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How do treat character "voice" when the character in question is from non-english material? For example, unlicensed manga/anime.

..just like every other character? how does licensing material make a character suddenly easier to write?

do you mean because fan translations can be awkward, or for another reason? if it's the former, my advice is always to make them sound as natively english speaking as you can manage. don't use the quirks that japanese-translation tends to give us, "the one who did that, on that day..." will NEVER sound natural, it's always stilted as hell and weird. but stay true to any character specific quirks you can find, of course.

but also your question is kinda vague, i'd have more advice if i was sure of what you were asking about

I've never actually done this, but I guess by focusing on tone more than vocab.

Like, is the character formal or informal, do they use a lot of slang, is it generational? Class-related? Subcultural? What about academic or technical jargon, are they precise or casual or does it depend on the circumstances? Do they use a lot of words to convey an idea, or very few? How effectively? Do they use long sentences or short ones? Are they expressive/emotive when they talk?

What is the focus when they talk? Emotions? Concrete observations/action? Themselves, or others? Do they get write to the point of what they intend to say or do they talk around it or avoid it completely?

All these kinds of things can convey *how* a person speaks regardless of language.

it requires you do some research, learn some shit, and really pay attention to how a character speaks rather than just how they sound

i'm assuming you're asking what to do in the case of bad/awkward fan translations that might be accurate enough to understand the plot but not very good at expressing character voice (yes, i know that official translations often aren't much better, but their average quality has improved dramatically since ten years ago). fansubs are usually fairly okay quality these days.

if there's an drama cd, listen to it without subtitles. don't worry about what the words mean if you don't understand japanese - concentrate on the tone of the voice. does the character sound decisive, or do they make a lot of hesitant-sounding "ehhh" and "ano" noises? what pace do they speak at? do they tend to interrupt or go on and on? you can pick up a lot from the actors.

you'll still probably have to extrapolate a bit and create your own voice for the character. that's what translators do, and sometimes they're not any better at it than you are. when i translate, i know that some japanese speaking quirks (like accents, slang, cutesy ways of ending sentences, gender-atypical speech, unusual politeness levels, etc.) aren't going to translate directly into english at all, so i use my imagination and try to come up with an english equivalent. sometimes there's just no way to replicate the japanese tone, and that's okay. there are dialogue things you can do in english that you can't do in japanese, too.

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