This chapter examines the role of voices in Japanese anime with limited visible movement from the angle of a recording practice called afureko (“after recording”). Through a comparison of the recording script and the film script with the final anime version, it analyzes how the voice actors communicate the emotions and thoughts of the characters while synchronizing with the images. As a result, it becomes clear to what extent voice acting is informed by the punctuation and the ellipses indicated in the recording script. The particularities of voice acting and voice actors’ identification with characters are investigated in reference to the theory of acting published by voice actor Ichirō Nagai in 1981.

Chapter 22 offers an overview of the field focusing on both established and emerging modalities, from traditional transfer modes such as dubbing, subtitling and voice-over, to modes that provide accessibility for people with sensory impairment, such as subtitling for the deaf and hard-of-hearing, audio description, live-subtitling and sign language. Non-professional translation practices such as fansubbing, fandubbing and film remaking are also discussed. For each mode, the chapter illustrates the associated medium-specific constraints and creative possibilities, highlighting the power of audiovisuals to contribute to meaning in ways that lend themselves to manipulation during the translation process.

Thanks to their ubiquitous presence in today’s society and their arresting nature, audiovisual productions have become the quintessential expression of multimodal communication in the 21st century. Video materials are a constant occurrence in an ever increasingly interconnected world, in which translation has become imperative in order to foster global communication across different languages and cultures. Interest in audiovisual translation (AVT) as a proper object of academic inquiry has been growing steadily and exponentially for the last three decades. This paper starts with a discussion of the main developments that, propitiated by technology, are shaping the new digital mediascape and propelling AVT to take centre stage. After exploring the multimodal specificities that set audiovisual material apart from other types of texts, an overview of the main translation modes is offered. The paper then moves to the focal point of this contribution, namely a discussion on the main conceptual, thematic and methodological perspectives that best characterise the research conducted in this domain.