Pointy Cat wrote:More often than not English voice acting in games and anime originally from Japan turns out to be awful.
But the Japanese voice acting is excellent, right?
Yes. Most of the time the anime in Japan is produced by professional, experienced production house with voice actors who have been appropriately chosen for their roles from a large talent pool that has developed as an industry over a number of years.
American conversion of anime on the other hand suffers from a bunch of inexperienced production houses who seem to be focusing on what they think will be mass appeal to the detriment of the medium as a whole. The talent pool is still incredibly small which is why you see talentless anime nerds like Matt Greenfield acting in american anime. This wouldn't be so bad but they also make completely retarded choices for key roles (i.e. Dave Wittenberg for Takumi in Initial D).
The only anime I've seen that has maintained even a shred of integrity when it has come to casting faithful sounding actors who even slightly match the personality has been Naruto and that's fucking sad since the anime is such garbage.
Pointy Cat wrote:More often than not English voice acting in games and anime originally from Japan turns out to be awful.
But the Japanese voice acting is excellent, right?
Compared to what? A dub? Then yes, since original voice acting, for anything and in any language, is usually superior.
All games are "dubbed" (apart from those 1990s games with FMV cutscenes). I don't speak Japanese so for all I know the original dubbing in Blue Dragon could be excellent or shit. The only reason for the English dub to be inferior is if MS don't put the resources into it that they should. This isn't a movie where the guys you see on screen are the ones speaking, or an anime constrained by hand drawn animations.
Pointy Cat wrote:More often than not English voice acting in games and anime originally from Japan turns out to be awful.
But the Japanese voice acting is excellent, right?
Yes. Most of the time the anime in Japan is produced by professional, experienced production house with voice actors who have been appropriately chosen for their roles from a large talent pool that has developed as an industry over a number of years.
I don't doubt that it is, but all of this talent won't make any difference to someone who doesn't speak Japanese. Good Japanese voice acting sounds exactly the same as bad Japanese voice acting to me.
The only thing missing is a good translation and good voice talent. Being in Japanese removes the need for "good english voice talent" but has no impact on the requirements for the capabilities of the japanese voice actors.
Being in japanese with english subtitles only means that they need a good translation for the dialogue. In practice, reverting to subs is only worth it if you care about "aneem authenticity". Otherwise a proper, localised voiceover is preferable.
But a proper localised one would mean that the cutscenes have to be rescripted, else no lipsync for you (which I doubt they'd invest in). I'd prefer to have synchronised voices in another language w/ subtitles than cutscenes that look "dubbed".
The only thing missing is a good translation and good voice talent. Being in Japanese removes the need for "good english voice talent" but has no impact on the requirements for the capabilities of the japanese voice actors.
Being in japanese with english subtitles only means that they need a good translation for the dialogue. In practice, reverting to subs is only worth it if you care about "aneem authenticity". Otherwise a proper, localised voiceover is preferable.
How is that a reply to what you quoted?
And yes, sure, it's one of the advantages of something staying in the original language is that it's one less thing for whoever does the localisation to fuck up. I assume you don't watch much anime, as so often it's fucked up there. But at least with anime there's usually (with DVD, and always with the interwebs) a choice for whatever your preference is.
It's all about choice is actually a salient point here, and I'd say it would be the smart move. But sticking with subtitles (in a game as opposed to a film) for the sake of "authenticity" is a bit silly if they have the budget for a good localisation.
As for lip-synching, they need first the technology to do good lip synching in any game before they get picky about multiple languages.
As for the relevance to anime itself - it's probably a fair call to ask for a sub over a dubbing. But it's not really as important an issue in gaming UNLESS it means a way to get games over here we wouldn't have otherwise seen. However many companies that arguement applies to have had an aversion to text translations for years, so even then it's of no real benefit.
Madmen are thinking of starting a channel on pay tv. I hope they show all their anime with subtitles. Or get two channels, like a digital thing do one MadmenS and one MadmenD.
Apparently there's some new Lip-synching system Bungie are using in Halo 3. I remember reading briefly about it in one of the weekly updates. I sure hope they have more varied ship officer models this time around.
Shaneus wrote:But a proper localised one would mean that the cutscenes have to be rescripted, else no lipsync for you (which I doubt they'd invest in). I'd prefer to have synchronised voices in another language w/ subtitles than cutscenes that look "dubbed".
When I'm reading shitloads of text on the screen because the developers were too fucking lazy to find some decent speakers of the incredibly obscure language that is English, I don't have time to notice the character moving his lips. Or doing much of anything.
Currently playing: Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition (PC), Far Cry 4 (PC), FIFA 23 (Series X)
I'd rather get subtitles that accurately convey the content and context of the storyline, than dubbing that aims for lip-synching and matching length over accuracy and meaning. See also: Speed Racer.
Thing is too, lip synching and voice acting adds to development time and the more technical and lengthy the games get, the longer it would take to localise. Then we'd have whingers complaining a game is taking too long to come out.
selfish wrote:Being a massive fanboy and trying to hide it is Lestat's worst bottleneck.
Oh god, Tails' voice annoyed the crap out of me.... Does anybody remember Taz from PN/ODWF back then? I don't know why, but I always felt that's how he'd sound if I ever spoke to him...
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