#I think the dub is much more cartoonish compared to the original Japanese

[saltyfilmmajor]

Case Closed modern English dub, I’ll never forgive what you did

[s10127470]

What If One Piece had an LA-based Dub? (Part 1)

So recently, I’ve been talking with some friends on Discord about One Piece, specifically about its’ English dubs.

And essentially, we feel like that One Piece hasn't really gotten the best treatment when it comes to English dubs.

Like, we already know the travesty that was 4Kids.

But this also applies to their long-standing and current dubbers, Funimation.

This is probably a controversial opinion, but I don't think they were the best choice to dub One Piece.

Like, yes, they are of much higher quality when compared to 4Kids.

But even then….

For starters, I feel like there's a lot of miscasting here. Even among the main cast.

Probably the most obvious being in the case of Christopher Sabat as Zoro.

He just makes him sound way too old. He's suppose to be a young man.

I can't be the only one who thinks that it sounds too much like Piccolo.

And finally, I feel like Funimation's dubbing is a bit too…..straightforward (if that makes sense).

After rewatching the 4Kids dub, I've grown a sense of appreciation for it.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still not that good.

But I feel like there’s some elements that they do better than Funimation.

In contrast to the Funimation dub, a lot of the performances have a little more life and energy to them.

Even if they're not all that good…..

One thing I really like is that many of the characters have accents, which just feels right given how the whole premise of the series is about traveling the world..

This is made even better when you get remember the Netflix adaptation, which gave a lot of characters accents, including the main ones!

Plus, 4Kids is just much better at handling the frequent comedic and silly moments.

Hell, why do you think this scene blew up in popularity?

Plus, they did a slightly better job at translating some scenes to English and not having them come off as a direct, one-to-one translation.

It's a little hard to explain, but essentially they keep what was said in the original Japanese version and kinda give their own flair to it.

But with this discussion, being the idea man that I am, it gave me the idea of an alternate timeline.

One where One Piece wasn’t picked up by 4Kids or Funimation.

But instead, it was picked up by Viz Media, who would commission an English dub out of the voice acting capital of the world: Los Angeles, California!

I feel like this alternate timeline would not only give us a much better dub than the other two, especially 4Kids.

But also do the franchise a LOT of favors....

If you know One Piece, you'd known that the series had a hard time catching up in popularity in the West.

It was 2000s. The decade was all about making everything cool, hip and edgy.

And anime was one of the prime contributors to this trend.

Plus during that time, a lot of anime fans had this stigma against Western animation, seeing it as nothing but kiddy shit.

These people are the one of the reasons why we have crap like this.....

And since One Piece is famous for having an incredibly cartoonish art-style and world, it did not do it any favors.

Made even worse with the 4Kids dub, which infamously kidified the anime to absolute HELL.

However, I feel this dub would counteract that.

The dub itself would premiere on June 2nd, 2003 on Cartoon Network as part of Toonami.

And although the would probably have some censorship, it would be NOWHERE near the level of 4Kids.

Plus, from what I've seen, anime that aired on Toonami was able to get away with a lot more explicit content due to it's clear aiming at older audiences.

For the East Blue Saga, the dub would air new episodes every week, Monday through Friday.

That's what we're gonna be covering for this part.

As we go through each arc, I'll be sharing my voice choices for the major characters in each of them.

So without further ado, let's set sail!

Romance Dawn (June 2nd-June 4th, 2003):

Starting off this showcase we have our main star the future king of the pirates himself, Monkey D. Luffy!

When thinking of a voice for Luffy, I wanted him to still be voiced by a female.

And one of the major female VAs, I've come to a tie on who would be good voice for Luffy.

And that tie is between Colleen O'Shaughnessy and Kari Wahlgren.

Between the two of them, I think their voices both perfectly fit the type of voice Luffy would have.

Pretty goofy and silly while still being able to do the more serious and emotional moments well.

And while you can still tell they're a woman, they're still able to convincingly sound like a boy.

I think the coolest thing about this choice would be that in the case of Kari, this would be one of her earliest voice acting roles, as she entered the realm of voicework in the prior year of 2002.

And about a year into her career, she would find herself becoming the official English voice of one of the most famous and revered protagonists in anime/manga history!

Next we come to Koby, who would be voiced by Pamela Adlon.

Oh yeah, let’s talk about that real quick.

In contrast to other anime dubs, this one would primarily feature voice actors typically found in Western animation.

I feel like this would make One Piece stand among the crowd, and it kinda fits since the main character himself does draw heavy influence from the Golden Age of Western Animation.

As for why I choose Pamela, especially since Koby pre-Marines was shown to have a whiny sounding voice, was because I was coming at this with the knowledge of his post-Marines look.

I’m not a fan of how the Funimation Dub gave him a new voice after we were reintroduced to him, whereas the original Japanese version kept his voice actress.

So I wanted to do the same thing they did.

I feel that Pamela was the best option.

She’s known for having a noticeably deeper and hoarse voice when compared to most female VAs.

Hence she’s famous for voicing a lot of male characters, particularly boys.

As for her performance as pre-Marine Koby, it would be pretty similar to her performance as Otto Osworth from Time Squad….which is funnily enough, a Cartoon Network show.

Now we come to Alvida, who would be voiced by Wendee Lee.

And yes, she would voice both forms of her.

Her original fat form, and current slim form.

Now we've come to the second member of the Straw Hats, Roronoa Zoro!

He would be (at least for now) voiced by Ben Diskin.

His performance would be sound like a slightly more serious version of, and I can't believe I'm actually referencing this guy, Ban from The Seven Deadly Sins.

One cool thing about Ben voicing Zoro would be that he would bring a lot of authenticity to the role, since he would've been around Zoro's age at the time of dub's release (20-21 years old).

Also, this would really funny to think about since around this time, Ben was voicing Numbuh 1 and 2 on Codename: Kids Next Door, another Cartoon Network show.

Rika would be voiced by Kath Soucie, essentially sounding like a slightly older Lil Deville from Rugrats.

Helmeppo would be voiced by Jeff Bennett, who would definitely sound like the recent gay shipping icon as of late, Bradley Uppercrust III.

Like, you can't tell me that his voice wouldn't fit Helmeppo like a glove.

And in just you don't believe me, here are some clips to prove my point.

Next we come to his father, Axe Hand Morgan, who would be voiced by Jim Cummings.

And for his role, Jim would definitely use his serious voice that he uses with characters such as Mister Moloch in Project G.e.e.K.e.R. and Hernán Cortés in The Road to El Dorado.

Now to come to Red-Haired Shanks, who would be voiced by Steve Blum doing a Cockney accent.

Yeah, he's basically gonna sound like a swashbuckling Spike Spiegel.

Which actually sounds pretty cool....

As for the rest of the main Red-Haired Pirates.

Benn Beckman would be voiced by Wally Wingert.

Lucky Roux would be voiced by Bill Fagerbakke.

And Yasopp would be voiced by James Arnold Taylor.

And finally, we have Higuma, who would be voiced by Rob Paulsen.

Orange Town (June 5th-June 10th, 2003):

First start off come to the third member of the Straw Hats, Nami.

Nami would be voiced by Kate Higgins.

Who weirdly enough, when it comes to LA voice fan-casting for One Piece, she's always the one to get picked for Nami.

And I can totally see why.

She would definitely fit the character.

Next we come to the big bad of the arc himself, Buggy the Clown.

Originally, I was gonna have Mark Hamill voice him.

But I figured that would've been too easy and too obvious.

So instead, I decided to choose Steve Blum as the voice of the character.

His performance would be pretty reminiscent to that of The Green Goblin in The Spectacular Spider-Man, but a little more silly sounding.

Even his laugh would be pretty similar to Gobby's.

Plus, Buggy's casting choice is pretty funny to think about since as I mentioned earlier, Steve would also be voicing Shanks.

Which would make Buggy's pure adulterated hatred for him even funnier.

As for his main crew members.

Mohji would be voiced by Liam O'Brien, essentially using the same voice he used for Zazz in Sonic Lost World.

Cabaji would be voiced by Yuri Lowenthal, using an Eastern European accent.

And Ritchie would have his vocals provided by Frank Walker.

As for the one notable characters of this arc.

Chouchou would have his vocals provided by Dee Bradley Baker.

And Boodle would be voiced by Tom Kane.

Who was also voicing Professor Utonium on The Powerpuff Girls around this time.

Syrup Village (June 11th-June 24th, 2003):

First we have the fourth member of the Straw Hats, Usopp.

Just like with Luffy, I have two VAs in mind that could voice the God himself.

James Arnold Taylor and Jason Marsden.

Both of them would strike that perfect balance of being able to sound silly while knowing when to take it seriously.

Also, if JAT was voicing Usopp, he would essentially sound like a younger version of his own dad.

Kaya would be voiced by Tara Strong.

The Usopp Pirates would be voiced by Grey Griffin (Ninjin), Colleen O'Shaughnessy (Pilman), and Nancy Cartwright (Tamanegi) respectively.

Jeff Bennett would also be voicing Merry.

Dee Bradley Baker would also be voicing the big bad of the arc, Kuro.

Jango would be voiced by Phil LaMarr, who would doing a what could be best described as a knock-off Michael Jackson impression.

Which, let's be real, would fit the character perfectly.

Phil would also be pulling double duty as Siam, with the other half of the Nyaban Brothers, Butchie, being voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson.

And finally, we have Gaimon, who would be voiced by Charlie Adler.

Baratie (June 25th-July 10th, 2003):

Starting this off we have Kuina, who would be voiced by Grey Griffin.

Shimotsuki Koushirou would be voiced by Phil LaMarr, essentially using the same voice he uses for Samurai Jack.

Now we come to Johnny and Yosaku.

Johnny would be voiced by Nolan North, while Yosaku would be voiced by Mikey Kelley.

So essentially we have Raphael and Michaelangelo tagging along with the Straw Hats.

Finally, we've come to the fifth member of the Straw Hats (and the last one as of right now), Sanji.

Sanji would be voiced by Josh Keaton.

And just like with Ben as Zoro, Josh would bring a lot of authenticity to his performance (given that he would've been 23-24 at the time)

Also, we all know how Zoro and Sanji are rivals.

This would be funny to think about since this wouldn't be last time Ben and Josh would voice a duo of rivals.

Zeff would be voiced by Clancy Brown, essentially sounding like a slightly more serious Brooklyn version of Mr. Krabs.

We would also have John DiMaggio playing double duty as both Don Krieg and Fullbody.

Ghin would be voiced by Crispin Freeman.

Patty and Carne would be voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson and Tom Kenny respectively.

Pearl would be voiced by Jess Harnell.

And Hawk-Eye Mihawk would be voiced Lex Lang, doing a French accent.

Arlong Park (July 11th-July 31st, 2003):

Starting this off, we have Arlong himself, who would be voiced by Fred Tatasciore, which will be really funny to think about once we get to you-know-who.

As for the rest of main crew.

Kuroobi would be voiced by Doug Erholtz.

Hatchan would be voiced by Bill Fagerbakke.

And Chew would be voiced by Jeff Bennett

Nojiko would be voiced by Michelle Ruff.

Genzo would be voiced by Cam Clarke.

Bellemere would be voiced by Vanessa Marshall.

Which would be really weird to think about since she was on Cartoon Network's latest original series at the time, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, voicing this guy....

Well I'm pretty sure I just ruined Bellemere's death for most of you now since it's hard not her with the voice of Irwin now......

Anyway, Nezmui would be voiced by Tony Oliver, essentially sounding like an evil version of Lupin III.

Or how he was in the original manga....

And Moomo would have his vocals provided by Frank Welker.

Buggy's Adventure (August 1st-4th, 2003):

I don't really have anything to say for this one except that it will be part of the dub.

Roguetown (August 5th-12th, 2003):

Starting this off we have Smoker, who would be voiced by James Arnold Taylor, essentially sounding pretty similar to Walker from Danny Phantom, but without the Southern accent.

Next we have Tashigi, who would voiced by Karen Strassman.

Daddy the Father would be voiced by Jeff Bennett.

Five-Alarm Carmen would be voiced by Candi Milo.

And finally, we have Dragon, who would be voiced by Dave Wittenberg.

Well, that's all I have for now.

It's not the most detailed post I've made, but I thought it was fun to do.

Plus, I always like to showcase by knowledge of voice actors.

Which speaking of, I'm not sure how this post will do since I'm not sure how knowledgeable of voice actors any of the potential viewers are.

But hey, I'll just have to wait and find out.

Anyway, let me know what you think about this alternate timeline I created.

And for the two choices I had for Luffy and Usopp, who do you think would be the best choice for them?

And finally, I really hope @mysticalchildsuit actually likes this post since the last time I made a post about One Piece....they were.....

[thedevilprobs]

K imma go off on the shaman king reboot for a minute if you'll indulge me

I've watched the first and second episodes and right off the bat I'm giving the show a 5/10

Some context before I explain why...

I never watched the original anime but I did read the manga up until volume 19 and then they stopped publishing it in my country and in late 2020 they started republishing from scratch so I'm currently re reading it.

So I'm very familiar with the story, characters and art style

And damn story wise the new anime was fine

Putting the whole reincarnation plot from the beginning was ok and skipping the small boxing arc was ok too, overall I dont fret the future of the story

Now what I didn't like

This is horribly subjective but the art style and animation leaves a lot to be desired I know industry 2d anime tends to have very few frames but damn it was jarring as hell and the artsyle itself, whilst being closer to the author's current style, is kinda basic like standard as fuck compared to the manga's unique and almost cartoonish style I simply adore the way its drawn and the anime is so fucking different

💖The line weight 💖

Well I've talked about what I liked and what I didn't, now it's time to tackle what I straight up think is objectively bad: the voice acting

After looking up the casting the voice actresses and actors are all renounced and very good but goshhh the direction must've really suck bcs they sound so bad

I understand that it is common for shounen protagonists to be voiced as childish bordering on annoying (Goku's Japanese voice is outrageous, Luffy from one piece is an example of this donde well tho) but I've never liked this and frankly I think they should stop doing it

Not a single of the children's voices was tolerable and these are the protagonists people, we're going to hear them A LOT

I honestly dont mind Manta having a more annoying kidish voice but Yoh ? He sounds way younger like sure he's 13 but he has a very mature and calm air to him and his voice does not transmit that at all

Ren's voice sounds so overcompensating to a comical degree and the worst one the very worst one was Anna

She very much sounds like an old woman wait no she sounds like a vieja

A greasy angry hag

I think they were trying to go for like a himedere type entitled brat (??) But it straight up sounds like she's 70 and not in a pretty way

As I mentioned in the beginning shounen anime tend to do this a lot and I have no doubt the original anime had similar voices nevertheless and despite thinking the writing and animation is passable I don't think I'll continue watching because the voices are just that unimersive

To close this rant of I mainly wanted to write this to see if other people thought the same way about the anime since after reading some reviews no one seemed as bothered by the same things as me so...yeah let's talk lol

I love shaman king and I'll look forward to finishing the manga and maybe catching the anime when its dubbed

[shirlleycoyle]

The Fleshlight Is a Portal to the Future of Sex

“It’s quite possible someone’s having sex with me right now and I don’t even know it,” adult performer and director Stoya told me.

Her vulva is for sale on the internet and in stores. Or rather, a rubbery, lifelike mold of her vulva is, in the form of a Fleshlight. The outside of it looks almost exactly like her actual body. The inside is a labyrinth of corkscrew shapes, nodules, and ridges. It’s dubbed “The Destroya,” a name that, nine years after the product launched, still makes her laugh.

Fleshlight manufacturer Interactive Lifeforms LLC has sold more than 75,000 Destroyas and more than 15 million Fleshlights total since the company started 20 years ago. It averages around 20,000 retail orders every month, according to a spokesperson for the company.

At around 1.63 pounds each, that’s nearly 24.5 million pounds of fucktoy floating around, taking up space in closets, nightstands, and under beds around the world.

The Fleshlight is an artifact of the sexually adventurous, technologically innovative 90s, but it’s become the face—and lips, and anus, and lips—of the male sex toy industry. The fact that a disembodied vulva and vaginal canal to jerk off into exists in 2019, the era of #MeToo and grabbed pussies and tabloid uproar over sex robots, shows the often contradictory intersection of sex and technology.

On one hand, the Fleshlight is a portal to new forms of sexual openness, allowing people, even those who think of themselves as heterosexual men, to engage in sex that moves away from old notions of gender and the biological body in general. On the other, the Fleshlight is also the reduction of a person to a replica of their reproductive organs. But 21 years since its inception, Fleshlight, the people who use them, and sex toy experts are realizing that maybe people don’t need an exact replica of a vulva or anus to get off. Sex toys are increasingly taking on more abstract, functional forms, and the future of the Fleshlight and toys like it may rely less on using replicas of disembodied genitals.

Today, the Fleshlight is polarizing even for the people who use it. No matter your opinion of the ubiquitous brand, it’s made an undeniable mark on human sexuality and the world.

Hundreds of years from now, if sentient life still exists on Earth, when archeologists dig up the still-intact bits and pieces of plastic casings containing rubberized genitalia, what will they think of the Fleshlight? Will it be considered an antiquated representation of how society literally objectified and commodifed sexual pleasure, or a turning point in the normalization of sex toys for all people, and our first step into a world where technology is an inseparable part of sex?

The answer, according to people who make them, use them, and are them, is both.

WHAT MAKES A FLESHLIGHT

The original Fleshlight model consists of a 10-inch plastic tube casing with a soft sleeve inside. You stick an erect dick (plus some water-based lube) into one end, grip ridges on the outside of the casing, and stroke the penis inside of the sleeve. You fuck the tube, come in the tube, then (ideally promptly) unscrew the whole apparatus and rinse it out with water (soap could degrade the material) and dry it.

Earliest archived version of Fleshlight.com, captured May 1998

Why the Fleshlight exists is a complicated story that’s become seminal sex toy lore. If the many interviews given by the company’s founder Steve Shubin are to be believed, the Fleshlight was born from his desire to get off while his spouse was pregnant.

In the late 90s Shubin, a former member of the Los Angeles Police Department’s SWAT team, and his wife Kathy were expecting twins. Both in their 40s, the couple was advised by doctors that because of their age and the fact Kathy was having two babies, the pregnancy was high-risk. He claims they were told not to have sex again until after the baby was born.

“I asked my wife ‘would you think I was a pervert if I told you there was something that I could use, sexually?'” Shubin told Wired in 2008. “But the adult store had only junk. Just crap. I thought, I can make something better, and took $50,000 of our savings to start working on it.”

Image from the 1997 patent filing for a “discrete sperm collection” device.

Shubin’s first patent filing, in 1995, was for a “female functional mannequin,” a hard sex doll torso. He called his next invention, which boiled the whole doll down to just the genitals, a “device for discreet sperm collection.” The proto-Fleshlight.

This version of the Fleshlight was pretty similar to what we see on the market today. But the description Shubin laid out in the 1997 patent filing was much more clinical. The product was framed as useful for sperm banks or doctors’ offices.

It also predicted some of the embarrassment many men feel from tucking a sex toy away in their own homes:

While my [sex doll] patent succeeds admirably in fulfilling the objects of that invention, it has several characteristics that prevent it from universal acceptance. When the torso mannequin is used in sperm banks, doctor’s offices, and other public facilities, it is sometimes intimidating to the patient being treated or may have an adverse effect upon the patient’s sexual desire and ability to deposit sperm. […] When the device of my patent is used in the home, or by those who find such a mannequin to be positive in nature, there is the concern that others will still find the object during a casual visit to the home.

The earliest version of Fleshlight.com that’s archived online, captured in 1998, shows a company attempting to carve a path as the first widely-accepted male sex toy by characterizing it as a requirement of virility, manliness, and insatiable sex drive. From an archive of Fleshlight’s “Our Philosophy” page circa May 1998:

The need for sexual gratification is as present and as powerful in a man as it is in the stallion. But where the stallion has no ability to wait, relentlessly pursuing his desire until he is satisfied or restrained, man has the ability to control his desires through fantasy… That release has to be done in a responsible way or we risk our relationships, expose ourselves to disease, take a chance with unwanted pregnancy, or even, in extreme cases, break the law.

The market, and we as a species, were primed for this thing to succeed. Hallie Lieberman, sex historian and author of Buzz: The Stimulating History of the Sex Toy, told me that artificial vaginas and sleeves date as far back as the 1600s—the first being Japanese masturbators made from tortoiseshell and velvet, she said. Artificial vaginas were sold in the U.S. as early as the late 1800s, she said, and Doc Johnson debuted the “pocket pal” in the late 1970s. Pocket pals look a lot like Fleshlights without the hard case around them (therefore, like long fleshy sandworms), and the labias themselves are a lot more realistic-looking compared to Fleshlights’ more smooth, almost cartoonish aesthetic.

Doc Johnson’s “Pocket Pal,” as seen for sale on Amazon.

When Fleshlight hit the market in the late 1990s, sex toys marketed to male customers still mostly consisted of “pocket pussies,” “those disembodied, often clunky looking artificial vaginas—sometimes with fake pubic hair,” Lynn Comella, associate professor of gender and sexuality studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and author of Vibrator Nation, told me. “They were really kind of gross looking and for years, many women-friendly retailers, such as Good Vibrations, refused to carry them because they felt that displaying disembodied female body parts didn’t fit with their women-friendly vibe.” (San Francisco-based Good Vibrations became the first sex-positive, women-friendly sex shop in the U.S. in 1997.)

“Some Fleshlight designs actually depict women’s genitals beautifully, like a more commercialized version of a Georgia O’Keefe painting.”

Since time immemorial, men have been fucking whatever they can get their hands on, whether it be rubber gloves, toiler paper rolls, couch cushions, fruit, teddy bears, etc. A story about a Redditor who jerked off into a coconut, then later had his penis covered by maggots (he did it multiple times with the same coconut), has become treasured Reddit lore. There are also communities committed to exploring upscale DIY masturbators by refashioning Pringles cans, sponges, and building a better Fleshlight.

The Fleshlight arrived in a perfect pro-masturbation societal storm, Lieberman said: On the heels of the safe sex messaging of the 1980s AIDS crisis, in the midst of cultural landmarks like Seinfeld’s 1992 episode “The Contest” which grappled with masturbation both male and female, and as the White House forced Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders to resign in 1994 for suggesting masturbation should be taught in school. In the 90s, masturbation, for better or worse, was discussed more openly than ever.

Shubin couldn’t have happened into a better time to unveil a tasteful sex toy for penis-having people. But the Fleshlight founder’s reputation is controversial: he’s waxed nostalgic in interviews about his time as an aggressive LAPD cop, and the company’s Glassdoor reviews are generally abysmal.

In 2010, Stoya stopped by the Fleshlight headquarters in Austin, Texas before her mold was made, and described Shubin as a “mountain of a man” who normalized the absurdity that surrounded him.

“He was like, ‘We’re having a meetin’ about selling your vulva, in a can, in a box,'” she said. “It suddenly seems so reasonable and everyday when you’re talking, but you get back to regular life and it’s like, Ha, there are like 100,000 replicas of my pussy floating around.”

USER EXPERIENCES

When I went looking for Fleshlight users, nearly 200 people messaged me to voluntarily talk about their Fleshlight experiences.

“It felt a lot better than I thought it would, which kind of depressed me tbh,” one Fleshlight user told me. “Made me miss actual physical intimacy. Hence why I only used it like 5 times.”

I offered all of them anonymity in order to speak freely about their private, sexual experiences, and asked the ones who requested anonymity to explain why they didn’t want to be named. Almost all of them cited some element of social stigma or shame.

The overwhelming majority of these people were male-identifying. Many said they were lapsed Fleshlight or non-Fleshlight pocket pussy enthusiasts—guys who told me they’d been gifted a masturbation sleeve of some kind, years ago, or bought one on a whim, and used it once or twice before casting it aside again. Several cited the difficulty of cleaning the Fleshlight for why they don’t use it more.

At least three cited some hazing ritual in college, or sharing one pocket pussy with an entire group of male friends.

Several described feeling a sense of disgust with themselves after using it.

“Used it like 4 times, post nut clarity hit extra hard, & now it’s somewhere in my closet soaked in semen & dust,” said one person.

Almost everyone who spoke to me said the feeling of masturbating into a fake vagina is nothing like the real thing.

“They’re billed as lifelike, and they simply are not,” one said. “Of course! It’s a chunk of rubber at the end of the day. It’s not a bad thing, they feel good.”

A few men told me that they use Fleshlights due to physical disability, to increase stamina, or conditions that make it difficult for them to have sex otherwise. One said he bought his online when he was 22. Because he has cerebral palsy, finding sexual partners is difficult. A Fleshlight, he thought, would make imagining the experience more vivid.

“It was what I expected, but it was also more difficult to enjoy for me as my hand would cramp from using the plastic container thing it came with for extra suction,” he said. “As a disabled user, it allowed me the freedom and knowledge that sex toys were definitely for me! It helped me deal with some of the loneliness that I was experiencing.”

I also spoke with Dan Cooper, senior editor at Engadget, about his experience reviewing a Fleshlight Launch—the company’s digital product made with teledildonics company Kiiroo, that moves up and down on its own, in tandem with porn scenes. Cooper’s childhood phimosis (a condition that causes over-tightening of the foreskin) led to him needing a medical circumcision, which he said gave him limited sensitivity during sex or masturbation.

“Even as someone who thinks of themselves as sex-positive, I’ve always held the view that Fleshlights were a bit sad,” Cooper told me. “I’d assumed that they wouldn’t have worked with my broken genitals, but it was revelatory how effective (and fun) they are to use.”

A few wives and girlfriends told me why they bought their male partners Fleshlights as gifts. Their stories usually involved buying masturbators as a couple, to use while traveling or in long-distance relationships. Some said they were gifts to use during military deployments.

Karabella, a trans woman and porn performer, told me that she first encountered a Fleshlight in 2012, on her first big production shoot. “I’d never even heard of a ‘pocket pussy’ before, but [the director] pulled out a brand new one and handed it to me,” she said. “It wasn’t exactly inviting when I first slid into the butthole-shaped slit of cold silicone, so I initially started to lose my erection. However, as it began to warm up around me it was increasingly difficult to differentiate between it and real flesh.” Seven years later, using a Fleshlight has become a staple of her cam shows and performances.

HOW IT’S MADE

Beyond what’s publicly available on the Fleshlight website, specific details about the production of Fleshlights are a closely-guarded company secret. No one outside the company seems to know what the soft, skin-like material—trademarked as “Real Feel SuperSkin”—is made out of.

Kristen Kaye, Fleshlight’s Head of Business Development until late last month when she left the company, said that the material “is indeed proprietary.” She told me she believes it is biodegradable, and “made of natural materials, mostly.”

The closest I came to finding the secret recipe for SuperSkin was through the founder of FleshAssist.com, a website devoted to all things Fleshlight and masturbators. A 24-year old web developer who goes by the pseudonym John started FleshAssist in 2014 after years spent frequenting Fleshlight forums. He told me in an email that ever since buying his first name-brand Fleshlight at 20 years old, he was “hooked.”

John told me that SuperSkin, as far as he’s aware, is made from “amorphous polymers,” a mixture of PVC and silicone. It’s similar to CyberSkin, another type of thermoplastic faux-skin material used in lots of non-Fleshlight brand sex toys and dolls (but not patented, like SuperSkin).

“The trick with softer materials is that they will inevitably not feel as velvety or suede-y as harder silicone,” Emily Sauer, founder of sex wearable company Ohnut, told me. “So there is in the development of the product, there is a constant battle between, you know, does it feel too sticky? Does it feel gross in any way? There’s a very fine line.”

“The hand is just way easier. Boner. Hand. Done. It’s that simple.”

Micropores in the Fleshlight’s PVC make their “skin” more realistic to the touch, but also can never be fully, truly sterilized once it’s used. The top complaint I heard from all of the Fleshlight users I spoke to was that it’s too hard to clean to use regularly.

“That’s really gross to me that guys don’t even rinse them out right after, now I’m thinking about it,” Kaye said. “How hard it would be to clean…. If you were to let things dry in there, how disgusting that would be?”

After our call, I borrowed a friend’s (unused) Fleshlight to find out for myself. It’s relatively easy to unscrew the pieces and take apart, and there’s a hole in both ends of the removable soft sleeve to run water through it. As In Bed Magazine’s YouTube review notes, the most inconvenient part of cleaning is leaving it out to dry in the open long enough that you can safely store it without worrying about mold growing in a wet, airtight can—but not so long that your roommates or family stumble across a silicone worm with a vulva on the end of it.

“I think it just comes down to laziness, to be honest,” Kaye said about why people don’t regularly clean their Fleshlights.

According to my very informal online polling, she’s right.

“The biggest annoyance for me was the clean up,” Twitter user and self-proclaimed “vaginal aficionado” @BurlClooney said. Burl first heard about Fleshlight on an episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast, which had a partnership with the company from 2010 to around 2012, according to Rogan’s tweets at the time.

“Your semen goes down into a base at the bottom and you should really clean that shit immediately,” he said. “But, I usually just wanted to sleep right away and would leave it until the next day or I would forget until I next used it. It was absolutely fucking disgusting. The cum would turn a weird color and it was so gross to clean out then. However, I mainly stopped due to all the prep work. The hand is just way easier. Boner. Hand. Done. It’s that simple.”

BECOMING A ‘FLESHLIGHT GIRL’

Stoya told me she once fucked a man with a mold of her own silicone vagina.

“It was so like, bizarrely narcissistic, but kind of beautiful,” she said.

She’s featured in one of Fleshlight’s most popular product lines, the Fleshlight Girls. There are also Fleshlight Boys (anal molds), and Guys (dildos), all modeled after real porn performers’ anatomy. Fleshlight currently offers around 45 models of Fleshlight Girls, including Stoya, Riley Reid, Jessica Drake, and Kissa Sins.

“I was laughing and talking a lot, and they told me to be careful, because your asshole actually moves a little bit when you laugh.”

Becoming a Fleshlight Girl is a career goal for many in the industry. Kaye, who led the selection of Fleshlight models, told me that three or four years ago the performer’s popularity rank on Pornhub, for example, would have been a deciding factor. Now, she looks at a variety of metrics—social media following, engagement online, how entrepreneurial and invested they are in their own success.

As secretive as the SuperSkin material recipe is, the process of molding a real vulva into SuperSkin is kept even more tight-lipped.

Fleshlight Girl Elsa Jean told me that the process of getting her custom mold done involved going to the Fleshlight headquarters in Austin and having someone cast a mold of her vulva and anus. Fleshlight models’ genitalia are also photographed using a 3D camera, and the final mold is hand-sculpted by a professional artist to get the details as accurate as possible.

“For my butthole, I had to go into a doggy[-style position],” Jean said. “I was laughing and talking a lot, and they told me to be careful, because your asshole actually moves a little bit when you laugh.”

Once they’re finished making the silicone mold, the models are given the product to check out. When Stoya saw a Fleshlight modeled after her own anatomy for the first time, the first thing she did was text a handful of her former lovers a photo of the silicone vulva. They’d know, she reasoned, if it was realistically accurate. (They said it was.)

“It was a very like, holy shit moment,” Stoya said. “You feel a bit like an action figure.”

Models are paid in royalties instead of a flat fee. The more that sell, the more money they personally make. For Stoya, being recruited for a Fleshlight of her own was a springboard into independence in the adult industry. “It’s what’s enabled me to start independent porn companies like Zero Spaces,” she said. “It’s sold well enough that it gives me the extra resources to do creative things.”

“Having my vagina and butthole on sale for people is actually pretty amazing,” Jean said. “Believe it or not, it was one of my goals when I first started in the industry. It’s as close as they can get to having the real thing.”

The actual objectification—turning a woman’s body into an object—involved in making a custom Fleshlight has brought the company, and anatomically-correct masturbation sleeves generally, some criticism.

“I don’t think it’s objectifying,” Lieberman said. “In fact, I’d even say that some Fleshlight designs actually depict women’s genitals beautifully, like a more commercialized version of a Georgia O’Keefe painting.”

I asked Stoya how she feels about the objectification criticism, as someone who’s worked in the adult industry as an actor, director, writer and business owner. Is the idea that hundreds of men could be fucking “her” right now weird at all?

After all, hundreds of people could be jerking off to her porn right now, too—and isn’t that kind of the same? Not at all, she said.

“People like don’t give a fuck largely about who’s doing the fucking [in mainstream porn], who’s coming up with the fucking, but with a Fleshlight—someone has looked [for me],” she said. “And even if they don’t know who I am, or my work, or care who I am as a person? They’ve still chosen my vulva. And that’s qualitatively different.”

People choose the Stoya Fleshlight because they’ve seen her work, or read something she’s written, or even just read the description on the product page of her persona, she said—and liked what they saw enough to pay $79.95 to fantasize about fucking her.

“That feels really humanizing,” Stoya said. “Whereas seeing one of my videos pirated on Pornhub with a sentence in the description that says, ‘Don’t mention the performers name so she can’t find this and get this removed’? That’s really dehumanizing, and really separates you from your work. With the Fleshlight, it’s the opposite.”

THE STIGMA

As the woman charged with marketing a plastic pussy to the masses, Kaye had a big job. And a huge part of that job, she told me, is overcoming the stigma attached to masturbation sleeves, and the men who buy them. Kaye’s worked in the adult industry—in advertising, consulting, and marketing—for 13 years, but for the last three with Fleshlight, she’s made it her mission to drag that shame out from under men’s beds and bring masturbation tools into the light.

“Unfortunately, for men, there are stigmas attached to using a masturbation device… because for whatever reason, if a guy’s masturbating or talks about masturbating, it’s like they’re not getting laid,” she said.

“For cis-gendered males, revealing you have a fleshlight gives implications that you can’t ‘get a girl’ on your own, which inhibits the positive ramifications of using sex toys,” one anonymous user told me. “In reality, they can help people explore what satisfies them, and healthily masturbating can relieve stress or just clear one’s mind, at least in my experience.”

“I feel like a lot of men feel ashamed or embarrassed for using one, but when you’re having a dry spell or not getting laid often, it’s very beneficial,” Twitter user @g0dsparadise said. “I have given Fleshlights as gifts in the past, I have told my closest friends about it, and I am hoping that one day it becomes very common to own one just because this whole stigma is ridiculous to me.”

Some pointed out a percieved double standard between male and female-gendered sex toys. “There’s an interesting dichotomy,” Cooper said. He attributed it to women’s sex toys being seen as “luxurious” and respected, while men’s typically aren’t. “But it all drills back to the idea that we should somehow be ashamed of sex.”

FleshAssist founder John told me that while the stigma itself isn’t as bad as it used to be, it still exists.

“I saw a comment before that said something along the lines of ‘a dildo looks potent, it shows that a woman doesn’t need a man,’ making it a symbol of female independence and empowerment,” John said. “I think if we flip that around, and say ‘a man with a masturbator shows that he doesn’t need a woman’ it doesn’t have the same resonance at all.”

Liberman said that she has noticed this stigma, too—and that despite toys like Fleshlight in the mainstream, it hasn’t changed much. “I think that’s because men are supposed to be self-sufficient and not need additional tools to get off,” she said. “Their hands are supposed to be all they need.”

THE FUTURE OF FUCKTOYS

It’s possible that the Fleshlight and other toys like it are a decent oracle for the future of sex.

If the analog Fleshlight was a step toward destigmatizing male sex toys, its interactive, internet-connected iteration could help bring virtual reality sex to the mainstream.

Fleshlight’s Launch device syncs automatic, motorized movement with interactive porn content. It’s a Fleshlight sleeve inside a casing shaped and sized like a wine chiller that moves the sleeve up and down in rhythm with the porn it’s synced with.

Fleshlight isn’t the first sex toy to combine porn, virtual reality, and a connected device that syncs the two. Around the time the earliest adult-themed virtual reality films were revealed, in 2015, people started wondering if porn would be the thing to finally push VR into the mainstream.

Sex toys that interact with film and VR open new worlds of transcending what your physical, corporeally-limited body could experience. Companies like Camasutra exist today that scan real humans into avatars for fuckability in virtual worlds. There’s no limit to what you can embody, sexually, in these virtual environments.

“The porn and sex-toy industries have always led the way in technological innovation: from the electrification of the vibrator in the late 19th century to the early adoption of VHS by porn directors,” Lieberman said. “VR and the Fleshlight are just extensions of this trend that stretches back all the way to the printing press and erotic literature.”

She attributes this innovation to a need for something novel. Putting your dick inside a mechanized stroker-bot certainly is that, and Fleshlight, as it chases the interactive trend, knows it.

As our identities become more openly fluid and less binary, so do our toys. Ohnut, another wearable, doesn’t look like anything anatomical at all. Even the color, a pale jade, is meant to evoke a neutrality without being skin-like. Like Kaye, Ohnut’s founder Sauer also mentioned the concept of enhancement. “It’s not trying to replace skin. It’s not trying to replace a person or anything. It enhances,” she said.

Sauer points to Tenga, a Japanese company that’s been making disposable soft strokers and sleeves since 2005, as an example of where the industry could continue heading: Toward a less gendered, more pleasure-centered future of sex. One of their products, the Tenga Egg, is a handheld stroker shaped like a gummy, hollow egg, and they’re sold inside Easter egg-hunt-shaped packaging.

“They’re de-misogynizing the male masturbator,” Sauer said. “[Tenga products] are so delightful, but they’re just as dirty. They’re meant to be thrown away, but they come in really fun patterns. And what’s less masculine than a white egg?”

“I think that sex toys now are moving away from realism: the idea that a person would only want to masturbate with a replica of genitals is kind of going away,” Lieberman said. “People are more focused on both the utility of a device (does it give me an orgasm) and the design: they want something that looks beautiful.” She noted that the Eva II vibrator by Dame, and Unbound’s Bean and Squish are geometric—not dick or vulva-shaped.

Fleshlight is no exception to this trend. According to Kaye, the Fleshlight Turbo, a newer, non-anatomical sleeve, is creeping up in reviews. It looks nothing like human anatomy. It doesn’t even come in “skin” colors—only “Blue Ice” and “Copper.” (However, a helpful cross-section of the Turbo labels where you’re meant to imagine the lips, throat and tongue would be.)

Screenshot via Fleshlight.com

“I think marketing the other stuff—the stuff that’s not like, pardon my French, fucking a rubber pussy—that’s how we’ve transitioned our marketing approach,” Kaye said. “The exact replica of the genitalia? I think that’s kind of getting tired. I see that the younger people are more inclined to get the stuff that’s non-anatomical, that’s a little more discreet.”

“The idea that a person would only want to masturbate with a replica of genitals is kind of going away.”

“There’s more of an acknowledgement that many people don’t fit into the gender binary and our toys should reflect that,” Lieberman said. “I think that gender neutral sex toys are popular now because sex toys always reflect the culture of the time they’re created in; they reflect the current gender norms…. I think this shift in sex toy design to gender neutral reflects both a profit motive and a desire for inclusivity.”

For some companies, this might be an inclusivity effort, but for others, “it’s a response to the fact that inclusivity can be profitable,” Comella said. “A business that de-genders vibrators or ‘queers’ sex toys also expands its potential market reach by eliminating labels that don’t have to be there in the first place.”

But for those who still want the visual illusion of another person, Fleshlight isn’t going anywhere.

“That’s the thing to always keep in mind with the adult industry: It’s the business of fantasy,” Stoya said. “It’s like magic or professional wrestling. The audience who enjoys it comes in, ready to suspend their disbelief.”

Lieberman believes that lifelike sex toys impact our sexuality mostly for the good. If you want the feeling of fucking a penis or vagina or butthole without another person attached to it, that option is available to us, here in the future.

“I’m not sure that our society is that much different for having the Fleshlight in the world,” Lieberman said. “But our society is better when more people are having orgasms, and since Fleshlights provide orgasms, then our society is a bit happier thanks to the device.”

The Fleshlight Is a Portal to the Future of Sex syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[mugionthewater]

Ranking the V3 dub cast against their original DR roles!

Erika Harlacher (Kaede Akamatsu - Kyoko Kirigiri)

I’m not a huge fan of Erika Harlacher’s outing as Kirigiri- she sounds vaguely congested and doesn’t come close to conveying the iciness that should seem the obvious fit for a character like her. Kaede, on the other hand, is earnest and soulful and it comes across well in the dub. It’s a role that plays much more to her strengths, I think, and I’m happy she came back for a more flattering performance!

Kaede > Kirigiri

 Grant George (Shuichi Saihara – Leon Kuwata)

I’ve seen Grant George’s turn as Shuichi Saihara compared unfavorably to someone’s voiceover in a car commercial, which is honestly fair. It sticks out in the emotional monologues in the class trials, but a year later it’s that horrible generic “ah, um” voice clip that gets used approximately 5,000 times in the dub that keeps me up at night. It’s almost enough to forget he did a pretty solid job as Leon in 2014. Leon’s probably the least challenging role in the franchise, admittedly, but he played a solid douchey teenager with an entertaining breakdown.

Leon > Saihara

 Lucien Dodge (Kiibo – Hifumi Yamada)

A tossup here. Both roles are perfectly competent at what they are. The nasally voice for Hifumi was probably more demanding, but the Kiibo voice does a good job combining the Shounen protagonist with the robophobia conscious rigidity.

Kiibo > Hifumi, if only because casting recasting Lucien Dodge as the real Justice Robo was brilliant

 Kyle Herbert (Kaito Momota – Kazuichi Soda)

Kyle Herbert as Kazuichi is pathetic, emasculated, and screechy, so it’s pretty much perfect. It’s all the weirder he plays Kaito as a middle-aged smoker dad. It doesn’t come close to matching the energy of Kaito’s Japanese voice. Another pretty clear winner.

Kazuichi > Kaito

 Erica Mendez (Maki Harukawa – Nagisa Momoe)

An anomalous recast considering Nagisa isn’t in V3 but they invited her back with the other recast voices anyways. Maybe Erica Mendez is just a really cool person and NISA wanted to hang out with her more? In any case, she’s good as Maki and I don’t have much to say here.

Maki > Nagisa

 Johnny Yong Bosch (Rantaro Amami - Hajime Hinata)

Not an interpretation for Rantaro Amami I was expecting; I don’t associate JYB with deeper bad boy voices and he’s a character type I’d expect a softer and lighter brand of mysteriousness for. But I liked dub Amami quite a bit. I’m still going to give the edge to his role as Hinata, since he fits him perfectly and is easily the best protagonist dub voice NISA has given us.

Hinata > Amami

 Kira Buckland (Kirumi Tojo – Hiyoko Saionji)

Of all the recast voices in this game, Kira Buckland showed off the most range with her roles. Hiyoko’s original Japanese voice and the English dub version are both pretty stock voices for that character type, but Buckland as Kirumi gets to show off maturity, warmth, and distance that I never would have expected from someone who voiced Hiyoko. If I had to cast one VA from this game, I’d want her since I’m pretty sure she could do anything.

Kirumi > Hiyoko

 Chris Tergliafera (Ryoma Hoshi – Gundam Tanaka)

So this guy is perfect in both roles and I don’t understand why his behindthevoiceactors.com profile isn’t bigger. Tergliafera can do deep very well and he was a good hire for NISA. I’m going to give the edge to his take as Gundam since that voice role is much hammier and much more memorable for it, showing off comic chops along with the sexiness, but he nails the somber moments with Hoshi and it could go either way.

Gundam > Hoshi

 Wendee Lee (Miu Iruma – Akane Owari)

Akane and Iruma are two character types who could have ended up with very similar voice performances, but Wendee Lee as Akane sounds oddly flat while Lee as Iruma is the exact level of hammy, vulgar, and cartoonish that I could hope for. It’s not hard to guess which role she probably had more fun with.

Iruma > Akane

Kaiji Tang (Gonta Gokuhara – Yasuhiro Hagakure)

Now this one is just disappointing. Kaiji Tang is great and one of my favorite dub voices in the first game, but compared to his natural comic lightness as Hagakure his Gonta sounds like he’s reading from a script the whole time. Reading the dumb Tarzan text was probably as awkward for him as it was for all of us, but it’s still disappointing.

Hagakure > Gonta

 Dorothy Elias-Fahn (Tsumugi Shirogane – Sayaka Maizono – Chihiro Fujisaki)

Our only triple cast! I kind of wish it was a more exciting vocal trio than this one. She’s fine but forgettable as Chihiro (it’s just kind of stuffy), perfectly competent at delivering an American approximation of the Kirby voice as Sayaka, and totally baffling as Tsumugi for a bunch of reasons. First of all, Tsumugi’s whole schtick is being plain; she didn’t need any kind of affect, especially not one as suspicious as the sugary helium voice. Secondly, it was probably more of a strain on the vocal cords to keep that up for six whole class trials. And thirdly, it’s just kind of obnoxious to listen to. What gives, NISA?

Sayaka > Chihiro > Tsumugi

 Derek Stephen Prince (Kokichi Oma – Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu)

(remember when English speakers saw the dub tease and got outraged hearing Oma’s voice saying “Kayayday” thinking they had recast Bryce Papenbrook? That poor man)

Another case where the voice actor is very good at both roles. DSP as Oma is probably more nuanced, since he has to be playful and trollish but also bring a hard edge when he needs to, and the angry rasp he gives Kuzuryu fits perfectly and adds a lot to the SDR2 dub. I’m going to give it to his role in as Kuzuryu just because Oma’s “neeheehee!” voice clip in V3 is horrible.

Kuzuryu > Oma

 Todd Haberkorn (Korekiyo Shinguji – Teruteru Hanamura)

So I think Todd Haberkorn’s voice is incredibly distinctive and I have very particular associations with him as a VA (I mostly know him as the lead in Rosario + Vampire, because I am the worst). Him playing a gag character like Hanamura was entirely within my expectations and is something he’s generally very good at doing. Korekiyo is the exact opposite character type and I busted a gut as soon as I heard it. Korekiyo is a better character when you don’t take him too seriously, and Haberkorn is good with the lines. I’m still more of a fan of him as Hanamura, since the garbled southern accent at the class trial breakdown is much more fun than the sister class trial breakdown, which no VA can probably save.

Hanamura > Korekiyo

 Julie Ann Taylor (Tenko Chabashira - Ibuki Mioda)

Julie Ann Taylor gives basically the same performance for both characters, but it’s a choice that makes sense considering Ibuki and Tenko have a very similar energy. Ibuki is slightly zingier and gets more memorable voice quips, but it’s another one that could go either way.

Ibuki > Tenko

 Marieve Herington (Angie Yonaga – Celestia Ludenberg)

Celes’s wacky French accent? Perfect, amazing, a hilarious and entirely appropriate addition to her character and possibly the best adaptational decision NISA made. Angie’s extremely similar wacky accent? Kind of lazy and highlights the racist parts of her character. Granted, it was probably hard to win with that one, but still. Boo.

Celestia > Angie

 Christine Marie Cabanos (Himiko Yumeno - Chiaki Nanami)

Christine Marie Cabanos as Himiko is my favorite dub voice in V3. She captures the laziness of the Japanese VA so well, nailing the gag of it but also nailing the emotional moments when it counts. What makes it great is knowing about Cabanos’s other work and how ultra-feminine magical girl types like Chiaki and Madoka Kaname are in her usual wheelhouse. Playing a character like Himiko must have been refreshing and it shows.

Himiko > Chiaki