Vocal Dissonance / Anime & Manga

Vocal Dissonance in anime and manga.

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• In +Anima, Husky, a very feminine-looking teenage boy with fish powers, has a gravelly voice, where he gets his name.
• In the Ace Attorney (2016) anime, in the flashbacks to when the main characters were kids, Edgeworth and Larry sound like they're 17 years old when they're supposed to be only 9. Averted in the English dub, where female actors were cast for all three boys to give more age-appropriate voices.
• Aggretsuko: Retsuko's voice changes from a normal cute female voice to a harsh screaming male voice when she gets enraged and sings Death Metal.
• In Ai Kora, the short and petite Kirino Ootori is described as having a husky, womanly voice that Maeda finds to be his "ideal voice".
• In Anpanman, one of the shortest characters in the series, Mushibakinman, has a deep and demonic voice.
• Chiyo's father (maybe) in Azumanga Daioh looks like a cute cat plushie, but speaks with the booming dramatic voice of Norio Wakamoto. Also applies to the English dub, where he sounds like a suave adult man.
• The Bakuten Shoot Beyblade dub has chirpy, blond, often with a cat smile Max, due to his VA undergoing Vocal Evolution. From V-Force onwards he's got one of the deepest voices of the main cast.
• Bleach:
  • Enryu from the Filler Arc is an enormous, extremely strong man who never speaks. When he finally does speak, he has an insanely high, squeaky voice.
  • Luppi, one of the Espada, looks and acts pretty girly...but in the Japanese version, he has a deep masculine voice courtesy of Daisuke Kishio.
  • Byakuya Kuchiki, the Captain of Squad Six and Rukia's older brother, is an elegant Bishounen man who is regarded as one of the most beautiful men in Soul Society. When he speaks, his voice is a baritone, courtesy of Ryōtarō Okiayu.
  • Rukia herself fits. She has the appearance of a cute teenage girl, is short and wears skirts and usually wears feminine clothing, when not wearing her shinigami uniform. By contrast, her voice is in the contralto territory.
• In Case Closed, Mary alias Mysterious Child has the looks of a girl no older than 15 and the voice of an adult woman. She's been practically confirmed to be another victim of the Fountain of Youth - and one who unlike the teenaged Conan/Shinichi and Ai/Shiho, was actually a grown-up when shrunk.
• Vasilisa, a minor character in A Certain Magical Index sounds like a little girl when she casts her spells, which are based on a folktale involving a girl with an Evil Stepmother.
• Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE! has Zundar/Thunder, a cute hedgehog with the very deep voice of Hiroki Yasumoto. A similar thing happens with Dadacha, the flying squirrel who looks suspiciously like Zundar and is also voiced by Yasumoto.
• Daisaku Bandai in Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School is a gigantic, muscular black man who is the tallest character in the entire franchise at seven feet, and is approximately in his thirties. He has the voice of a little girl.
• Death Note gives L a remarkably deep voice in the English dub (courtesy of Alessandro Juliani) for such a lithe and unusually pretty man. Downplayed in that while his voice might seem a bit too deep, he is at least a grown man.
  • Mello, when he's introduced, is only 14 years old and looks more like a girl, but he has the voice of a grown man. Most likely, he was given this voice specifically so that people wouldn't think he was a girl.
• Digimon Tamers was the first Digimon series where all the Mons (save Beelzemon because Evil Is Cool) keep the same voice from one form to the next, resulting in a Knight In Shining Armour, a Humongous Mecha, and a Miko sounding like a Ridiculously Cute Critter or the preteens they've merged with. Though since Renamon always had a rather adult-like voice and Cyberdramon was already at the Ultimate level, it only affected Guilmon and Terriermon, and all the voices still fit their characterization.
  • It's really bad in their debut appearances when the Fusion Dance characters really aren't portrayed with the same characterization as their components. Day-one Gallantmon's bombastic speeches set new world records for Narm when coming from a child and his even-more-childlike dragon partner.
    • This eventually caused a second instance of Vocal Dissonance when Digimon World -next 0rder- introduced their own version of Guilmon, which had a more mature voice that fit Gallantmon but was still used in his Rookie form. Hearing a cute cartoon dinosaur talk like the only adult in the room is bad enough; the complete 180 from the Tamers voice put it over the top.
  • Even outside Tamers, there's Silphymon. When it's Fusion Dance time, the resulting form sounds like the unchanged voices of the component 'mons talking at once. This rule was followed even with Gatomon, a Rookie-sized Champion with the expected childlike voice in the English dub. It sounded all kinds of wrong alongside the deep, gruff voice of Aquilamon.
  • All Digimon series did this originally in the Japanese version, albeit inconsistently (not all Digimon did this) and with subtle variations for the upper forms; it's arguably inverted in the case of Tailmon, who (like Renamon, and unlike her American version Gatomon) had a very mature voice in her base Adult form (which is still a Ridiculously Cute Critter) which doesn't change at all when evolving to Angewomon.
  • In Digimon Frontier, we get it with Lucemon, to work against the character in one form and for him in another. Lucemon is voiced by Mona Marshall (aka Izzy, Terriermon) in her Izzy voice but with more evil. It works when he looks like a child. But then he gets a more adult form... and still sounds like a ten-year-old. Somehow even blowing up moons doesn't make it possible to take him seriously with that voice. Then he gets a monstrous form... and his voice becomes that of a Creepy Child (who calls his attack in a Stage Whisper, no less). It was actually quite effective.
    • Partially averted in the Japanese version, where Lucemon's more adult form is voiced by none other then Ryūsei Nakao. Nakao also provided the growls for his ultimate monstrous form, but child!Lucemon's seiyuu Kumiko Nishihara returned to do his larvae form inside it.
    • The Japanese version also did this with the heroic Digimon. When the Legendary Warriors reveal themselves as separate entities from their human counterparts, Agnimon still has a childish voice despite being twice the height of the human characters. This carries over to their combined form, Susanoomon, which was one of the most powerful entities shown in the anime by that time. The English dub avoids this by having the characters' voice actors use deeper versions of the human characters' voices instead.
    • The Frontier dub did still this with Tommy's Beast Spirit to keep him recognizable. Instead of making his voice deeper, they just make it sound more gravelly.
  • In Digimon Fusion, Shoutmon's fused forms retain the base form's childlike voice in both Japanese and English. On the other hand, Shoutmon's evolved forms continue the series tradition of the English dub using a deeper voice while the original leaves it as is.
• In Doraemon's Latin-American Spanish dub, Gian, the Big Guy who often bullies Nobita, is voiced by Luis Daniel Ramírez, giving him a high-pitched voice, sounding more like Elmo than he sounds like a menacing bully.^note It's pretty funny, because Ramirez also voices Krillin, who was usually voiced by Eduardo Garza, who is also the Latin American voice for Elmo.
• Dragon Ball: This trope applies to half the cast in its original Japanese version, due to many of them being muscular men voiced by adult women attempting to sound like young boys (with many of them sharing a voice actress). While most foreign dubs avert this, a few examples pop up from time to time.
  • Goku. A massive muscleman who can destroy planets with his bare hands and routinely fights for the safety of the universe retains the same innocent Simpleton Voice full of wonderment he had as a child. Justified in that the Japanese audiences loved Masako Nozawa's performance so much, they refused to accept the idea of having her replaced as Goku grew up. By proxy, Nozawa ended up voicing Goku's entire male immediate family and various derivative characters, right down to his even manlier, battle-hardened father Bardock — a character for which she used a voice nearly identical to Goku's.
  • Masako Nozawa is no stranger to this trope. Outside of Dragon Ball, quite a few of her other characters are adultlike masculine heroes, such as Guilmon's digivolutions (especially Gallantmon/Dukemon) and the Japanese-dubbed version of Wukong. One could say that, despite her age and gender, Nozawa was able to defy the Pigeonholed Voice Actor trope because of her role as Goku - which, in fact, is the case for Wukong, where she was cast as a direct Shout-Out to Dragon Ball.
  • Averted in any English dub of Dragon Ball Z, where the grown-up Goku sounds manly all right but he still acts like a child. The other members of his family also received different voice actors, always females as children and males as adults; Bardock was given a baritone.
  • Also averted in the Latin-American dub, where child!Goku is voiced by a female voice actress and teen/adult!Goku by a male one. Said male VA (Mario Castañeda) sounds like a playful young man most of the time until it's time to get serious and he goes borderline baritone. Also averted in the Brazilian dub, where basically the same happens.
  • In the earlier flashback scenes of the Westwood dub of Dragon Ball Z, Kid Goku sounded like a higher pitched version of his adult self.
  • Krillin arguably. He's a pint-sized, 26-year-old man with muscles and a baby face, compromisingly performed with a gruff voice by Mayumi Tanaka. Tanaka also voices Yajirobe, whose voice doesn't change as he gets older either.
    • However, while Yaji is voiced by a man in the German dub, he's voiced by the same guy who used to do Squidward until his death. In the English dub, he's voiced by a man who sounds like a scratchy-voiced Muppet.
  • An inverted version of the usual Dragon Ball case with Kid Trunks, who's voiced by Takeshi Kusao — Future Trunks' adult male VA — in the Japanese version. The English dubs instead give him a voice actress who can sound like a child.
  • Also Frieza, who has an effeminate build and color scheme, but a deep voice and a polite, masculine way of speaking. Again, this varies by localization, with most dubs of English-speaking Frieza having the voice of a raspy woman while Eddie Frierson in PlayStation game Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout and Chris Ayres in Dragon Ball Z Kai have scratchy but distinctly masculine voices.^note Frierson's voice is deeper than Ayres, which sounds similar to LittleKuriboh and Richard Steven Horvitz.
  • For the English dub of Dragonball Super Broly when Vegeta and Raditz are shown as children after the destruction of Planet Vegeta, even though they are around 7 or 8 years old they sound like teenagers, whereas in the Japanese version their adult voice actors attempted to sound like children by speaking in higher pitched nasally voices.
• In the ADV dub of the Neon Genesis Evangelion movie The End of Evangelion, Bridge Bunny nerd Makoto Hyuga's TV series voice actor, Matt Greenfield, is replaced by Keith Burgess. In the series, Greenfield does a pretty standard timid nerd voice for Hyuga. It comes as a shock, then, when you hear Burgess's first lines in EoE; Burgess is black, and sounds nothing like Greenfield. "Black Hyuga" has become somewhat of a meme in the community.
• Played for Laughs in Excel♡Saga, in a scene where a character is seen for most of the episode in a mask and with a deep male voice, then when the mask is taken off, it is revealed to be a hot blonde woman (an old-timey love interest of Nabeshin). But the thing is, even after the reveal, she continues to talk in that male voice to the end!
• Fairy Tail:
  • Even before getting a voice actor, Ichiya Vandalay Kotobuki is introduced via his silky smooth voice that would make any woman swoon... Then he appears in person and is shown to be the defining example of Gonk in the series. Then he appears in the anime, and who's cast to play him? Show Hayami^note aka Aizen in Japanese, and Chris Guerrero^note the narrator of Toriko in English.
  • When first introduced in Edolas, Panther Lily is a large, imposing feline figure with a deep, gruff voice to match. Then he gets sent to Earth-land and gains a Sleep-Mode Size no bigger or more adorable than Happy and Carla, yet his voice sounds exactly the same.
  • Several male characters are portrayed by women when the need arises to portray them as children, whereas voice actresses in female roles simply give younger-sounding performances. But there are some guys like Elfman, Jellal, and Erza's childhood friends who retain a baritone completely unfitting for kids.
    • The Sun Village arc completely forgoes the use of "child" voices when the characters are turned into kids; even deep-voiced women like Erza and Minerva sound no different than when they're fully grown. What makes this especially egregious is that the usual childlike performances are used in flashbacks during the exact same arc.
    • The English dub greatly avoids this trope, including during the aforementioned Sun Village arc, casting more actors suited for child roles than the Japanese version.
• Frieren: Beyond Journey's End: Frieren the elf physically resembles a young teenage girl, but is much, much older, and it's reflected in her voice acting; both dub and sub actresses portray with the deep, mature voice of an adult woman, contrasting her youthful appearance.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • Alphonse Elric has a little boy's voice contained in a man-sized suit of armor.
  • Near the end of the Briggs arc, Al runs out into a snowstorm to get information to the other heroes, and Ed needs to trick Kimblee into thinking he's still around. So Ed makes a replica of Al's armor and has one of the Briggs soldiers hide inside... and the guy almost blows their cover when trying to speak in Al's little kid voice.
  • At the climax, after absorbing God and the souls of Amestris, Father transforms his body into one that is identical to Ed/young Hohenheim; that is, he turns into a Pretty Boy. When this happens in Brotherhood, he keeps his "old man" voice for some reason. Most likely they were trying to make sure that fans didn't sympathize with him due to being hot.
  • Invoked by Envy, as they typically use their normal voice regardless of their appearance, which can be extremely unnerving. A good is example is when they use their own voice to taunt Hughes while disguised as Maria Ross, and continuing the trend as Gracia before killing him.
• Gaiking: Legend of Daiku Maryu featured several counts of this trope in the epilogue.
• In Hellsing Ultimate, when Alucard assumes the form of a woman (they same form he had assumed in World War II), his pitch never goes any higher than his usual baritone.
• Japan of Hetalia: Axis Powers is the shortest and slimmest of the main 8 characters and has a very youthful appearance, but his voice is rather deep and mature, reflecting his business-like nature and very old age. Russia the Psychopathic Manchild is sort of the opposite; he's by far the largest of them yet has a high, childish voice, but he also looks cutesy. However, his signature kolkolkolkol... and a few other lines suggest that he does the voice on purpose and his real voice is rather deep, or at least that he has a ton of range. It should be noticed that Japan was originally given a rather light voice in the CD dramas, but later Hiroki Takahashi resorted to using a deeper tone. Heck, his first seiyuu ever (in the Flower of Iris CD) was a lady.
• In Hirogaru Sky! Pretty Cure, Kabaton retains his very deep voice even when disguised as a piglet, resulting in a grown man's voice coming out of an adorable (relatively speaking) small pig.
• Hunter × Hunter: Biscuit Krueger's real appearance is very muscular, almost man-like, yet her voice remains feminine. In the Greed Island Final OVA she's straight up voiced by a man in her real form.
• Inazuma Eleven's second series, set ten years in the future, kept the voice actors for the adult versions of the original series' characters. This results in a lot of grown men sounding like 14-year-old boys, most of whom are voiced by adult women.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood: Despite being very tall and muscular, Jonathan Joestar sounds as young and boyish as his son Giorno, in stark contrast to Joseph, Jotaro, and Josuke, who all have rougher and much deeper voices. However, this fits his gentlemanly and soft personality.
• In Kill la Kill, Nonon Jakazure has a voice that is an interesting mix of rasp, growl, and squeak.
• Komi Can't Communicate:
  • The anime plays with this trope in Makoto Katai's case. When speaking out loud, his voice is deep and menacing, which fits his intimidating appearance. However, during his inner monologues his voice is higher and friendlier, which shows how despite his threatening looks, he's really a timid guy who wants to make friends.
  • Manbagi's friend Gonzales is a short young girl, but her voice is so deep and husky that she sounds more like a musclebound man. She doesn't seem to mind, given that she plays it up for laughs and doesn't mind the nickname "Gonzales".
• The Legend of Black Heaven has a huge black guy beating the crap out of Watanabe due to the latter accidentally flipping him off. Said black guy has a really dull, flat voice that really doesn't fit him at all. The so called "worst black guy in a Japanese dub ever" soon became a meme.
• It was never adapted in the anime, but one chapter of Lovely★Complex has the cute transgender Girly Girl Seiko's voice completely break. She said it began deepening in middle school but she could still pass as feminine. The other characters describe it as a masculine, man's voice which causes her to detransition for several chapters. Eventually, her voice goes back to normal.
• Played for Laughs in Lucky Star, where nameless extras are deliberately given deep and raspy voices, more befitting older chain-smokers than the young men and women they usually are.
• In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Reflection, Chrono has his adult appearance from the post Time Skip seasons (in keeping with information in supplementary material that he went through a growth spurt soon after the second season), but is voiced by Mikako Takahashi (his child voice actress) rather than Tomokazu Sugita (his adult voice actor).
• Dragons in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid keeps their voices regardless of which form they're in, which means there are times where a young woman's voice will be coming out of a two-story tall dragon.
• In Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun, contrary to her masculine looks, Kashima's natural speaking voice is high and easily recognizable as belonging to a girl, though she often manually lowers it when she's flirting with her fangirls or acting.
• Mushi Shi features an episode in which Ginko enters a village that appears to be covered in rust due to the large amount of Mushi congregated there. The Mushi are bringing a disease to the people in the village. Said disease leaves them unable to walk or move as it worsens. Because Mushi are typically Invisible to Normals the people have decided that a local girl that has a cross between a whisper and a Voice of the Legion is to blame.It turns out that they're only partially correct. Ginko explains that the girl has a voice that can hit pitches humans normally shouldn't be able to. It attracted a Mushi that normally aids in the decomposition of dead bodies. Since there were no dead bodies, it started attaching itself to the living instead. Further, there were so many of them because she'd lived in that town for years. They end up using her voice to lure the Mushi away and cure the disease. Despite Ginko explaining that it wasn't the girl's fault for having such a strange voice and that she remained mute for ten years because she'd secretly discovered her voice had something to do with it, the people of the town demand that she apologize anyway.
• My Hero Academia: For most of the first three seasons, the rather large Rock Monster Koji Koda doesn't say a word (possibly due to being nervous, possibly due to his quirk which allows him to control animals with his voice). When he finally speaks for the first time in episode 36, he turns out to have a voice like a young boy, rather high pitched and soft.
  • Tsuyu Asui is a Cute Monster Girl, but has a gruff, frog-like voice.
  • Downplayed with Fat Gum in the English dub. His voice isn't outright high pitched but still a bit high for such a big man, some teenage boys (including Kirishima) having noticeably deeper voices than him.
• Naruto:
  • Gaara sounds like a big, hulking 36-year-old biker dude. In actuality, he's a tiny 12-year-old boy, though the voice does fit his personality.
  • Though not quite as extreme, Sasuke is another twelve year old with a rather deep voice.
  • A disguised fourteen-year-old Obito Uchiha sounded guttural. Granted he was simply mimicking Madara's natural baritone, but still, it is identical to the original's.
  • Much like Goku, Junko Takeuchi continues to voice Naruto even in the Distant Finale and Sequel Series, making him still sound like a young boy in his thirties. Unlike Goku, Naruto's English voice actor, Maile Flanagan, remains as well.
  • In Boruto, most of the old characters sound mainly the same in the English dub as they did in Naruto. This makes characters like Sasuke and Gaara sound age-appropriate, but also makes a few others sound younger than expected. Rock Lee has the same youthful voice he had at thirteen, which is actually a bit higher pitched than his son's.
• Negima!? (second season): Unlike the previous anime, Nagi Springfield is voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro. As a result, he sounds more like a young boy instead of an adult.
• Chloe from Noir has extremely sharp features and demeanour, and you'd expect her voice to be cold, with some sinister edge. Instead, her voice is extremely soft, and she sounds almost like a little girl in a young woman's body. This heavily underlines her personality as a ruthless assassin who is extremely sheltered in every aspect of life outside her work.
• Common in One Piece, in particular favoring high pitched voices on unlikely characters:
  • Miss Monday is buff and muscular but has a childish, girly voice. In the Latin American Spanish dub, Miss Monday is voiced by a male. Though said VA's voice isn't that deep either.
  • Chopper keeps his high voice regardless of whether he's in his adorable man-beast form or his badass battle forms. Sometimes, especially when excited, Chopper sounds more like Pikachu (Ikue Otani's other famous role) than anything else. Averted in the 4Kids dub, where Chopper in his huge humanoid form sounds rather manly indeed. Also averted with Monster Point, where he sounds just as deep and intimidating as he looks.
  • Then there's Fukuro, has a high pitched, scratchy voice coming out of a rotund body.
  • Wadatsumi is just as big as Oars, meaning he's big enough the good guys have to climb on him to fight him, and having a very high-pitched voice provided by Kōki Miyata, known for voicing young men. The English dub instead went with Trina Nishimura, rather than casting a man with a high-pitched voice.
  • Pica of the Donquixote Pirates is a top-heavy mountain of a man (with spiked shoulders, to boot), but he has a very high voice given by Yūji Mitsuya ("squeaky" is Not Hyperbole, he literally sounds like a dog toy) and Ry McKeand (who opts for something similar to Toad). Pica is a particularly interesting case because unlike most examples of this trope, other characters actually comment on how ridiculous he sounds. However, he's extremely sensitive about his voice and was willing to bury a grunt alive for laughing at it. Needless to say, once he reveals his voice to Luffy and Zoro, he never hears the end of it.
  • Luffy in the 4Kids dub sounds more like a girl with a Tomboyish Voice. Technically, that's the case here with regards to the voice acting, but it's not very convincing as Luffy doesn't sound boyish enough, unlike the original Japanese or the Funimation dub.
  • Since Voices Are Mental, Oars keeps Luffy's voice after he's resurrected via the latter's shadow, albeit with a gruffer voice.
• Osomatsu-san pairs childish, Doraemon-style character designs and colours with deep, naturalistic voices. An example of this occurrence would be Jyushimatsu, who is the resident Cloudcuckoolander Keet and is voiced by Daisuke Ono (aka Sebastian Michaelis and Jotaro Kujo).
• An In-Universe example is mentioned as part of the backstory for Overlord (2012). Outside of the in-universe MMO, Bukubukuchagama was a professional Eroge voice actress, well-known for playing little girls, and used the same voice online... where her character was a level 100 gelatinous cube that typically had the fully-detailed half-digested remains of previous victims floating around in it. Ainz remembers the only time her voice and mannerisms remotely matched her online appearance was when she got pissed off at her brother Peroronchino, causing her voice to tumble a few octaves.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • Some English Pokémon Speak for various Pokémon sound a bit unfitting for them. For example, it's not uncommon for a big, scary-looking Pokémon to have a rather soft or goofy sounding cry. 4Kids' Michael Haigney admitted he just didn't care.
  • In the Brazilian Portuguese dub, sometimes the English Pokémon Speak went missing during the mixing, so the local voice actors re-recorded the missing dialogue. The most jarring example is Gastly, which was voiced by a teenage boy in a few loops; he fared somewhat better as Mr. Mime. Eevee and Squirtle wound up voiced by a middle-aged woman (the show's dubbing director), but Totodile gets a pass because his fill-in is specialized in voicing little boys.
  • "Squishy" is a green little Cartoon Creature; however he has a surprisingly mature sounding adult male mental voice (in the English dub) and speaks quite well. It turns out that Squishy is a Zygarde Core, a creature that serves as a "brain" for a much larger creature, Zygarde. So in the end, the mature sounding voice actually fits. In the dream sequence this is first revealed in, Chespin sounds like a little kid even when he evolved into the giant Stone Wall that Mighty Glacier of a Pokémon based on the "fighter" archetype in RPGs. In the Japanese version, Pancham and Bunnelby also sound childlike... Despite them evolving into Pangoro and Diggersby, a giant fighting panda with a bancho-like appearance, and a giant rabbit based off of bearded, muscled construction workers, with fists for ears respectively.
  • Many fully-evolved Pokémon might have a high-pitched, female-sounding voice, while some female Pokémon have a deep, male voice.
  • Intentionally done with Bewear — its high-pitched voice makes it creepy when it starts smashing trees in half.
  • In the Pokémon SS 19 "Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Team Go-Getters Out of the Gate!" special, Pichu is Pikachu's kid brother. He doesn't sound like a child and doesn't sound particularly boyish either. He sounds like a woman with a soft voice. Pikachu in Pokémon: I Choose You! is similar, in that his voice distinctly does not sound boyish, although he does sound young.
  • Greninja is the final evolved form of Froakie, and is a cool-looking ninja frog with a tongue scarf wrapped around its neck. It sounds like Gollum.
  • A human example is Butch, a Team Rocket grunt who is one of Jessie and James' rivals (along with his partner Cassidy). He's young and fairly attractive, but in the English dub, he has an extremely croaky voice that almost sounds like Bev Bighead.
• Pokémon Origins: In the English dub, the 11-year-old Red and Blue were voiced by men. And it's extremely apparent they are. Red might reasonably pass as an 11-year-old who's going through puberty a bit early since Bryce Papenbrook voices him, but Blue's voice is rather mature even for that. This is in contrast to their normal anime counterparts, Ash being consistently voiced by a woman and Gary having a squeaky tone that, like Red, could pass as him undergoing puberty early.
• Each episode of Pop Team Epic replays itself after the initial credits, each time with the main characters Pipimi and Popuko redubbed with male or female VAs, leading to episodes where the school girls have deep masculine voices.
• A plot device in Princess Principal. In the first episode, Beatrice, a cute little teenage girl who normally has the high-pitched voice you'd expect, perfectly imitates the voice of an adult male agent over the phone to confuse the enemy spy squad. How she did this isn't explained until two episodes later, when the rest of her team learns about the steampunk device her Mad Scientist father installed in her throat, which can make her sound like pretty much anyone.
• Promare:
  • Lio Fotia speaks with a fairly deep, smooth voice, contrasting his small, extremely feminine appearance.
  • Kray Foresight is tall and very muscular, but his voice is higher and softer than one would expect from someone of his build. However, his voice does become deeper and more guttural when he gradually loses his composure after being revealed as the Big Bad of the film.
• Oktavia von Sackendorff in Puella Magi Madoka Magica, a witch resembling a gigantic mermaid knight, screams in Sayaka's voice as soon as it appears.
• Anthy from Revolutionary Girl Utena is voiced in the Japanese version by Yuriko Fuchizaki, who's more or less speaking with her natural voice, and thus sounds noticeably older than many members of the mostly high school cast, especially opposite Tomoko Kawakami's performance as the titular Utena, who sounds convincingly 14. This being Utena, this was most likely done to highlight the fact that Anthy is in fact way older than her appearance suggests and has a lot more to her than meets the eye. A similar effect is done in the Latin-American dub, where "Angie" is voiced by Rocío Prado aka Kodachi Kuno.
• In The Rising of the Shield Hero Filorial Queens have the voices of their prepubescent human forms even when transformed into their gigantic bird forms.
• Rosario + Vampire has Inner Moka, whose deep voice contrasts Outer Moka's high-pitched voice (in Japanese, both modes are played by Nana Mizuki). Even for Evil Sounds Deep, Moka's voice is incredibly so for a teenage girl. A flashback reveals that Moka had already a deep voice when she was nine years old. There was a childish undertone in her voice, but it was still too deep. Averted in the English dub, where Moka has separate actresses for each mode.
• In The Royal Tutor, Heine has a surprisingly deep voice in the anime despite his child-like appearance. As Heine constantly reminds others, he is an adult.
• Sailor Moon:
  • In the second English dub, Usagi's younger brother Shingo is 11 years old but he is voiced by Nicolas Roye who's in his late 30's and sounds like he's in his mid-teens. This is the same in Sailor Moon Crystal.
  • Linda Ballantyne's voice as Serena in the Cloverway dub makes her sound too mature. Instead of a teenager, she instead sounds like an actual adult.
  • Similarly, Jill Frappier's voice as Luna the Cat in first English dub makes her sound like an elderly woman. Especially when it's implied in several sources that Luna is supposed to be around Usagi's age in human years.
• Samurai 7:
  • While the Bandits and Guardians have disconcerting appearances, both groups have urbane voices and somewhat aristocratic speech patterns.
  • Then there's also Okara, a village girl who couldn't be older than ten, yet speaks like a snarky teenage Valley Girl.
• Shaman King: In the Distant Finale of the 2021 adaptation, despite now being grown men, all the Elemental Warriors (with the exception of Horohoro who is voiced by a man) are still voiced by women and sound exactly like their younger selves. It borders on unintentional hilarity.
• A Silent Voice: Played for Drama. Shoko Nishimiya keeps her childlike voice well into her teens. It's justified, as her deafness has resulted in her Speech Impediment.
• Soul Eater:
  • Excalibur is a small lizard/anteater-like creature with the voice of an adult man.
  • Lord Death's funny high voice fits his funny appearance most of the time. When it doesn't, running away would be a good idea. Presumably if ever his deep, old-school voice matches his appearance during the 'grim times', he will become even more badass.
• In Tamagotchi, Spacytchi is a school-going child, so you'd expect him to have a high-pitched child voice. Except he has a deep, adult-like voice instead, likely to go with his antagonistic role and desire to one day become the ruler of Tamagotchi Planet with his brothers.
• In Tokyo Ghoul, the horrifying and barely humanoid creature that is the One-Eyed Owl has a suitable Voice of the Legion. But there's still something disturbing about hearing Maaya Sakamoto still using her cute, childish Eto voice for the abomination while it slaughters people.
• When Toriko meets the legendary blade sharpener Melk I, he's shocked to see that this giant, hulking mass of muscles... has such a soft voice that unless he has a special rock that amplifies sound, it's impossible to hear him talk.
• In Trigun, Milly Thompson is a tall woman with incredible strength, yet has a squeaky, childish voice.
• In Umi Monogatari, Kojima sounds very girlish despite being a studious young man.
• Nitori's voice actor in Wandering Son has a scratchy, pubescent voice as she was voiced by a thirteen year old. The problem is Nitori's voice isn't meant to break until late in the anime.
• Vandread: Played for Drama. Near the end of the Second Stage, BC deactivates her voice changer in order to deactivate an automated mine system, revealing his deep male voice in the process and revealing that she's actually a spy and commanding officer for Tarak. This goes on for another episode until the captain asks her to change it back, following her return to the crew.
• This occurs in-universe in Your Lie in April. Kaori mentions that Kousei sounds deeper than she expected.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: The English dub gives Yami Yugi a very deep voice in contrast to him being relatively short and thin.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! GX:
  • In the English dub of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Mad Dog, who is a muscular man, has a squeaky voice likely inspired by Mike Tyson.
  • In the original Japanese version, Johan Andersen is voiced by Kanako Irie. The reason why the animators thought it would be better to give a tall, muscular and handsome boy a girly voice shall remains a mystery.
• Used for comedic effect in the English dub of Yo-kai Watch, where many men have the same cartoony sounding voice no matter their appearance.
  • Played straight in the case of Nate, who is 11 if the games are anything to go by. In the English dub, he is voiced by (and therefore sounds just like) a grown man.