Juliana Shafira and Mika Split a Paid Plan to Dub Movie and Cartoon Clips Together

AKA VIRTUAL — Juliana Shafira of AKA Virtual and Mika, who streams as @ahomika_ch, spent Tuesday evening voicing film and cartoon clips in Indonesian on a dubbing website. The stream ran about three hours and 40 minutes and was built around a plan that the website’s free tier nearly ruined.

The collaboration had been postponed by about two weeks after a power outage hit before a planned stream. Juliana Shafira, whom chat calls Pira, said staff had prepared a set of clips for the two to choose from. The plan was to record each part separately while muted, so the result would be a surprise for both of them and for viewers. They tried the original-language lines first, then moved to improvised Indonesian versions. In one early take a bird line slid into Javanese, and chat noticed.

“Mika never stops bringing up that I’m old. Even I’m baffled, guys.” — Juliana Shafira, midstream

The trouble came when they tried to dub together. The site’s multiplayer rooms required both users to hold the same clip pack, and a daily room limit blocked them from starting another. They concluded the free tier allowed one multiplayer room a day and that unlimited rooms required a paid upgrade. After a stretch of checking payment options, they agreed to split the cost of one month’s subscription, with one of them paying and the other sending half. Juliana Shafira said that, having paid, they should make at least two pieces of content from it.

With the plan unlocked, they went through a series of clips. The first was a Toy Story scene in which their improvised Indonesian lines drifted into a running joke about Juliana Shafira’s age, a gag Mika had started in the opening minutes. Juliana Shafira later re-recorded one line to have her character insist she was not old. Both named the Toy Story clip as their favorite of the night. Other clips included a SpongeBob scene, a scene set around a dinner-time visit and a wedding-blessing scene.

Chat followed the age joke throughout, and the pair closed by setting a second dubbing session on Mika’s channel for Friday afternoon, Nov. 6. Juliana Shafira said she was tired by the end, and the pair thanked viewers for putting up with technical trouble and slow chat replies.