激情 and its pronunciation


I've heard the じょう being pronounced as some kind of voiceless fricative in
multiple works of entertainment, especially in the case of 激情. Is it some kind
of remnant phoneme from old Japanese or is it just an artistic stylization?
I'm pretty sure it doesn't appear in the modern standard phonology, or does
it?

_Examples on YouTube_

  * [Example 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur4BkAkR71w&t=2m7s "Example")

  * [Example 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3rPyU5VPkc&t=2m13s "Example2")




激情 should never be pronounced with voiceless fricative like "shou" as you say.
If you mouth it "gekishou," it turns out to be 激賞 meaning "high praise," or 劇症
meaning an acute symptom of disease, like fulminant hepatitis.

情 either as its own, or in combined-form like 情熱 (passion)、情緒 (emotion)、熱情
(ardor), 情実 (personal considerations /motives)、情趣 (feeling /atomosphere) must
always be pronounced "じょう - jou."

