Question

Why are so many kids in the Pokemon anime voiced by adults? I was on Bulbapedia the other day, and I saw that almost all the kida in the anime are voiced not by kids, but by adults! Also, Ash is voiced by a woman.
Nothing against either of these things, but why?

Comments

uhm i'm pretty sure almost all animated series kids voices are voiced by adults.

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wait really? my life is a lie :o

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Yeah, a lot of shows are like this. It might have something to do with child labor laws, but I doubt it because children do show up in TV shows. My other guess is that adults, especially those who are professional voice actors, will likely be able to do more with their voices. And, if you think about that, that's probably why many male characters that are young are voiced by women. The pitch of an adult man's voice wouldn't fit very well with a young male character. The only two examples if this I can find are Timmy Turner and the godly Jimmy Neutron, but I'm positive you'll find more if you keep digging.

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interesting. i never knew.

Answer 1

I posted this as a comment just a few minutes ago, but I thought that I might as well add it as an answer:

Yeah, a lot of shows are like this. It might have something to do with child labor laws, but I doubt it because children do show up in TV shows. My other guess is that adults, especially those who are professional voice actors, will likely be able to do more with their voices. And, if you think about that, that's probably why many male characters that are young are voiced by women. The pitch of an adult man's voice wouldn't fit very well with a young male character. The only two examples if this I can find are Timmy Turner and the godly Jimmy Neutron, but I'm positive you'll find more if you keep digging.

I also found this:

Kids voices usually change and in some cases, they have had to hire sound alikes to do subsequent voice work for child voice talent whose voices had changed considerably enough.

Normally, I would take things from websites like Quora with a grain of salt and not add them into my answer, but it brings up a good point. Especially in long running children's TV shows where the characters are young and don't age, having a voice actor whose voice is going to change could be an issue. When I read this, Finding Nemo and Finding Dory was the first thing that came to mind. They were released thirteen years apart, and Nemo was voiced by two different people, both of which were young boys. That amount of time generally tends to change a young boy's voice.