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Why isn't a Black guy voicing Yasuke in Samurai Warriors 5? (Up: see threadmarks)

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Aurica

Aurica

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Edit: This initial post missed information and assumed the VA was white. Please read the threadmark and keep my mistakes in mind when reading the OP.
Samurai-Warriors-5_2021_04-23-21_026.png
Samurai-Warriors-5_2021_04-23-21_030.jpg



(You can hear him just say "Nobunaga-sama" at 2:47)

I was so hyped to see Yasuke in the new trailer/photos for Samurai Warriors 5 today, and then I saw he was voiced by someone named Paddy Ryan. I thought, "Oh, whoa! That's not a Japanese name. Did they get a Black voice actor to do this? That's uncommon for a Japanese studio." Looked him up and ???
rs3a0587_new.jpg

(Photo taken from agent's listing. I know this is him, because he was tweeting about it.)

I'm so confused. Why would they go out of their way to get a non-Japanese voice actor if they were gonna get a white dude to play one of the few Black icons in Japanese history? I just don't get it. He undoubtedly sounds like a good voice actor from his agency's voice sample, but he should've turned this role down and recommended they find someone more suiting.
 
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RealTravisty

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Mar 29, 2018
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Yeah...
Then again, I can't be too surprised. Around the time there were talks of POC playing POC roles in shows, there was one Japanese artist who thought it was strange that people believe someone should have the same skin tone as a character. I'm going to have to hunt down that statement and update this when I find it.
Edit: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/in...s-in-american-cartoons-japanese-anime/.161275

I knew I wasn't imagining things. I don't think Japanese people will understand or care about this issue, unfortunately.

It's a shame. Come to think of it, I know a few half Japanese voice actors, but zero that happen to be black. (Crystal Kay was the voice of Chansey in a Pokemon movie but...well, come on.)
 
Blackleg-sanji1

Blackleg-sanji1

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I was literally in that thread about to say damn I gotta buy this just for him and saw ya post..what a let down
 
Sanka

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Haven't played it yet and I can't hear his voice but I bet they wanted a foreign VA to play up the foreigness of Yasuke. Don't want to accuse the creators of the game already without knowing more about it, but oftentimes foreigners especially black people have a japanese accent that kind of makes them sound like dumb meatheads or just generally not bright. Really common in anime. And I hate it.
 
sensui-tomo

sensui-tomo

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Yeah, good luck expecting Japan to switch their stance on Voice roles and even that have a better shot of finding black voice actors in Japan. Kinda surprised they just didn't reuse the actor from Nioh 1/2 unless he doesn't know Japanese.
 
Neoxon

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Disappointing to see, especially when more developers are putting forth the effort to not cast white actors in PoC roles as of recently.
 
KoopaTheCasual

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Neoxon

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sensui-tomo

sensui-tomo

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And in case anyone is wondering, No this won't be getting a dub. Koei has kinda been cheap in that department by subbing everything and shat the bed hard with DW9 by switching out to another dubbing studio which was not received well by practically anyone. (It was an overall worse performance than anything they've dubbed since DW3)
 
TraBuch

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KoopaTheCasual said:
Funny enough, the voice actor for the Netflix Yasuke anime is a Black Japanese actor, so yea they exist if the company cares to look for it

www.epicdope.com

Yasuke Anime New Trailer, Japanese Cast, April Netflix Debut

Yasuke anime has posted a new trailer which reveals an American-Japanese actor as protagonist’s voice actor. New visuals and Japanese cast revealed.
www.epicdope.com www.epicdope.com
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Dope, never heard of him. Sounds like he would've been a solid choice judging from the trailer.
 
Hailinel

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sensui-tomo said:
Yeah, good luck expecting Japan to switch their stance on Voice roles and even that have a better shot of finding black voice actors in Japan. Kinda surprised they just didn't reuse the actor from Nioh 1/2 unless he doesn't know Japanese.
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Even if he did, it's doubtful they'd use him anyway since the Musou version of him is a different interpretation. None of the historical figures in Nioh share their actors with their Musou versions.

The only exception to this being William, who appeared in Warriors All-Stars as the Nioh character.
 
Watchtower

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KoopaTheCasual said:
Funny enough, the voice actor for the Netflix Yasuke anime is a Black Japanese actor, so yea they exist if the company cares to look for it

www.epicdope.com

Yasuke Anime New Trailer, Japanese Cast, April Netflix Debut

Yasuke anime has posted a new trailer which reveals an American-Japanese actor as protagonist’s voice actor. New visuals and Japanese cast revealed.
www.epicdope.com www.epicdope.com
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

See I legit didn't know this, and so it's good to see this. Japanese acting and POC representation is always going to run into this dodgy question of "is the talent actually there?" because expectations are that low with such a homogenized population.

Clearly there is, if only a little bit, but it's still more than whatever excuse KT can throw. So yeah, real shame there.
 
sensui-tomo

sensui-tomo

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Hailinel said:
Even if he did, it's doubtful they'd use him anyway since the Musou version of him is a different interpretation. None of the historical figures in Nioh share their actors with their Musou versions.

The only exception to this being William, who appeared in Warriors All-Stars as the Nioh character.
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Shhh we don't talk about that game <_<. I blame it entirely for how meh WO4 turned out.

And on a side note, it won't unfortunately do any good to bringing this up with KT America or Europe since they don't have the power to tell Japan to switch the voice actor. You'd have to go to KT's actual twitter/social media for a shot of this getting changed.
 
RealTravisty

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KoopaTheCasual said:
Funny enough, the voice actor for the Netflix Yasuke anime is a Black Japanese actor, so yea they exist if the company cares to look for it

www.epicdope.com

Yasuke Anime New Trailer, Japanese Cast, April Netflix Debut

Yasuke anime has posted a new trailer which reveals an American-Japanese actor as protagonist’s voice actor. New visuals and Japanese cast revealed.
www.epicdope.com www.epicdope.com
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

At the very least, this has made my day. I hope this brother has a nice, long career!
 
Nepenthe

Nepenthe

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It's like Koei learned nothing from last year.
 
Watchtower

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sensui-tomo said:
Shhh we don't talk about that game <_<. I blame it entirely for how meh WO4 turned out.

And on a side note, it won't unfortunately do any good to bringing this up with KT America or Europe since they don't have the power to tell Japan to switch the voice actor. You'd have to go to KT's actual twitter/social media for a shot of this getting changed.
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In my experience KT appears to be hyper-siloed to the point where no one hand seems to have any clue what the others are doing. KT Japan doesn't know what KT Europe is doing and vice versa, Tecmo parts like Team Ninja don't know what Koei parts like Omega Force are doing and vice versa, etc.

It's stupid and it leads to stupid shit like this where they appear to be flip-flopping over themselves.
 
sensui-tomo

sensui-tomo

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Watchtower said:
In my experience KT appears to be hyper-siloed to the point where no one hand seems to have any clue what the others are doing. KT Japan doesn't know what KT Europe is doing and vice versa, Tecmo parts like Team Ninja don't know what Koei parts like Omega Force are doing and vice versa, etc.

It's stupid and it leads to stupid shit like this where they appear to be flip-flopping over themselves.
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Yeah, unfortunately KT Japan kinda leaves the other branches to just fend for themselves.
 
Hailinel

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Watchtower said:
In my experience KT appears to be hyper-siloed to the point where no one hand seems to have any clue what the others are doing. KT Japan doesn't know what KT Europe is doing and vice versa, Tecmo parts like Team Ninja don't know what Koei parts like Omega Force are doing and vice versa, etc.

It's stupid and it leads to stupid shit like this where they appear to be flip-flopping over themselves.
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This isn't entirely true. KT's main studios these days are Team Ninja, Omeaga Force, Gust, Kou Shibusawa (who focus on the company historical strategy sims) and Ruby Party (otome games). Team Ninja at this point comprises all of "Old Tecmo", but the studio did some level of collaboration with KS on Nioh, and they shared the work with Omega Force on Hyrule Warriors 1. Omega Force's internal engine that they've used for Musou titles forever is also shared with other parts of the company (ex: Gust has frequently used it since becoming a part of KT).

But they do tend to keep their creative output pretty separate. They don't generally let their Romance of the Three Kingdoms titles influence Dynasty Warriors, for example, and the presentation of characters in Nioh is entirely distinct from their presentation in Nobunaga's Ambition and Samurai Warriors. The only time I can really think of a noticeable creative cross-pollination was when KS's Pokemon Conquest (which was a Nobunaga's Ambition/Pokemon crossover) used the Samurai Warriors 3 designs of the officers as the basis for their looks in that game.
 
Geode

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Wait there were black Japanese people during the Sengoku era? I didn't know that. That's pretty cool.
 
OP
OP
Aurica

Aurica

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I was really hyped to main him, but now I'll hear the white samurai guy in my head every time he's doing an attack, and that might bug me too much.
JusDoIt said:
Between this and homie fighting with "Fist Knuckles" they done ruined the dopest possible announcement.
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I know this is a shitty workaround, but there aren't even unique weapons for every character because you can have anyone use anything... but I think Yasuke has a better moveset with knuckles than other weapons due to affinity...
 
sensui-tomo

sensui-tomo

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Geode said:
Wait there were black Japanese people during the Sengoku era? I didn't know that. That's pretty cool.
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He's the historical Fuck you to anyone who says there were never any black samurai. His origins are scarce, but you can find out some good info about him being Nobunaga's retainer.
 
RecRoulette

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Wait, the VA is white and he fights with his fists. Whew, took the wind out of that one.

Got flashbacks to the Japanese dub of the Boondocks
 
L Thammy

L Thammy

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Geode said:
Wait there were black Japanese people during the Sengoku era? I didn't know that. That's pretty cool.
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In the sense of modern immigration, not really, but there was contact with Europe and their early colonial spread, which spread people and cultural things worldwide - tempura originates in Portuguese cuisine, for example.
 
JusDoIt

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Aurica said:
I know this is a shitty workaround, but there aren't even unique weapons for every character because you can have anyone use anything... but I think Yasuke has a better moveset with knuckles than other weapons due to affinity...
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I hear you, and honestly I gravitate towards boxers in video games more than sword users...but the relentless stereotyping that results in the FAMOUS BLACK SAMURAI specializing in hands is too much.
 
JCG

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There's been no word on whether this game will get an English dub yet, I suppose? If it does, then they really should get a black guy to voice Yasuke.

Not that it's particularly likely to happen, mind you. KT seems to have abandoned English dubs for the most part.
 
Hailinel

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JCG said:
There's been no word on whether this game will get an English dub yet, I suppose? If it does, then they really should get a black guy to voice Yasuke.

Not that it's particularly likely to happen, mind you. KT seems to have abandoned English dubs for the most part.
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There is basically next to no chance that it will get an English dub. The last Samurai Warriors game that received one was Samurai Warriors 3.
 
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