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One thing that you might not know about voice acting is that it can be really freaking hard on the throat. Sure, the actors are just chilling in a booth, but they’re doing things with their throats and voices that people weren’t designed to do. So, when the cast of Dragon Ball Z were asked what the most painful characters they voiced were, they all had some stories to tell.

Christopher Sabat, Eric Vale, and Sonny Strait took part in a Dragon Ball Z panel at Florida Supercon 2025, where they were asked which character they had played was the most difficult to voice. Eric Vale, who is best known for playing Trunks in Dragon Ball Z, admitted that it was the World Tournament Announcer that put the most strain on his throat. “Everything is screamed,” he explained.

Sonny Strait had a similar answer. “Present Mic [from My Hero Academia] for the same reason,” he told. “His announcer stuff, the screaming stuff; that gave me laryngitis that turned into pneumonia and it was just a nightmare, yeah… Present Mic was just set in a weird place in my throat.”

“Vegeta’s really freaking painful,” Christopher Sabat chimed in. “If there’s a lot of it, it really sucks. Like the act of just doing his voice to say a line hurts because you have to basically do something you really aren’t supposed to do.” Sabat then slipped into his Vegeta voice and gestured to his neck. “You’re not supposed to pinch the back of your throat off when you’re talking like this. That’s not what you’re supposed to do.” In his normal voice, he added. “It’s a terrible idea, and I was dumb when I started doing this. I didn’t know any better, so that’s what I did. So that hurts.”

The most painful voice for Christopher Sabat is actually not Vegeta or any of the other main characters he voices in the show. Instead, it is Recoome. “Weirdly, the only time I ever even lost my voice was doing the voice of Recoome.” Again, slipping into the Ginyu Force brute’s signature voice, Sabat explained, “Because that guy sounds like this and the longer you do that…” Back in his normal voice, he continued, “And you hold these muscles right here? It hurts. And they got really swollen, and I couldn’t talk.”

If you want to hear more behind-the-scenes stories from Dragon Ball Z from the cast, you can check out the full panel from Florida Supercon 2025 right here.

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

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