Evaluating the English voice acting in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (spoilers obviously)

[Uzumaki Goku]

I just finished my New Game Plus playthrough and decided to check out the English dub.

Kaiji Tang is fantastic as Kasuga and deserves to win Best Actor at GameAwards (and probably won't be nominated knowing TGA)

In fact, all the new characters sound fine in English but where it falters is with the legacy characters.

Everyone has talked about YongYea doesn't fit Kiryu and I really wish they just kept Darryl Kurylo as he at least gave Kiryu a baritone of strength. Majima and Saejima's English voices do not fit them at all and near the end of the game, at a key dramatic moment, Daigo's performance really falters compared to the Japanese version.

Guess I'll try Chinese dub for Legendary playthrough. Anyone try that?

 

[PlanetSmasher]

English Majima is impossible to replicate. I think Mercer did the best he could with a genuinely thankless job.

The only one I really think falters is Kiryu, and even he has his moment sometimes.

 

[Uzumaki Goku]

English Majima is impossible to replicate. I think Mercer did the best he could with a genuinely thankless job.

The only one I really think falters is Kiryu, and even he has his moment sometimes.

Click to shrink...

I almost wish Mark Hamill came back (even if he doesn't remember doing Majima lol)

 

[Bossking]

Granted, I haven't done a full playthrough in English like I did with Japanese, but I rewatched some important scenes in English, and... man. I did like Kaiji's Ichiban in Y7, but in some of the dramatic scenes I watched in English, Ichiban sounds like he's one cowabunga away from being a Ninja Turtle. Like, he just sounds too much like a cartoon surfer dude. Tomi's VA is great, but Yamai feels like a huge step down from the extremely tired, grumpy, droningly slow voice he has in Japanese. It feels like it would be so easy to replicate in English, but they just don't.

Both dubs seriously have some pros and cons. While the main cast in Japanese obviously sounds great, the English-speaking characters like Bryce and Dwight are fucking AWFUL and immediately suck all weight and energy out of a scene. The English dub fixes both (with the obvious inclusion of Danny Trejo's voice to go with his face), but I really feel like the main cast just doesn't compare to the Japanese cast.

 

[Uzumaki Goku]

Granted, I haven't done a full playthrough in English like I did with Japanese, but I rewatched some important scenes in English, and... man. I did like Kaiji's Ichiban in Y7, but in some of the dramatic scenes I watched in English, Ichiban sounds like he's one cowabunga away from being a Ninja Turtle. Like, he just sounds too much like a cartoon surfer dude. Tomi's VA is great, but Yamai feels like a huge step down from the extremely tired, grumpy, droningly slow voice he has in Japanese. It feels like it would be so easy to replicate in English, but they just don't.

Both dubs seriously have some pros and cons. While the main cast in Japanese obviously sounds great, the English-speaking characters like Bryce and Dwight are fucking AWFUL and immediately suck all weight and energy out of a scene. The English dub fixes both (with the obvious inclusion of Danny Trejo's voice to go with his face), but I really feel like the main cast just doesn't compare to the Japanese cast.

Click to shrink...

I also feel at a certain point, Chitose's Japanese voice had a lot more emotion than her English voice

 

[EntelechyFuff]

My sensibilities are all fucked up, because I see videos memeing on the original Yakuza 1 dub and think: hey, that's pretty good.

I thought Y8's dub was great also, but I agree that many of the minor characters felt a bit phoned in…Daigo and company are a great example of this. Also it felt like the beginning and ending of Akane's voice directing instructions were "be a sad old lady". Otherwise, very good stuff. I loved Ei-chan hamming it up.

 

[Dice]

I almost wish Mark Hamill came back (even if he doesn't remember doing Majima lol)

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I find it amusing how often actors forget roles like this lol
Fans absolutely cling to the work more than the workers do.

 

[ozumas]

I know plenty of people know this but the fact that Chitose and Yuffie has the same English VA blows my mind, Suzie Yeung is the GOAT

 

[KaCo]

Both dubs seriously have some pros and cons. While the main cast in Japanese obviously sounds great, the English-speaking characters like Bryce and Dwight are fucking AWFUL and immediately suck all weight and energy out of a scene. The English dub fixes both (with the obvious inclusion of Danny Trejo's voice to go with his face), but I really feel like the main cast just doesn't compare to the Japanese cast.

Click to shrink...

Either they should have done an "Tekken universal language" moment or if that wasn't realistic enough just say Tomi was translating on the fly so Ichiban understood what Bryce and Dwight was saying in English.

I agree it was kind of weird that some character could suddenly have perfect conversational Japanese with Ichiban and it didn't really work for me lol.

 

[Uzumaki Goku]

I find it amusing how often actors forget roles like this lol
Fans absolutely cling to the work more than the workers do.

Click to shrink...

But for me, it was Tuesday

 

[ze_]

As someone who has only ever played the games in Japanese until Yakuza 7, Goofy Date is so weird.

 

[Lkr]

are the random people saying "it's not a show shithead" the same if you play the english dub?
I love this part contrasted against everyone else speaking japanese lol

 

[Jawmuncher]

I warmed up to the Kiryu VA. Played the entire game in English and once you're taking him for what he is and not the expectation/comparison of the JP VA, he does a good enough job I think.

 

[Apollo]

It's a fantastic English dub overall. Maybe not as great IMO as LaD and the Judgment games, but the baseline quality for the RGG dubs is so damn high compared to most other games on the market that it still manages to be a standout effort.

 

[Modest_Modsoul]

Overall I am fine with Yong's Kiryu. 🤷

Like A Dragon 7 sounds peak for the English dub & actors; Mercer managed to be better than Hamill for Majima to me.

 

[Hardvlade]

I mainly play these games in Japanese, I decided to play Yakuza: Like a Dragon in English and I was pleasantly surprised on how good it was. I tried giving Yong a chance in Infinite Wealth, but after a chapter I switched back. His voice really doesn't fit the character imo. Wish they'd bring Darryl Kurylo back, but I know it ain't happening.

 

[JoJoBae]

I love the english cast in both Judgment games and Yakuza 7, but I felt like Infinite Wealth ran into the sort of budget JRPG problem where they had too many younger voiced people cast as very obviously older people. Like Yong does a good job with what he was given, but we absolutely needed someone with some more depth and age to their voice there.

 

[Chumunga64]

I really wish when characters like Dwight spoke english in the japanese dub, they just put in his english dub voice actor because it's really weird that this guy that's not japanese speaks with a heavily accented english to kids who actually have natural sounding english

and of course, Yongyea as Kiryu is the elephant in the room when it comes to voices acting. Kurylo and Kuroda are about the same age and Yongyea is like two decades younger than them and it he sounds like it

also the new guy they got for Daigo sounds way worse

 

[LimeTime]

All of the party characters (sans Kiryu) are some of the best English voice acting period. I could rave all day about how amazing they are. They are just as good, if not better, than the Japanese voice actors.

Kiryu, like you said, doesn't compare at all to the Japanese, which is some of the most iconic voice acting in a video game. I ended up getting used to it, and by the end I didn't really hate it like I did in the beginning, but still, it's no contest.

I actually think the worst voice acting in the game was Ichiban's mom. She sounded very amateurish. In the big scene between Ichiban and Akane, he's pouring his heart out while she just sort of sounded stilted. Considering her voice actress has from what I can tell never really done much voice acting before, that may be why.