyone sound American.
- In Sliders, the US colonel Angus Rickman (Roger Daltrey) speaks with an English accent that the actor didn't even try to cover.
- From Angel: Holtz, played by the American Keith Szarabajka, uses his own accent for the role.
- The short-lived series The Wizard, starring the late David Rappaport. The story involved Rappaport's character encountering a girl who'd been raised by wolves and didn't speak English. He tried to teach her to say "girl," but in his English RP accent it sounded like "gell." Yet after hearing "gell, gell" repeatedly, she replied "girl" in perfect American diction.
- In-Universe example: There's a...intern...student...guy on Bones with a thick Middle Eastern accent and mannerisms, and at one point Bones questions why he has a Jordanian accent when he's from Iran. Turns out he's faking the accent so people won't question how he reconciles being a strict Muslim with being a scientist, and the moment where he finally loses it is actually quite funny.
- Little-remembered British police drama Van Der Valk was set in Amsterdam. Knowing the supply of actors in the UK capable of a convincing Dutch accent was likely to be very small, the producers subverted the trope by having the cast use various British accents appropriate to the intended audience's conception of how a particular character should sound. Your Mileage May Vary, but it had to be better than the only other likely outcome.
- Power Rangers has been filmed in New Zealand since Power Rangers Ninja Storm, 2003. They're usually good about faking the accents, but the actor who played Xander didn't even bother hiding his Aussie accent. The rest of the actors do bother, they just fail hilariously on occasion.
- And eventually they just said Xander was from Australia to excuse the accent.
- Previously There was Grant Macfarland on Power Rangers Ninja Storm who apparently said "Ah, screw it" when trying to cover up his New Zealand accent and the sizable Canadian talent on Power Rangers S.P.D. speaking in their normal accents.
- The players on Whose Line Is It Anyway? are notorious for their inability to consistently fake accents, sometimes slipping into entirely different ones mid-game (as well as lampshading it when it happens). On one occasion, Ryan's character declared from the start that he isn't going to try to fake the appropriate accent.
- In the main cast of Young Blades, all of the actors speak with their normal American or Canadian accents — which works fine, as they're supposed to be speaking French anyway — except for Robert Sheehan (Irish faking an American accent) and Sheena Easton (faking, for no discernible reason, an English accent). Guest stars tend to use their own accents as well (except for some terrible fake British accents for Charles II and Oliver Cromwell), which does sometimes stick out, most noticeably when Charles Shaughnessy, using his normal English accent, plays the father of one of the main characters.
- In Dollhouse, one of the bigger problems with Eliza Dushku is that her accent, when she speaks Russian, sounds like Aldo Raine's.
- Merlin: Katie McGrath, playing a noblewoman of Camelot, speaks in her native Irish accent.
- In Shortland Street, when Li Mei leaves China for the first time, she speaks fluent English with a New Zealand accent.
- All in the Family featured Rob Reiner playing a Polish-American from Chicago; he made no attempt to sound like anything other than a guy from New York.
- Perennial favorite foreign stuntman/actor Mark Musashi (Cutie Honey: The Live, GARO, Sh15uya) makes no attempts to mask the fact that Japanese isn't his first language. He doesn't roll his 'r's, he puts inflictions in all the wrong places, and his mouth movements are all wrong. There's a reason he's usually cast as foreigners and mythical beings.
- Christopher Walken's rendition on "The Three Little Pigs."
Walken: In his most polite voice, Wolfie says..."Little piggy, little piggy... [lowers his voice] little piggy, little piggy...let me come in." [high-pitched] "No!" [normal voice] says the little pig, who knows a wolf when he sees one. [still normal voice] "Not by the hair on my chinny-chin chin."
- The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne had Chris Demetral playing the title character with an American accent... mainly because (as he stated in a web chat shortly after Sci Fi picked up the series) his attempts at a French accent sounded too much like Pepe LePew.
- In Frasier, Roz (Peri Gilpin) is repeatedly stated to be from Wisconsin. However, she clearly speaks in Gilpin's natural Texan drawl.
- On Roseanne, Irish actor Glenn Quinn actually does do a fair job giving Illinois native Mark Healey a decent accent. However, later in the series, more and more of his brogue very noticeably slips through the cracks
- The supposedly Israeli Ari Frankel, who makes one appearance on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia has no trace of an Israeli accent. This may be part of Hollywood's (and the media in general's) infuriating belief that Israel is made up of Ashkenazi Jews from Brooklyn rather than, say, Middle Easterners.
- Many of the African-American actors on Da Vinci's Inquest sound entirely American rather than sounding like they are from Vancouver, where the show is both filmed and set. Of course, the high number of black actors on the show and in the police force in particular is already a major headscratcher for Vancouver.
- Lafayette on True Blood. Everyone else on the show that should logically have one at least attempts a southern accent. Lafayette doesn't even bother. His Camp Gay qualities help make this somewhat less noticable.
- Averted in Mexican telenovelas or soap operas, where non-Mexican actors/actresses must fake a Mexican accent to appear on-screen. Especially jarring with some Argentinean actors/actresses when they have moments of Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping, considering how different an Argentinean accent sounds compared to a Mexican accent; even non-Spanish speakers can tell the difference pretty easily.
- Played stratight in Venezuelan telenovelas or soap operas, where foreign actors — especially when they are the protagonists — speak with their natural accents, even if they're not foreign. This is usually barely Handwaved, if it's explained at all.
- In Zen, based on the Aurelio Zen mystery series about an Italian policeman, the cast has a variety of accents. There's some Italian actors and actresses speaking English with an accent, some British actors and actresses attempting Italian accented English, and in the majority of cases (including the lead), British actors Not Even Bothering with the Accent.
- One of the complaints about Telemundo's soap operas is that every actor keeps speaking in their own accent, which becomes especially jarring when people with accents as different as Puerto Rican, Cuban, Venezuelan and Argentinian were cast as members of the same family. The network contested by forcing their actors to adopt the stereotypical Mexican Pseudo-Neutral Soapie Accent, with the consequences that many actuations become hindered, and the thing sounded even more ridiculous due to Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping.
- Selena Gomez doesn't even try a New York accent for Wizards of Waverly Place.
- On Heroes, Claire doesn't seem to have a Texas accent despite apparently living there for most of her life. Same with her brother and everyone at her school.
- Actually, Claire does have a faint Texan accent in early episodes.
- In Gossip Girl most of the characters' lack of accents is justified due to them being Upper Class. However the Middle Class Brooklyn based Humphreys don't have any accents.
- Happens in-universe on Glee: for the performance of West Side Story, Rory is given a part as one of the Sharks. The Puerto Rican Sharks. The ensuing hilarity is immediately lampshaded by one of the audience members.
- In the otherwise perfectly acceptable Hungarian dub of 'Allo 'Allo!, a show famous for using heavy accents as a means of Translation Convention, Agent Crabtree's the only character that retains his strong, fake French accent and "special" speech pattern. Everybody else, the French, the Germans and the Brits all talk like their voice actors do in their everyday life.
- Larry Hagman, a native Texan, was the only member of the Dallas cast to not have an accent issue. While Linda Gray, Steve Kanaly and (while he was alive) Jim Davis made out well, Patrick Duffy sometimes forgets to use what little accent he did, and Victoria Principal and Ken Kercheval didn't bother at all (which may make sense for dramatic purposes since their characters are Barneses rather than Ewings, but isn't explained in the show at all).
- Chibs from Sons Of Anarchy is supposed to be Northern Irish, despite Tommy Flanagan playing him with his natural Glaswegian accent. This was later retconned into Chibs having been born in Northern Ireland but grown up in Scotland, and then returning to Northern Ireland to join the IRA. However, throughout the series, they make no mention of him having grown up in Scotland, nor do they refer to Belfast as being in Northern Ireland (they always say Ireland, as in Southern Ireland), so it's assumed by many that the makers Did Not Do the Research, or more worryingly, thought that Americans wouldn't notice.
- Kochanski in Red Dwarf as played by Chloe Annett, who took over the role from Clare Grogan. Grogan had a Scottish accent, and Annett had an English accent — despite Annett's Kochanski saying she was "brought up in the trendiest part of Glasgow". (Possibly explainable by her also attending Cyberschool, a virtual-reality boarding school.)
- In Stargate SG-1, Cliff Simon portrays Ba'al (the Goa'uld System Lord) using his natural South African accent; the other System Lords for the most part speak in English or American accents.
Music
- The Human League's 'Taverner Tape' is a demo tape with commentary from Jason Taverner, club owner and recording artist who recommends the band highly, mentioning that they played on his album 'We're Having A Good Time With Taverner tonight'. Taverner is a fictional character designed to make record companies interested, his parts are performed by Phil Oakey, who doesn't bother changing his accent (however, he does attempt to make it sound slightly deeper than usual). Compare Oakey's spoken intro to the Fast Version of 'Circus Of Death' to the Taverner interludes. Of course, at this time, it's unlikely record companies would have noticed.
Professional Wrestling
- White South African heel Colonel De Beers sounds very American and not at all South African (his real name is Ed Wiskoski, and he's actually from Portland, Oregon).
- Ezekiel Jackson was originally said to be from Harlem when in actuality he's from South America. When he was moved to ECW and actually began talking, WWE realized that no one was going to buy it, so they started announcing him from South America.
- A slight aversion, Kofi Kingston, who is African but has an American accent, did have a believable Jamaican accent when he was announced as being from there. Then in September 2009, they decided to drop it without explanation and begin announcing him as being from Ghana, West Africa. He dropped the accent on RAW with no explanation, though Triple H did lampshade it seconds later. Oddly enough, he still uses the Jamaican theme.
- And is still named "Kingston" (as opposed to "Kumasi," or something similar).
- Carlos Rodrigo Cabrera and Hugo Savinovich, the famous (or infamous) members of the Spanish Announcers Table always speak in their own accents (Colombian and Ecuatorian Spanish respectively) which can be grating for non-South American, non-Hispanic audiences, like Mexicans (when they're nicknamed, at least in Mexico, "Those Two Cuban Announcers from the WWE")
Radio
- Ray Ellington's roles on The Goon Show would occasionally feature him playing a native-born Scotsman or a female secretary. Ray Ellington had the kind of voice where you'd be almost certain he was black even without the (for the time) good-natured jokes about it.
- Kenneth Horne in Round the Horne played every part in his own accent, a fact often lampshaded in the script.
Theater
- An example of an inversion of the Trope: In the film Monster In a Box, Spaulding Gray, a New England native, relates how critics attacked him for not being able to maintain a New England accent during his stage performance of Our Town.
- William Shakespeare's plays are set in ancient Greece and Rome, Renaissance Italy, Denmark, Scotland, and medieval England. Nobody ever worries about the accents during a performance.
- This was spoofed in an episode of Boy Meets World when the class staged Hamlet. Stewart Minkis got the title role (which Corey Matthews finds outrageous), and throughout rehearsals he tries various ill-advised strategies to make the character more "authentic." First he remarks that since Hamlet is a Dane, perhaps he should use a Scandinavian accent - and he then launches into the most stereotypical Swedish accent imaginable ("Oh, yah, yah!"). Then he reflects that Elizabethan English had some affinities with the dialects of rural Appalachia - so he starts talking like a character on The Beverly Hillbillies.
Video Games
- In Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, Carlos speaks with a strangely generic American voice, despite the fact that he's supposed to come from South America. It sounds even odder when he calls Jill "chica" in his American voice.
- Same with the second act of Resident Evil 3.
- Jessica from Revelations also has an American accent, despite being European.
- In Metal Gear Solid 3, all of the "Russian" characters, with the exception of Granin and Nikita Kruschev, speak with flawless American accents, except for Sokolov, who speaks with Belgian accent. Lampshaded when Sokolov remarks that Snake has "excellent Russian". The player is meant to assume that we're hearing Russian translated into American English/Japanese/whatever (although it was originally intended that Snake and Sokolov actually speak Russian).
- In MGS4, you fight a variety of soldiers from various different countries. All of them except Vamp and Crying Wolf speak with American accents. This includes the British ones who'd presumably speak English anyway. The unseen PMC announcers and advert narrators are slightly more diverse.
- It's probably justified at least with the French PMC Pieuvre Armament: A gameshow seen in the loading screen for MGS 4 claimed that the amount of soldiers enlisted in the PMC is the size of a combination of Canada and Mexico, and given the real-life statistics of the population in France, likewise implies (if the statistic wasn't an error by the creators) that the PMC was only based in France, and that not all of the PMC troops are French.
- Liquid is shown in Metal Gear Solid to have a stereotypical English accent, with occasional slips. In Metal Gear Solid 4, his new VA plays him with an American accent. The Reveal is that he's only Ocelot pretending to be Liquid, which makes this something of an In-Universe example as well.
- Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker had Paz, when unveiling her true colors, speaking with a distinctly Russian accent, despite the briefing tapes implying that she was raised in America, and the only foreign race she was descended from was Latino. Similarly, Cat Taber gave Cecile Cosima Caminades a pretty terrible French accent.
- In Portable Ops, practically everyone has an American accent, including characters with non-American voice actors (most of the enemies are Soviets), although Sokolov is an exception.
- In Fallout 3, Malcolm McDowell portrays President John Henry Eden, who claims to have been brought up in rural Kentucky. At times, he seems to be trying to fake some sort of American accent, but most of the time he sounds like, well, Malcolm McDowell. Also, the player character's father, voiced by Liam Neeson (who, as has been remarked upon elsewhere, doesn't really do accents).
- Half-Life 2 takes place in post-apocalyptic Eastern Europe, but only three characters have an accent that isn't North American, and two of them are British.
- Justified in that it is mentioned the Combine frequently relocate people around the world.
- In Freelancer, with the exception of a few major characters in the story missions, none of the Rhinelanders, Kusari, or Bretonians speak with the accent of their home country. Most notably the main character, Trent, who is ostensibly Bretonian, but does not share his foster father Tobias' notable British accent.
- Characters such as Lancer and Saber in the English dub of Fate/stay night are noticeably lacking the accents an English-speaking audience would expect, given their countries of origin. Of course, this is doubly justified: the Irish and British accents of Cú Chulainn or King Arthur's time would be completely different from modern ones, and the dub was already bad enough without poorly faked accents.
- Assassin's Creed: nearly all of the Crusades-era characters have vaguely Middle Eastern accents except for the main character, Altaïr, who speaks as American as apple pie (since he is actually his descendant reliving his Genetic Memories). Lucy, the technician working on the Animus, says that she can restore all the accents and write it as Old English, but she doesn't because it would be like reading Chaucer.
- The sequels, which take place in Renaissance Italy, feature plenty of accents, as well as Gratuitous Italian. Except everybody speaks with the same generic accent and the same dialect, no matter which part of Italy they're from. This is also the result of the Animus 2.0 making some adjustments to memories.
- Parodied in Grand Theft Auto IV with the movie "Dragon Brain" set in medieval times which features "...a humble blacksmith, with a California accent".
- In the Tekken series, several (though not all) of the English-speaking characters from countries other than America speak with American accents. For example: Nina and Anna (Irish), Leo (German), Marduk (Australian), and so on. This was initially subverted with Lei, until Tekken 6, where his Chinese accent suddenly became American.
- In the English dub of Street Fighter IV and Super Street Fighter IV, only the European characters (Cammy, Vega, Rose, Abel and Zangief), El Fuerte (Mexican) and Dee Jay (Jamaican) have accents that aren't American. Most of them are accurate except Abel, who can't decide what accent he has.
- In the first two Rainbow Six games, the player characters, regardless of nationality, all have American accents.
- Tomi Undergallows in Neverwinter Nights comes from a place named Calimshan, which had a Vizier named Sabbalan Vihayed. So how does he talk? With an appalling accent that has exactly zero points of similarity with the accent of anyone from the Middle East. (It bears a few similarities to bad Cockney, and saying that is an insult to bad Cockney)
- In Dragon Age, Ferelden and Tevinter Humans generally have English (sounding) accents, but it's by no means consistent. Notably, both Wynne and Flemeth have American/Canadian accents. Flemeth may be from the fade or just from another, long extinct society given that she might be hundreds of years old. Wynne had an American accent long before she encountered a fade spirit of her own.
- The Dwarves use a variety of American accents, but who has what one seems to be entirely random. Both Dwarf origins have the PC's family and peers, and no two of them sound like they're from the same area. Oghren has a vaguely western/Texas twang, and a couple of minor quest-givers have New York accents.
- The Dalish (nomadic) elves appear to have American accents in the first game but adopt primarily Welsh and Irish accents in the second, even a character who was present in the first game. The city elves have American accents in both, except for some in the sequel who are of Dalish origin.
- Most Antivan characters have Spanish accents. Taliesen, however, uses Gideon Emery's natural English accent. A few in the sequel have Italian accents as well.
- Sebastian Vael from the Exiled Prince DLC in Dragon Age II appears to be the only character from Starkhaven to have a Scottish accent. The voice actor, Alec Newman, used the same accent for one of the Dalish elves, where it seems equally out of place.
- The voice actress who plays Flora in the English dubs of the Professor Layton games resolutely refuses to even try to attempt an English accent. This is annoying not only because the character grew up secluded in an entirely English-accented society (so why on earth does she sounds so different?), but also every other voice actor, except in the EU dubs, are American, and they at least give the accents a jolly good whack.
- Just to confuse one further: Flora's voice actress is Lani Minella, who voices Luke and every other woman in the series. Well, the weird part is that she also voices Claire in Professor Layton and the Unwound Future, whose accent, while not perfect by any means, is quite pleasant.
- The intro movie for Civilization 5 is about an Arabic chieftain describing a dream to his son. For some reason, these Arabic nomads speak with heavy English accents.
- The developers do a good job having civilization leaders speak in their native language and even found voice actors for the job. Except ancient leaders really shouldn't be speaking modern-day versions of their languages.
- The Light Gun Game Endgame takes place in England and Europe, but the characters all have American accents. Obviously, They Just Didn't Care, as the rest of the game was pretty sloppy as well.
- In most cases this trope is averted in the Sly Cooper series, but special mention goes to Inspector Carmelita Fox. In the first game she has a very mild but not unnoticeable Hispanic accent. Her voice actor changed in the second game, and apparently she either didn't get the memo about the accent or simply couldn't do it, because it's completely gone in that game. Oddly enough, her voice actor changed again in the third game, and not only did she get the accent back, but it also became even more pronounced than it was in the first game.
- In the Syphon Filter series, Lian Xing, despite being Chinese-born, has an American accent in all her appearances.
Web Original
Western Animation
- Ratatouille: the French rats and Linguini are American-sounding; Anton Ego the critic, British.
- On the 1980s Alvin and the Chipmunks version, there seems to be no effort to give The Chipettes an Australian accent (though, to be fair it wasn't until the show's third season that it's revealed they're from Down Under).
- In Gargoyles, the gargoyles are originally from 10th century Scotland. Only Hudson has a (modern) Scottish accent, the others sound American except Demona, who sounds English. The Avalon gargoyles grew up on a magically isolated island where the only three people they could have learned to speak from all have Scottish accents. They also sound American.
- Special mention is deserved by the just awful accent Demona puts on when she pretends to be French. Her accent (and her pronunciation of French words) is a more a caricature than an honest effort. A first-year French-language student could do better.
- In An American Tail, Fievel and his sister Tanya sport American accents before they even immigrate from Russia to America.
- The Road to El Dorado: the two main characters, Miguel and Tulio, despite ostensibly being Spaniards, have British and American accents respectivley. Everyone else, meanwhile, has American accents, including the South American inhabitants of the city yet undiscovered by Europeans (except Tzekel-Kan, whose accent it also British) and famed Spanish explorer Cortes.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender never came up with an in-universe explanation for Iroh's Japanese accent.
- George Carlin provided excellent accents for the Scottish Twins when he narrated the American dubs of Thomas the Tank Engine. Alec Baldwin, on the other hand, didn't even try.
- Also becomes extremely evident in later season where all of the characters are now voiced by individual actors: All of the humans in the show now have British accents, but so are only half of the mechanical characters (particularly Gordon, James, Emily, the Scottish twins, Murdoch, Spencer, Duncan, and Diesel 10). The rest of the mechanical characters (such as Thomas himself, among others) primarily have American accents.
- In Taz-Mania almost nobody has an Australian accent. (Bushwacker Bob, his Mum, Mr Thickley, and possibly Constance - although some might say she sounded more English, due to her being voiced by English actress Rosalyn Landor. Everyone else was American.)
- Neither Cody nor Mac Leach sound anything like Australians in The Rescuers Down Under.
- Used as a joke on Sea Lab 2021. Captain Shanks simply drops his southern drawl in one episode. When asked why by Stormy, he says the accent made him sound gay.
- And then the stereotypically gay character drops his accent. He actually sounds like a pirate.
- In X-Men Evolution, Toad, one of the members of The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, is portrayed in this series as an American teenager who is frequently the Chew Toy. Surprisingly in the comics and the first X-Men Movie his nationality is British.
- Thought at the same time, it could easily be mistaken for a Western Yorkshire accent, which does sound similar to Toad's accent (Even some of his sliang is used in that area), and it never actually said what part of Britain Toad is from. He could easily be from Manchester or Leeds, in which case the accent would fit to some extent.
- Miko Nakadai of Transformers Prime is voiced by Indonesian actress Tania Gunadi using her natural accent, despite being a Japanese exchange student.
- In The Lion King, all the African lions have American accents, except Scar, who sounds as British as his voice actor Jeremy Irons.
- Every voice actor in Disney's version of Beauty and the Beast uses their own American accent, except Jerry Orbach as Lumiere and Kimmy Robertson as Babette. Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Potts also sounds somewhat English.
- The Hungarian dub of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic dropped Applejack's accent entirely, because one, almost every other aspect of the dub is equally sloppy anyway, and two (also the more likely reason), it would have been far too easy to make the character sound stupid if the actress had to forced an accent.
- Patrick Stewart keeps his accent when voicing Bullock from American Dad, which is especially ridiculous considering he hold a high ranking position in the CIA, an American federal institution. This is almost certainly intentional, and even gets a Lampshade Hanging when he notes he picked up some women with his "sexy accent".
- Aladdin takes place in the Middle East. Every single character except for three sound American: the storyteller at the beginning actually sounds vaguely Arabic, and Jaffar and the Sultan are both British (though Jaffar more so.) Actually, a lot of Disney villains have British accents...
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