Two anime industry software developers in Japan have teamed up to create a new voice synthesis software that can realistically create character dialogue. Namely Animo and Celsys (the guys behind the trippy patterns used in Gankutsuou), just announced this venture which will very likely become the apple of discord in the industry.

On one side it can reduce one of the greatest expenses in anime creation, no not the underpaid artists drawing without sleep to meet deadlines, but the voice acting. It could effectively open up the industry for the hundreds of independent creative groups in Japan. It could also become a great tool for video games such as interactive novels (of which Hentai games are a usually a branch of) and other dialogue-heave genres.

On the other hand its not likely that, however successful this software will be, it will never manage to capture the small nuances and inflections of an actual voice actor. Personally? I’m all for it! This is a critical advancement specially in the gaming field and we’ve got to start somewhere. So long as it sounds more realistic than my answering machine I’m sold.

[ANN]