“Playing a Japanese game with Japanese voices is what the director had in mind“ is a misconception

OmegaDL50 said:

Typically very strange things can result when Japanese voice director assumes to know more about the English language then a native English speaking Voice Director would.

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Oh yeah.
Another big culprit is Shenmue where, according to Blaustein (again), Suzuki was adamant about EN voice recording taking place in Japan so he could oversee it - and we know how that went.

Shenmue and the Kojima reaction to MGS1 are two major examples of how a creator doesn't always know what's best for his creation or audience IMO.

Anyway I don't have a hard stance on JP voices like I use to have a loooong time ago when I was in JHS or HS but English not being my native language I don't care much for English voicework when they weren't the original language to begin with, simple as that. I do recognize the merits of some great localizations such as Automata, and FFXII which in that specific case I totally think trounces the original JP.

I agree with op, I think there is a lot lost in sub performances in my personal experience and enjoyment. This idea that subs are the most pure way when you dont even understand it is kind of a poor viewpoint, seems to be kind of a looking down type of attitude when some people argue for these things. There are various examples of very well done dubs

Abriael said:

And that's entirely irrelevant, considering how many have responded to this post of mine with a variation of "you just don't know better because you don't understand Japanese!"

I do and I do.

Incidentally, understanding Japanese is not even required to know that Japanese voice acting of Japanese games is generally better, and understanding the very practical reasons behind that.

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I'm just speaking generally. That's great that you're fluent in Japanese and English by the way, that's some hard-ass work.

Nemesis162 said:

And how do you know subs are bad voice acted by the same argument? lol Isn't it quite hypocrite to only make this argument for one side?

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Maybe I should make it clear what my actual position is. Most people who watch anime or play a video game with subs wouldn't really know a good performance from a bad one. Maybe they can kind of tell, maybe they can't. Acting is kind of subjective to begin with, so when you add in that probably 90%+ of viewers are not even capable of evaluating certain parts of the Japanese, I think it's kind of silly to not just do a direct comparison between a particular sub and dub, but to generalize the objective quality of all subs and dubs based on the quality of the performances to fluent speakers of both languages and focus on that.

It's probably a good discussion for those few people who are very, very familiar with both languages, but for everyone else, it's not that relevant. If you don't know Japanese, playing with a sub is more like an extra layer of abstraction than the same as playing with English. I think it's the same reason a lot of people say live action adaptations of anime suck--they lack the abstraction of animated characters and environments and make the weirdness of anime stick out like a sore thumb. Whether you like that extra abstraction of a Japanese performance or not depends on the person and the specific work, and that's going to have a huge influence on whether they enjoy subs or dubs better. Probably a much bigger influence than the actual quality of the Japanese performance.

That about sums up why I think it's silly to go around making declarative statements about sub or dubs being objectively superior. Even if you were to make a compelling argument for a higher objective quality of one voice performance over the other, I don't think it's even the most important aspect of a comparison between sub and dub, assuming neither are outright terrible performances. I think what matters more to people generally is the layer of abstraction, the ability to comprehend just by listening, the novelty of hearing another language, and so on.

I'm fluent in Japanese and I play Japanese video games in English. I generally am not a fan of Japanese voice acting or indeed Japanese acting in general and avoid it if I can. They remind me of anime, which I don't watch and which for me is not a good thing. Exceptions include Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which I played in Japanese because I found the English voices rather awkward.

Unless it's a turn base rpg, I usually play action games in English because otherwise I can't understand the dialogue in mid battle lol

I'm Brazilian, so my first language is brazilian portuguese. I can understand a little bit of japanese, but no, I don't speak japanese.
So, I really prefer the japanese dub in 99% of japanese games. It feels more natural, specially when the characters or places have japanese names.
It is SO UGLY the way english speakers pronounces japanese words. While it's obviously different, brazilian portuguese sounds a little bit closer to japanese. Also, we have the biggest japanese community outside of japan, so we are used to japanese words and stuff. Even "sushi" in english is really strange for me.

The funny thing is: I don't play western games in brazilian portuguese. It is really strange for me, because I'm used to play videogames in english, so I prefer menus and subtitles in english.

JRPG and Fighting Games are unplayable in english (except FFXII and MAYBE FFXV), but I must admit that I prefer Cammy's voice in english.

Kingdom Hearts is strange: I prefer Disney characters in english, but Nomura's characters in Japanese. It should have this option.

And I find REALLY strange that english speakers thinks that is unacceptable to read subtitles. C'mon, how do you watch foreing movies? I know that the majority of the pop culture industry is in english, but there are great classics in both music and movies that are in other languages. Also, don't you play 16-bit games? Some of the greatest RPGs doesn't even have dub. You don't play it because you have to read?

OrangeNova said:

It really isn't, for the most part, people who play games in Japanese because it's the intended language don't understand the language... there are just as many garbage Japanese VAs as English, we just don't know better.

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Uh... if you don't know any better, than how can you discern whether a Japanese voice actor is bad or not? By the way, what you're saying is objectively false. The Japanese voice acting industry is just more developed. It's not a fact that can be contested -- it is simply true. It doesn't mean English voice actors are bad by any measure, but there are way less of them. In Japan, even the lesser known voice actors can be extremely competent (see Asobi Asobase). You can enjoy English dubs if you want, but please don't make disingenuous comments on the Japanese voice acting industry. Don't make it into a superiority contest. The industry is larger and more competitive in Japan, therefore leading to better quality of VAs overall. You can't deny that.

Fun fact. This whole sub vs dub flame war doesn't really exist in the Chinese community. I've never met anyone go ballistic and scream "elitist" when you tell them you prefer subs. While some people definitely prefer dubs for its convenience, they rarely get mad if you tell them subs are better. It's normal for people to want to experience another language or culture (you won't get called a westaboo). I do recall a few western "friends" that complained about us Chinese listening to things we don't understand (like K-Pop, J-Pop) many years ago. It really showed me how different we approach culture. A lot of us become bilingual or multi-lingual due to our interest in other cultures. You don't get shamed for it.

Abriael said:

It's just better quality voice acting 9 times out of 10.

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How the hell is an English speaker supposed to know this? I have no idea of the innotation of Japanese. People who say this are repeating what they're being told. There is no earthly way someone who doesn't understand this would come to this conclusion naturally.

this isn't the same for live action film where performances are sell the language but until video games/animation get there (they're not even close) this is always a silly comment

My ranking is as follows:

Is there an English dub? If yes, use that.

Is the English dub good? If no, go with Japanese dub,or whatever dub.

Is the Japanese dub ear grating? If the answer is yes, go on murderous rampage.

As long as it's dubbed in a language I can understand or doesn't suck, I'm not going to be using subtitles.

i speak japanese and for me, it's not so much that japanese voice acting is better, it's more that even if it's bad it probably at least suits the game better. the cognitive dissonance with a terribly acted whiny american accent in a JRPG is far greater for me than mediocre anime-type acting.

i hold english voice acting to a much higher standard in general, and i don't expect much out of japanese video game voice acting in either language, so i'll normally go with japanese simply because it's likely to feel appropriate for the form and won't be as annoying.

there are exceptions though, of course, like MGS etc.

I want the language that fits best with the environment/region. I prefer reading anyway, and the audio is just for immersion. For this reason, I really wish BotW had Hylian/fantasy language as an option. Maybe next time....

Personally I grew up with subbed media, so other than a few exceptions, media with voices that are not the original language just don't sound right to me.
For example, for me playing an anime styled game with english voices is like watching a Simpsons episode with voices in my native language (portuguese), it may be a language that I understand better than english but it still just doesn't sound right. ^^;

Anything where they say the name of the attack Japanese>>>>>>>>>>>> English
So fighters and anime games I prefer in Japanese, other than that I don't care really.

Another problem I sometimes notice with Japanese games is in-game dialogue not being subtitled. Examples are games like Xenoblade 1 and FF15 where you can't get subtitles for the combat dialogue. Some western games solved this by having subtiles appear over characters' heads.

It's beyond me how people can play subbed Japanese games.

Try playing Dynasty Warriors like this. The constant fighting and reading at the same time simply drives me mad.

Abriael said:

It's just better quality voice acting 9 times out of 10.

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Eh... Not really.

Will always do Japanese, with Japanese text if possible, unless the game was originally in English (like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, or Western developed games). Though I'll often do Latin American or Mexican Spanish commentary in Football/Soccer games when available. Though there are some exceptions, Metal Gear Solid being a great example, even if I played the first two in Japanese originally the English VA just fits so much better.

Arguments of quality aside, there is more variety among Japanese voice actors due to it being a much larger and more lucrative business vs. voice actors that are hired by smaller publishers to dub over things like JRPGs, where you will end up hearing the same handful of voices (or vocal styles) you get from English dubbed anime.

That's one of the weebiest thing I've heard lately.

I perfer English VA because I couldn't stand some of the Japanese girl voices, especially those with high pitch.

Simsamdeo said:

Fun fact. This whole sub vs dub flame war doesn't really exist in the Chinese community.

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China is kinda interesting, though, because so many Chinese movies (although it's Hong Kong-shot movies mostly) are shot in Cantonese but dubbed into Mandarin before release.

If the witcher 3 didn't have microscopic font, I would totally play it all in Polish.

Geralt in English is awful.

I don't see how it's a misconception unless the director had a hand in selecting other VA. It's fine to like remixes or covers of music as well and you can argue about which versions are best. You can't argue that the original musician didn't intend to have people hear a piece a certain way.

Senator Toadstool said:

How the hell is an English speaker supposed to know this? I have no idea of the innotation of Japanese. People who say this are repeating what they're being told. There is no earthly way someone who doesn't understand this would come to this conclusion naturally.

this isn't the same for live action film where performances are sell the language but until video games/animation get there (they're not even close) this is always a silly comment

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You don't need to understand the language. There are tons of games out there with gibberish speak that vary in quality, it's just another sound design choice. It's really not hard to hear differences in range and energy either.

Jangowuzhere said:

It's beyond me how people can play subbed Japanese games.

Try playing Dynasty Warriors like this. The constant fighting and reading at the same time simply drives me mad.

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It's a learned skill / habit. My wife and I watch everything with subtitles nowadays, even English shows.

RedSwirl said:

This brings up another question: Does anyone play any games with voices set to a language other than English and Japanese? I've just messed around with it a few times. I played Assassin's Creed Unity in French, and went through ACII once in Italian.

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Embarrassing confession: I've been using a combo of Assassin's Creed and Duolingo to freshen up on my languages :P The dub isn't always great, but having the option for subtitles helps me when I can't understand what's being spoken and it's very easy to double check an English source if I don't understand a scene.

Noctis said:

It's more the fact that JP voices fit the character more most of the time. For instance, Vegeta. Instead of his smoking growling eng va or Goku being super heroic eng va when he's just a dumb hick who likes to fight.

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So you think a high pitched woman's voice fits better for a seasoned warrior than an actual man?

PandaShake said:

They went from original gentle giant, to a muscle head english dub where none of the in game art matches.

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Japanese Effie didn't fit either. Her voice is way to gentle.

Zacmortar said:

Despite my love for dubs, my biggest problem is just how insulated the dubbing scene is. In anime especially, i swear theres only 5 voice actors that exist and they play in every single anime, or anime game. Yuri Lowenthal, Bryce Papenbrook, that one lady that voices literally every male child in anime, etc. Recently binged a few shows, all of which shared 3 VAs in the main cast.

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...what? Yuri hasn't even been voice acting Japanese media lately. You must not pay attention at all if you think that.

SPRidley said:

One guy even told me the voices in Final Wars were famous anime american voices.

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Who told you that? As far as I can research, there's no proof of that.

dubs just don't work for me. original version ftw.

texhnolyze said:

That's one of the weebiest thing I've heard lately.

I perfer English VA because I couldn't stand some of the Japanese girl voices, especially those with high pitch.

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You don't need to be "weeb" to think like that. Many people in other countries think the same for english dub instead of using the native language in western games.

Senator Toadstool said:

How the hell is an English speaker supposed to know this? I have no idea of the innotation of Japanese. People who say this are repeating what they're being told. There is no earthly way someone who doesn't understand this would come to this conclusion naturally.

this isn't the same for live action film where performances are sell the language but until video games/animation get there (they're not even close) this is always a silly comment

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You don't need to understand a language to be able to know if a person is doing a good job or not. It's not that difficult for any language.

Subaru said:

I'm Brazilian, so my first language is brazilian portuguese. I can understand a little bit of japanese, but no, I don't speak japanese.
So, I really prefer the japanese dub in 99% of japanese games. It feels more natural, specially when the characters or places have japanese names.
It is SO UGLY the way english speakers pronounces japanese words. While it's obviously different, brazilian portuguese sounds a little bit closer to japanese. Also, we have the biggest japanese community outside of japan, so we are used to japanese words and stuff. Even "sushi" in english is really strange for me.

The funny thing is: I don't play western games in brazilian portuguese. It is really strange for me, because I'm used to play videogames in english, so I prefer menus and subtitles in english.

JRPG and Fighting Games are unplayable in english (except FFXII and MAYBE FFXV), but I must admit that I prefer Cammy's voice in english.

Kingdom Hearts is strange: I prefer Disney characters in english, but Nomura's characters in Japanese. It should have this option.

And I find REALLY strange that english speakers thinks that is unacceptable to read subtitles. C'mon, how do you watch foreing movies? I know that the majority of the pop culture industry is in english, but there are great classics in both music and movies that are in other languages. Also, don't you play 16-bit games? Some of the greatest RPGs doesn't even have dub. You don't play it because you have to read?

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Hey, we're on the same page as brazilians, except that I don't play with english subs if I have the option since translating in the mind is just more work. I also dislike how japanese names and words are pronounced in english for most of the time because of how those words are pronounced in japanese which are more similar to portuguese like you said.

And yeah, this thing with subtitles with people having this distaste is something that I always found strange.

OrangeNova said:

It really isn't, for the most part, people who play games in Japanese because it's the intended language don't understand the language... there are just as many garbage Japanese VAs as English, we just don't know better.

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Ahhh this old bit of dub sympathizer propaganda. The ratio of Nolan Norths to "the janitor who just happened to be present to do voice work" Skews heavily toward the Nolan North end in Japan where most VO are treated better than actual movie stars for their work.

I can dig not wanting to read subtitles and concentrate on the action, sometimes I tolerate to shitty english VO to get on with the action, but to say its equivalent most of the time is flat out propoganda for the facist Dub community!

/opposition

While I agree the developers create the games intending that the player will understand the dialogue and such, all localizations are not equal.

I guarantee that the dialogue shown here does not give the same impression as it does in Japanese to players who understand Japanese:

https://youtu.be/IQkLe77Pvdk?t=1m38s

This would be one of those situations where Japanese voices (or no voices at all) would probably be preferable. Obviously, better written dialogue would be ideal, but bad writing is only amplified when you have voice actors performing it.

In the end, I just don't like voice acting in games, lol. JP voice acting is bad with all the high pitched screeching, and EN voice acting is bad with the pronunciation murder of all non-English words. Text is good for me.

Kyuur said:

It's a learned skill / habit. My wife and I watch everything with subtitles nowadays, even English shows.

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Watching something is completely different compared to actually playing.

If you can play something like Astrebleed and actually understand what's going on while legitimately playing the game, then props to you, but I doubt anyone could actually do that.

Senator Toadstool said:

How the hell is an English speaker supposed to know this? I have no idea of the innotation of Japanese. People who say this are repeating what they're being told. There is no earthly way someone who doesn't understand this would come to this conclusion naturally.

this isn't the same for live action film where performances are sell the language but until video games/animation get there (they're not even close) this is always a silly comment

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Those sorts of comments are very common actually, and yes, they make zero sense.

I can't tell what good Japanese voice acting is if it slapped me across the face. People pick Japanese voices to avoid bad English voice acting, because gibberish to us would be preferable then hearing bad pronunciation and such in our own language.

CopperPuppy said:

I'm currently playing P4G and am honestly pretty stunned at the quality of the English VA

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The VA in P4G is pretty good, except Chie.

louis89 said:

I'm fluent in Japanese and I play Japanese video games in English. I generally am not a fan of Japanese voice acting or indeed Japanese acting in general and avoid it if I can. They remind me of anime, which I don't watch and which for me is not a good thing. Exceptions include Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which I played in Japanese because I found the English voices rather awkward.

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Sometimes it's just about the game's look or writing.

I think FFXV French dub is really good and proof that this kind of effort should happen more, but the disconnect between having them talk in French and their distinctive Japanese anime/trope interactions was tad too much for me lol

It's still surprising to see so many English speaks still be against any kind of foreign language. I get wanting to listen to media in your own language, but seeing the same tired insults towards Japanese VA's is still awful. Calling their work garbage and taking all their dialogue as nonsense screeching is such an old insult to fall back on is silly at this point.

It kinda makes sense too, Japanese games are basically anime. I watch anime with subtitle so it's natural if I choose Japanese VA in Japanese games.

CopperPuppy said:

I'm currently playing P4G and am honestly pretty stunned at the quality of the English VA

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It's significantly better than the JP track. Kugimiya and Yamaguchi's performances just brought the whole thing down so much, and it's not like the other seiyuu did anything mindblowing. Really archetypical stuff from most of the cast.

HardRojo said:

I'd assume Hideo expected you to play the first MGS with English audio and focused a lot on it being great, but I have no evidence to back this up since it simply is what I assume.

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Yeah, but he also ask for the translation to be 1:1 with what he wrote in Japanese so sounds so fucking weird in English.

Which is why MGS1 remains the best translated of his works because the translator was smart enough to change things around without it losing its original meaning.

Jubern said:

Oh yeah.
Another big culprit is Shenmue where, according to Blaustein (again), Suzuki was adamant about EN voice recording taking place in Japan so he could oversee it - and we know how that went.

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Ha! Yes, this. Suzuki stood by those English voices, and preferred them to the JP cast. 'Shenmue the movie' was only ever made in English, even in Japan.

Jangowuzhere said:

Watching something is completely different compared to actually playing.

If you can play something like Astrebleed and actually understand what's going on while legitimately playing the game, then props to you, but I doubt anyone could actually do that.



Those sorts of comments are very common actually, and yes, they make zero sense.

I can't tell what good Japanese voice acting is if it slapped me across the face. People pick Japanese voices to avoid bad English voice acting, because gibberish to us would be preferable then hearing bad pronunciation and such in our own language.

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The one comment here that makes zero sense is yours. It's pretty easy to do that without knowing the language.

And also there's more than english dub, it's not like all of us have english as the main language. So it's not because it's to avoid bad english VA.

Git said:

For me generally it depends where the game is set. E.g. Persona games need to be in Japanese because they have a Japanese setting. Monster Hunter World I play in the MH language. I'll always watch films/TV shows in their original language for that reason too.

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Same here, really. Even though I understand Japanese sometimes I choose the language more fitting to the setting, for instance French for AC Unity. For Nier Automata I loved the Japanese voice 2B was just fantastic, as the VA did MIkasa from Attack of the Titan series.

inner-G said:

If you know Japanese, it's worse a lot of times.

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For me it really isn't. Yes, it can be a little bit hammed in, but there's some seriously amazing voice actors and actresses in Japan that singlehandedly make characters better with their voice. Asami Imai for instance.

I've watch enough anime back in the day that anything in Japanese with subs doesn't really bother me. I think there's something comforting about listening to audio from Japanese games, movies, or TV shows in the original language. I can't understand it without subtitles, but at the same time, by listening to the language, I feel like I'm immersing myself a bit into the culture. And I just find that really cool.

That being said, for most games I tend to stick to whatever language the audio defaults to (which in most cases is English). There are certain series like Persona where I love the English voice cast (played Persona 3, 4, and 5) and can't really imagine playing them in another language (though I'm sure the Japanese voice cast is solid). I will typically play most games in the default language, and unless I find the voice acting poor, I typically stick with it to the end of the game.

important story exposition via dialogue during intense fighting has always been shit, unless you set the game on easy/god mode and stand still to soak up all damage you will always miss most of what has been said. it's poor game design, doesn't matter if you listen or read.

Abriael said:

I understand and speak Japanese. Quite a lot more than a bit.

But it's funny how many times I had to repeat it in this thread to people that just (wrongly) assume "if you think Japanese voice acting on Japanese games is generally better, then you must not understand Japanese."

PS: No voice acting, in any language, sounds like real people. That's why voice actors are *actors* and not common real people picked from the street.

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People don't actually read through threads. They just reply to what they see on the latest page they click. I'm wondering when this idea of "you don't know better because you don't understand it" became so popular. Probably because all the old mods of GAF used to say it all the time.

I understand Japanese - and thus I play with Japanese voices when it's the original voice.

Not because it's necessarily better.

But because then I'm able to see 2 different versions of the scene in the same gameplay session. ( how it's voiced/vocalised in Japanese and how it's localised in English )

Zacmortar said:

She is literally a robot. That is completely intentional, and if the Japanese voices dont sound stiff and uptight, than it's objectively worse for a character like 2B.

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That's not what I mean... While they give her a stoic robotic tone in both languages, they still emphasise how human these androids are during big struggles by making them yell and express themselves a lot. The way the actors, who are all very common actors, perform in the English dub, sounds EXACTLY the same way as in most other games that use them and that uses similarly budget voice dubbing.

The underlying issue that explains all my trouble is http://www.mobygames.com/company/cup-of-tea-productions-inc Cup of Tea Productions. This is a very small recording studio that game companies very often use for dubbing over japanese audio titles and they usually employ talent like Wendee Lee, Yuri Lowenthal or Sam Riegel as their voice directors for these dubs. It's the way they do things, both with the recording equipment and the way those actors decide to handle the lines that bothers me. They ham up the acting too much to the point where it doesn't sound genuine to me.

A sincere "Huh?" Or "N-nani--!?" becomes "HuhhUuuuuUuu!!?" In english in these types of dubs. The actors are phoning it in. They don't get into the characters, instead they do their fallback schtick that they do when they aren't completely informed or into what the characters they should portray really feel, so there's no context behind the way they say "HuuuUuH". This is on the audio directors. They over emphasize emotion and on top of that they use the equipment they have at Cup of Tea which is a relatively cheap sort that outputs recordings that sound like it was meant for a podcast.

There's a world of difference between the type of voice acting of english Nier Automata dub and say, a Naughty Dog title's voice performance and sound recording. The japanese version isn't as much of a step below that.

Just posting to say that OP stole my avatar.

I don't mind either way, but the way people people freak out/defend one vs the other is so silly and embarassing.
I only go out of my way to play undubbed versions of game is it the game has Yuri Lowenthal. Hate his voice so much, it's the same voice over and over again

Too bad subtitles don't exist.

For me it depends on developer intention if developed the game English in mind or Japanese

Nemesis162 said:

The one comment here that makes zero sense is yours. It's pretty easy to do that without knowing the language.

And also there's more than english dub, it's not like all of us have english as the main language. So it's not because it's to avoid bad english VA.

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It really isn't. You won't notice flaws in pronunciation, sentence structure, and so on if you don't know the language. It's easier to digest as a result, because it's basically just vocalized gibberish.

And the later half of your post is simply stating the obvious. I only reference English because that's what I speak.

Noctis said:

It's more the fact that JP voices fit the character more most of the time. For instance, Vegeta. Instead of his smoking growling eng va or Goku being super heroic eng va when he's just a dumb hick who likes to fight.

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I love when people use the supposedly "heroic" Goku English voice as a knock against the dub, despite the fact that it hasn't been relevant in what 5 years?

This also assumes you think the 50 year old man sounding like an old lady is appropriate.(respect to Nozawa for showing such dedication to the roll but I just can not stand that voice.)