Darknet's blog

At the Tokyo Game Show this year, FFXIII was the talk of the show (as if you had any doubts). With it, a new trailer was released that featured the original Japanese voices. Soon after, the same trailer was released that also featured the English voices. I've read comments from articles, stuff on Neoseeker, and youtube comments. While there are a fair sum of people who like the English voices for the game, the majority was still made up of purist assholes who make comments like "I wanted to kill myself after hearing the English voices, please put the Japanese tracks on the game" or "[insert name] sounds like a fag". This is a blog entry devoted to YOU people who have ripped on video games and anime English dubs! The people who are so stuck up that you won't even give the English voices a try after seeing a 7 minute trailer. Not the people who prefer it, mind you. If you prefer the Japanese, then I'm okay with a personal preference. No, this is to the ignorant *bleep*s whose nose's are so high that they deserve to get throat punched.

First off, lets discuss why listening to the English for ENGLISH SPEAKING PEOPLE is better than the Japanese voices. The most important part is this: YOU DON'T KNOW *bleep*ING JAPANESE! The only way to understand them is to read the subtitles, which hurts the game or anime. I want to watch the cutscene and see their faces and interactions, rather than look down and read text. It hurts the game or anime by doing this. People may think "Darknet, you don't know shit about what you're saying because you don't have any experience". No, I have plenty of experience. Why I may not be the most diehard anime fan, I've watched plenty of subbed animes and this is always something I noticed.

Secondly, the way the English talk and their voices are more suited towards the English media. Look at Japanese voices: you got the low booming man, the small timid woman who sounds like a *bleep*ing chipmunk, the voices of people who you can't decide is a man or a woman, and then the heroic normal people who sound not too high and not too low. That is the Japanese voice overs in a nut shell. I swear I've heard the same voice actor in almost every Japanese dubbed anime or game I've seen. Granted people may have the same voice actors for different shows (like the English). I also do not have facts to back this up because no specific examples come to mind. Just try this: when you hear a Japanese voice that sounds like another character in another game, look up the voice actor and see if it's the same person. There exists a good chance that they aren't the same person.

Japanese voices also pretty much have the same accent. Yes there will be expections to this but there is an exception to everything in life. That doesn't make the statement false. English voices feature different tones, different accents, different styles of speaking, and all around diversity. Maybe that is why purists hate the English voices so much: less diversity means less of a chance to sound shitty. True but it will never do any better than the standard. I'd rather have that risk of it being bad because the reward of great voice acting is worth it.

Lets take a different direction and discuss something you need to understand for English voice actors: it is really *bleep*ing hard to voice for a Japanese product! Here is something that a voice actor, Japanese or English, need to do general. Sometimes they need to do a voice in a certain time with the right timing to match the mouth. In some instances, a voice actor has to do a voice of someone without knowledge of the scene or what their character is like, resulting in creating the character themselves. Other instances the voice actors will do a conversation between two characters and they won't even hear each other! How can you have a conversation when you don't even listen to the other person? All of these examples can depend on the studio but some of these factors can bear a burden on the VA.

Now combine that with the difficulties that come from doing a Japanese game. The Japanese language is radically different from the English language, making things that are said take a lot longer or shorter to say in Japanese compared to English. These actors may need to say their lines faster or stretch it out to make it fit. Why do you think in animes there may be a stupid pause in their line? Next fact is trying to align with the mouth of the Japanese original or "lip-syncing". This can be counteracted by editing the animation of the mouth, something I could tell the developers of FFXIII are working on in the English trailer. However, sometimes video game developers or anime companies don't have the time or resources to do this. Thus in order to sync with the mouth, they have to make awkward pauses or insert silly sounds of some kind to fill the gaps. Another fact is this: the Japanese have a tendency to be a bit cheesy when it comes to dialogue. This can be highly opinionated and can depend on the person but when I compare it to the style of dialogue writing for the English, it's extremely cheesy. I can see it being hard for me to say a line a cheesy line and take it seriously. Lets face it, some lines sound a lot better when you read them in subtitles compared to hearing them in English.

In conclusion, if there is one thing I hope you ignorant Japanese fanboys learn, it's this: understand how hard it is for English voice actors. While it would be nice to see what I see when I compare a sub to a dub, my last points I want to affect you the most. And that's all I got to say about that.