What's up with people assuming that those who prefer Japanese don't understand Japanese, lol. That's such a lazy strawman.
“Playing a Japanese game with Japanese voices is what the director had in mind“ is a misconception
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Agreed. If given the option I'll always go with Japanese voices. Always sounds more genuine and fitting.
I much prefer Persona in English. The only times I watch it subbed are the anime's.(please dub the P5 anime.)
I would especially hate to play 4 in Japanese. Any "immersion" could not possibly be worth hearing Japanese Teddie and Rise.
I quit playing Persona 4 on PS2 because of the voice acting. A lot of it had to do with Teddy yelling the same shit in every battle. I gave it to a friend and bought the Japanese version of Persona 4 Golden, and I've had a much better time.
I tend to favor Japanese voices in general in part because unless they are grossly bad, I generally cannot tell if the VAs are bad because I don't understand the langauge being spoken anyway. Whereas when the English VAs are bad, and generally speaking most are because that talent pool doesn't seem very large, I can tell right away and that takes me right out of it.
That said some of the bigger studios are excellent with their English VAs like Square and I played FFXV entirely in English.
That said some of the bigger studios are excellent with their English VAs like Square and I played FFXV entirely in English.
I just can't wrap my head around this. Teddie is ten times as annoying in Japanese. Plus like they said you have to listen to Japanese Rise too.
I couldn't really tell if a VA is really good when using a language I don't understand a single word from, or what's the correct pronunciation. Sometimes it just sounds cool and often suits the style of exaggeration in Japanese games.
I always prefer the language I understand. If it matches the original language, the better.
I always prefer the language I understand. If it matches the original language, the better.
It's really interesting people can't let this topic rest even after people argued against the sheer stupidity for years and finally dual audio which brings choice is more the standard and less the exception now. Which is honestly better for everyone involved and still somehow got so many people asspained in the dumbest discussions over the years.
Take note from which perspective this thread was made. Take note how everyone just rejects any and all reasons people explain their preference.
Take note how people that only speak one language do everything to peddle things that largely amount to personal bias in the end as fact like the meme that the more japanese you know the more you recognize the voice acting is just as bad. LOL.
This whole thread just has pure barf arguments. My favorite I just read now was how people explain that it's just impossible to really read subtitles and enjoy the game and cite probably a very extreme example of that when like 90%+ of all games in existence are never that fast paced to begin with that you can get confused by what's going on from reading subtitles. Like holy shit what anti intellectual garbage. Being able to read any given 2 lines of subtitles in less than a second and return to what's going on the screen is not some inhuman feat, it's simply trained. Of all the things to make such a dumb argument on when reading is like a general skill applied daily to choose this is just unfathomably stupid in my eyes. Like the people that perform stuff on penn and teller rank far high an above in terms of actually mind blowing skills compared to just being to read quickly.
Edit: sorry for the strong language but the way people structure their arguments in here is just something else.
Same as yesterday when the defense for hypocritical generalization was my "misunderstanding" of not picking up how the generalization didn't actually just apply to a smaller group but actually was more about how it applied to actually this whole other bigger group. *facepalm*
Take note from which perspective this thread was made. Take note how everyone just rejects any and all reasons people explain their preference.
Take note how people that only speak one language do everything to peddle things that largely amount to personal bias in the end as fact like the meme that the more japanese you know the more you recognize the voice acting is just as bad. LOL.
This whole thread just has pure barf arguments. My favorite I just read now was how people explain that it's just impossible to really read subtitles and enjoy the game and cite probably a very extreme example of that when like 90%+ of all games in existence are never that fast paced to begin with that you can get confused by what's going on from reading subtitles. Like holy shit what anti intellectual garbage. Being able to read any given 2 lines of subtitles in less than a second and return to what's going on the screen is not some inhuman feat, it's simply trained. Of all the things to make such a dumb argument on when reading is like a general skill applied daily to choose this is just unfathomably stupid in my eyes. Like the people that perform stuff on penn and teller rank far high an above in terms of actually mind blowing skills compared to just being to read quickly.
Edit: sorry for the strong language but the way people structure their arguments in here is just something else.
Same as yesterday when the defense for hypocritical generalization was my "misunderstanding" of not picking up how the generalization didn't actually just apply to a smaller group but actually was more about how it applied to actually this whole other bigger group. *facepalm*
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Would you say it's also a strawman for some folks to assume that Japanese VA is always superior to English VA no matter what, regardless of any circumstance? I wonder about that. Based on some of the responses in this thread some folks take this as literal truth, even factoring the context that we aren't in the 1990's Era of extremely poor dub work along the lines of PSX RE1 or House of the Dead for that matter.
I mean there are some bad dubs that exist every now and then, but stuff along the level of Chaos Wars is an extreme rarity nowadays.
Because 9 out of 10 people who prefer Japanese in video games and fetishize seiyuu industry don't speak Japanese and it's silly to pretend that this is not true. I'm sure there're exceptions, but out of all my friends who were into anime at some point (and there are dozens of them) only one is actually fluent in Japanese.
Not as true lately in my experience. Maybe like 50/50. The industry has gotten much better at this.
I don't often see the "it's the director intent" justification for choosing japanese over dub.
Anyways, for me I'd rather pick the language that fits the game the best. Like a game that takes place in japan, I can't see why I'd play that with an english dub when the JP va is an option.
Same reason why I choose to play Metro with the russian va.
Anyways, for me I'd rather pick the language that fits the game the best. Like a game that takes place in japan, I can't see why I'd play that with an english dub when the JP va is an option.
Same reason why I choose to play Metro with the russian va.
I'm of the mind of always trying to experience media in its original language.
As a person fluent in Japanese, for any game made in Japan, I will always use Japanese VO over any other alternative language. There are certainly bad Japanese voiceovers, e.g. a voice actor from Tokyo using a fake Kansai-ben can be super super cringy, or the overtly childish female voices. But I feel that in general Japanese voice actors imprint more emotion to their performances compared to many of their English counterparts. This can be because of many reasons, but I think in many cases the English dubs are not given a big enough budget, and thus the results are often subpar.
That being said, at the end of the day the most important thing is being able to understand what is being said. I understand not being able to understand Japanese but preferring the sound of it whenever the game is fully subtitled, but if a game is too busy or not completely subtitled (e.g. in battle dialogue in some RPGs), then using the English dub would be the better option.
As a person fluent in Japanese, for any game made in Japan, I will always use Japanese VO over any other alternative language. There are certainly bad Japanese voiceovers, e.g. a voice actor from Tokyo using a fake Kansai-ben can be super super cringy, or the overtly childish female voices. But I feel that in general Japanese voice actors imprint more emotion to their performances compared to many of their English counterparts. This can be because of many reasons, but I think in many cases the English dubs are not given a big enough budget, and thus the results are often subpar.
That being said, at the end of the day the most important thing is being able to understand what is being said. I understand not being able to understand Japanese but preferring the sound of it whenever the game is fully subtitled, but if a game is too busy or not completely subtitled (e.g. in battle dialogue in some RPGs), then using the English dub would be the better option.
I do it on a game by game basis.
I played Valkyria Chronicles in Japanese for example, cause I didn't like what I heard in the english dub.
But Nier Automata and Persona 5 I did in englisch cause the dub is great there.
What reallly warmed me up on englisch dubs was Persona 4
it wasnt Dual Audio so I didnt have a choice and the dub is great.
But then theres the Zero Escape series where we europeans didnt get the english dub on the first release at first where I just played all of them in japanese after that to keep consistent.
In Fire Emblem Awakening I switched to japanese cause I really didnt like those one word voice clips they played everytime
Frederik saying" right" all the time and stuff.
I played Valkyria Chronicles in Japanese for example, cause I didn't like what I heard in the english dub.
But Nier Automata and Persona 5 I did in englisch cause the dub is great there.
What reallly warmed me up on englisch dubs was Persona 4
it wasnt Dual Audio so I didnt have a choice and the dub is great.
But then theres the Zero Escape series where we europeans didnt get the english dub on the first release at first where I just played all of them in japanese after that to keep consistent.
In Fire Emblem Awakening I switched to japanese cause I really didnt like those one word voice clips they played everytime
Frederik saying" right" all the time and stuff.
Seriously, Rie Kugiyama is so fucking bad
Don't you like hearing KUMA KUMA KUMA KUMA OVER AND OVER
Games tend to have a lot of moving parts compared to an anime or something in that vein. There are lot of times where incentidental dialogue just won't be subtitled at all, meaning if you play it in Japanese you just straight up miss parts of the game.
I got used to subbed anime very quickly, but with games you always feel like you're missing out on something.
I got used to subbed anime very quickly, but with games you always feel like you're missing out on something.
I actually played the second Octopath demo in Japanese after playing the first one in English. One of those things where the localization comes off as odd for a lot of the characters (not Primrose though). Also, because of the text, in Japanese I can just skip through the voices as soon as I read the text without worrying about the voice acting sounding weird when I cut it short.
This is the main example of what I'm talking about when translations stick too close to the original Japanese and end up with unnatural-sounding English. The opposite end of the spectrum is something like the Persona games, which I can totally understand playing in English despite it being set in Japan.
One of the top English localizations ever is probably Final Fantasy XII. Does anybody not in Japan play that in Japanese?
Really?! I actually played BOTW with the voices set to German with English text. Kinda for fun since I'm learning German wanted to try it in some games for immersion. I understood enough to realize the German dialogue doesn't fully match up with the English subs.
You know any other examples of games with good German voice tracks? I'm thinking of mainly trying RPGs.
mid-tier and games tend to not get quality dub. of course american dub for games like uncharted and god of war are good, but for the average "anime" games it's not
There are simply very few games in which the dubbed VA is on par with the original.
Really, the only JRPG in which I'd consciously choose the English VA over the Japanese is FF12.
And that game lends itself to localization much better than many JRPGs, since its setting is less anime-influenced and adheres more to a Western fantasy style.
Really, the only JRPG in which I'd consciously choose the English VA over the Japanese is FF12.
And that game lends itself to localization much better than many JRPGs, since its setting is less anime-influenced and adheres more to a Western fantasy style.
I will never understand anti dubbing culture. Specifically from people who aren't actual speakers of the specific language.
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DQ 8 has a great English dub, but then again it went from no voice to dubbed in the west to getting a Japanese dub on the 3ds.
Playing Warriors/Musou games without a dub is such a bummer to me because honestly a lot of the dialogue just flies by me. So I'm glad that effort is still being made for major games. (Well..mostly.)
I've never really heard anyone say this misconception before reading this thread... but play the game in the language you like the best!
I personally play games in Japanese, if offered, because I can read the subtitles faster than they talk and it makes scenes feel really weird in English when I'm skipping through half of the spoken words because I understand the language.
It's a weird thing, but it works for me. I also enjoy the sound of the Japanese language.
I personally play games in Japanese, if offered, because I can read the subtitles faster than they talk and it makes scenes feel really weird in English when I'm skipping through half of the spoken words because I understand the language.
It's a weird thing, but it works for me. I also enjoy the sound of the Japanese language.
It's enough.
The rest of your post really just goes to beat around the bush for what I've been stating from the beginning: tone and emotions need to sound convincing and appropriate to the context.
I never intended to suggest that any strong emotion tuned up to eleven would count as better acting.
Human emotions are an universal code we have evolved to be receptive about even when conveyed through literal gibberish.
There are a lot less culturally-specific factors involved that people may think.
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I disagree with the notion that unless you are very fluent with a language you can't understand if the actors are good or bad.
I am sure it is true for some people especially if they aren't used to listening to media that isn't dubbed to their native language.
Personally i rarely find my self enoying japanese games and anime in english dubs. Same is true for most dubs that are not the original language. I stopped playing Tales Of Xilia because i could not stomach the voice acting. That doesn't mean that i find japanese voice acting always better, for example those older women trying to sound like little girls sounds just awful and it happens pretty often, but overall the original voice acting usually sounds much better to me. I have also stopped watching anime because i didn't like the acting, can't remember examples of the top of head though, but that doesn't happen often.
Neither English nor Japanese are native to me and i understand some Japanese anyway.
I am sure it is true for some people especially if they aren't used to listening to media that isn't dubbed to their native language.
Personally i rarely find my self enoying japanese games and anime in english dubs. Same is true for most dubs that are not the original language. I stopped playing Tales Of Xilia because i could not stomach the voice acting. That doesn't mean that i find japanese voice acting always better, for example those older women trying to sound like little girls sounds just awful and it happens pretty often, but overall the original voice acting usually sounds much better to me. I have also stopped watching anime because i didn't like the acting, can't remember examples of the top of head though, but that doesn't happen often.
Neither English nor Japanese are native to me and i understand some Japanese anyway.
Yeah, that's a strawman as well. There are plenty of games/shows with good English VA. On a personal level (from experience) I almost always prefer the original Japanese VA over any secondary language dubbing job, but I wouldn't play western-made games in Japanese.
I don't know what the actual ratio between people who do/don't understand Japanese is, so I can't really respond to that. But there's a pretty big gap between "don't understand Japanese" and "fluent in Japanese", I wouldn't claim to be fluent in Japanese but I have little issue understanding spoken/written japanese without subtitles.
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I can only think of Xenoblade 2, which I heard seems to be closer to the Japanese text than the English translation.
Instead of the Blushy-Crushy thing they actually use the original Japanese phrase "moe" for example.
As for BotW, I think in German they kept many location and shrine names directly from the Japanese original, whereas in English they changed the names so they appear somewhat similar but much more "english", which I find seriously stupid.
They also call the Divine Beasts just "Titans", which I find much more effective.
Aside from understanding some things (you know, watching lots of anime does that to you) I like Japanese VA more often than not. And considering that my native language will never be considered to dub a game, and the dubs in my second native language (Spanish) are not that good, it's not that different to me listening to Jap or Eng dubs.
I don't think any game is designed to be played with your eyes glued to the bottom of the screen during pivotal story moments. I'll never understand the preference of Subtitle if dubs are available. Unless the VO is so bad you rather mask it with an language incomprehensible to you.
Given the choice, I go with the one that sounds better, or less annoying. For example, Let It Die's Japanese VAs are just more pleasing to listen; the mushroom stew girl Momoko sounds more mature, and Uncle Death isn't voiced by the Extreme Dudesons guy, who I can't stand.
Agreed 100%, OP. What Japanese developers likely intended is for you to not have to read what's being said, not as the primary experience. I'd say they're thinking about the Japanese game they're developing, first. Which is why I tend to groan when I hear that some folks auto-default to Japanese every time out of a misplaced desire to get 'closer to authenticity'. I'm not saying some English dubs don't suck, mind you.
Often the creators of the game didn't have much to do with localizing or directing the foreign dubs of their games.
The director may have never had foreign audiences in mind in the first place, so merely playing could not be apart of their vision as well.
Regardless, I'll usually do English unless it just sounds bad, and there's a Japanese option, in which case I'll just go with the original.
It's not like film, usually, where there's an alternate translation accompanying Japanese audio, because Western publishers were granted rights to mess with the script.
If I have Japanese or English audio, the script will be the same. So it's all up to the acting quality at that point (which I have to admit seems to be a stronger discipline in Japan).
If you don't understand Japanese, reading English subs is not "authentic". If you want authentic, just get off your ass (or stay on it, I guess) and learn the damn language.
The director may have never had foreign audiences in mind in the first place, so merely playing could not be apart of their vision as well.
Regardless, I'll usually do English unless it just sounds bad, and there's a Japanese option, in which case I'll just go with the original.
It's not like film, usually, where there's an alternate translation accompanying Japanese audio, because Western publishers were granted rights to mess with the script.
If I have Japanese or English audio, the script will be the same. So it's all up to the acting quality at that point (which I have to admit seems to be a stronger discipline in Japan).
If you don't understand Japanese, reading English subs is not "authentic". If you want authentic, just get off your ass (or stay on it, I guess) and learn the damn language.
You simply get used to it with practice.
There is a whole world of players out there who cannot understand English or Japanese. I was once one of them.
They'd have to play games un-localized on a regular basis. Even when the game is localized, most of the time it's not dubbed in their language.
The desire to play games overcomes such obstacles pretty damn quick.
Aboslutely you do unless you speak a similar language. How, if you understand nothing, do you judge good or bad when you have no baseline knowledge of the lanaguage?
Again in live action theirs cues, video games and animation have none. It might as well be a made up language. Can you tell if people speaking a fictional video game language are doing a "good job"??.
You can prefer how Japanese sounds but theres no earthly way to judge the quality by someone who doesn't understand anything about the languages beyond konichiwa.
I generally start with English and will switch to Japanese if I really dislike it (Persona 5, Zelda BotW, and Sonic are the recent ones off the top of my head).
Okay, then I also don't know if a english dub is good or bad by your standard.
I'm in no way fluent in english and many people in brazil aren't. Many of us still play in english with pt-br sub so I guess that we aren't able to say that a dub is good or not.
And people say that the sub side is elitist and shit. This thread is sure showing the contrary for dub.
How the hell is that elitist? What are you even talking about?
They are the One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach generation. Type of people who refer to Guts as Gattsu.
If you're a game creator and you make a game with you're native language being English is it a misconception to say you had English in mind developing the game?
A Japanese developer probably isn't thinking about a non-native language as much when making their game.
Your disdain and disrespect sure show it. I know that english speaking don't like to read subtitles and that they prefer to hear everything on english but there's a limit.
Yeah, fuck a person for preferring a thing to another. I should say fuck everyone that prefer the english dub of Dragon Ball too because I don't like it. What a shit post.
No one refers to Guts as Gattsu for more than a decade. Beyond the fact that the translation of the names in many countries are different.
I don't refer to Kuririn, Tenshinhan, Genkidama, Kienzan and other things as Krillin, Tien, Spirit Bomb or Kienzan since the translation in Brazilian Portuguese for both the manga and anime was faithful to the japanese
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This is exactly what I'm talking about.
My disdain and disrespect to another language track? Hell yeah, I'll dunk on a bad track. Am I supposed to pretend it's good? Act like every sub is always better than the English dub? I'm not sure you understand what elitism means.
Probably because people prefer the language. It's not just a japanese thing, western games with english dub happens and sub in a native language exists as well. The problem is that many of you are just thinking as if everyone speaks english in native way or are fluent when in most of the cases that's not true.
There's many people here in Brazil that prefer to play games in english dub and brazilian portuguese as sub instead of using the dub, for example.
People can do what they want to do. It's extremely pathetic that I need to read something like that. Subtitles are available for a reason both in movies and videogames.
Oh, that's really amazing man. You can identify a bad VA even if you don't know the language and that fine... but if a person thinks that it's a good VA they're wrong because they don't know the language. Quite a great argument...
Why are you putting words in my mouth?
This was my post you quoted. I was saying Rise and Teddie's voice actors are bad in Japanese. Rie Kugiyama screechy voice constantly in your ears and Kappei Yamaguchi constantly spouting Kuma is grating, especially since they're your navigators. That's what I was agreeing with in those quotes. Maybe actually read what people are posting instead of starting arguments for no reason.
I couldn't give less of a shit if you prefer the Japanese voices or prefer Japanese voices all of the time. I am talking about a particular game and a particular voice track and am allowed to say they're garbo.