In this extreme hypothetical, I would expect the entire voice cast to be Japanese???? Japan has no shortage of works that feature multinational casts, and it's expected just as a matter of prscticality that their actors will be Japanese VAs from the industry. Like, I watched G Gundam subbed just fine.
Indeed. I'm still looking forward to the game, as I've been a fan of Samurai Warriors since the original, but this is a huge disappointing mark on it.
The problem with this is that, even with coaching, it's very easy for a native speaker to tell when something just feels off in the dialogue. It's like how Heavy Rain features native French-speaking actors trying to sound like they're native English-speaking Americans and they just come off as oddly robotic.
That's the worst part of it, they didn't even get a Japanese VA for the part. Of all the VAs to choose from, they opted out for a white VA who speaks japanese to play Yasuke of all people. This shit writes itself really.
In Kiyoshi Kurosawa's To the Ends of the Earth, they casted an Uzbek actor who spoke no Japanese for the role of the interpreter. He sounds incredible, and I thought he was fluent until I watched the interview after the film. What you're talking about is totally possible with great results, but the Japanese voice acting industry is very stuck in their ways.
See above, but it is possible. In this case, he needs to sound fluent rather than native, so it could work. Just an example of something that could've been done, although it's too unconventional for the seiyuu industry nowadays, sadly (definitely seen stuff years ago that did things like this, though).
No, I mean, does the actor actually speak Japanese, in that if he were offered a role that required him to speak the language, could he do it with fluency?
White people aren't underrepresented in media is the difference. Taking jobs from people who get little representation and giving them to white folks is not helpful. It's about equity. "Get over it" is such a bad take.
I literally just addressed your question. You sound unhinged with your decrying of "pc snowflakes."
I'd love to find a Japanese game/other media site with discussions that weren't like that. I end up just going to places where there aren't discussions because of it. Hit me with recs otherwise.
Terrible take. Minority VAs are routinely shuffled to the back of the line for roles. The industry is heavily white and one black person being lucky enough to make it through the doesn't solve the systemic imbalance.
Yes, of course there are! There are Japanese speaking voice actors of tons of difference races here in Japan.
Okay, I think takes like this happen because we trot out words like equality. It's the wrong word to use. The word we need to focus on is EQUITY. This isn't about all people being seen as equal, because an unequal bias exists. This is about creating enacting circumstances that address inequity until a point where equality is possible.
Well, this is just a function of the Musou series. Like Sengoku Basara, they give all the characters different weapons to make their movesets more varied. That's not just something they did to Yasuke.
Not all samurai in Samurai Warriors are armed with swords. Yukimura Sanada, who was the cover figure for most Samurai Warriors games, uses spears in every game he appears, for example. And fist weapons or other esoteric weapon types aren't new to the series, either. Gracia used bracelets in Samurai Warriors 3 and 4 as fist-style weaponry.
I appreciate you bringing attention to this.
As a half Korean dude with an American name, this is kind of a shitty thing to assume.
I've definitely known many Japanese people in Tokyo with names that aren't traditionally Japanese, so this was a really stupid mistake on my part. I didn't consider how listing English as his native language is likely for marketing, and he's probably also a native speaker of Japanese despite not listing it that way. I'm terribly sorry, because I know this is a very prevalent issue.
I don't think it's a derail. My thread framed the (very real) issue incorrectly, which is why I'm so disappointed in my mistake. I've muddied the conversation that's worth having, so I hope mods can manage to fix it in a way that refocuses the conversation without locking it.
