| DevilRy
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Being the most important can't be seen in the eyes |
I'd pretty much stress that the dubbing is not bad myself. I think we're also talking about someone who would find any dub to be unacceptable, though lol.
Pretty much. You didn't watch Pan's Labyrinth dubbed, did you?
I always am amused by how those that desire these things feel that the want for a subbed version somehow surpasses the desire for a dubbed one. Where were they during the dubbed vs. subbed VHS anime situation before all of that stuff exploded? Even when that was niche, subs weren't exactly a majority preference.
Paying effin' 30$ god damned dollars for subbed VHS is what. Viz especially used to charge upwards of 10$ more than the dubbed versions of the same anime. Let's be honest here. Cartoons are a children's medium in North America. Action cartoons from Japan especially are marketed to children. The education system in this country being woefully behind as it is, its not surprising that any chance to dumb down easily marketed crap will be taken. Dubbing dumbs down content. It will never be a majority preference because the majority is a bunch of A.D.D.'d out Ritalin-children who can barely read.
Do they really think a company such as Atlus is going to do a secondary "special" print run so that a couple hundred people (if that) can have a Japanese language version? There's a very large discrepancy between those who will just download something and those who will pay $50+ for something. To some of these people offering only the Japanese track is the way to go, but we're not in Japan (regardless of the game's locale) and it seems as though Sony has some rules about that stuff.
No, ATLUS would never do it. I don't really expect much from the NA branch. The fact that they release the games at all in America seems kind of surprising to me since I almost never see them at any game store and I can't imagine them doing very well in the American market. They are just too distinctly Japanese, not to mention a niche game type even in Japan.
However, I would like to say this. Capcom released Onimusha with both English and Japanese audio tracks, you could even set it so the subtitles would be in Japanese. I fail to see why this is so difficult for NA releases, or why developers just refuse to do it in the first place. Maybe I'd have more say if I joined the Atlus boards, but I like to swear too much, not to mention my fringe opinions and lifestyle, plus you have to sign up for some ridiculous BBS system to actually post there, so not for me.
That said it's a pretty cool offering. Personally, however, given that I don't understand Japanese it's pretty hard for me to sit and listen to this and really be like "well they're definitely better voice actors!". If you understand it, why not just buy the Japanese version and read it "the way it was meant to be!" read too? Although that's obviously far less feasible.
To me its not about feasibility, it's more whether or not you respect artistic integrity. It's also not about what country is better at acting with their voices, that is a non-issue, because Japanese VAs are just as hackneyed as their Canadian counterparts. It's about whether or not you want to hear experience something as it was originally intended. To me it also seems pretty disrespectful to the culture as well. 'Let's take your art/game/movie and edit it to suit our arbitrary tastes and lack of education!'
Hopefully this will just become a non-existent issue as we move to larger storage mediums. If this still happened on PS3 with Blu-ray or some other system in the future, I think there will be a lot more room for complaint.
I'd say it's not a complaint as much as it is criticism. Though I think storage capacities currently on DVD-ROMs are sufficient for subtitles tracks.
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Logged DevilRy has 435 Posts (+23/-0 Karma) |
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I don't see dubbing as "dumbing it down" I just see it as putting it in my native language so I can understand what the hell is going on. Of course I've had Otaku attack me saying "You lazy just learn Japanese!" . Right guys. No problem. (sarcasm)
I do understand dubbing woes though. They tend to use the same voice actors again and again. Also some of my favorite anime series got dubbed and sounded like crap afterwards.
I just think Persona 3 doesn't have any glaring problems in the translation. It still is obviously a game with a setting in modern Japan with Japanese culture. It's not as if Atlus re-did all the characters and put them in an "America school setting" just to make North America happy. I don't think Persona 3 lost any "cultural integrity" just because of the dubbing.
What do people get out of hearing a language rambled off they do not understand? Do they think it makes them more worldly or hip? Just curious.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2007, 02:15:21 PM by nightsavior »
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Logged nightsavior has 156 Posts (+10/-0 Karma) |
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I don't know. I can handle any dub, however bad it may be. I just hate having to read words on the bottom of the screen. It distracts me WAY too much. With DDS, even when it was translated and voiced with good actors, the subtitles still distracted me. I couldn't help my eyes, they just wandered down to the words:P. I try to catch myself on this, cause I focus way too much on the subtitles.
So, however bad a dub is, I still watch it with english voice over. If the creators truly cared that the viewers should "watch it in its original form" they wouldn't let it get dubbed in the first place. Not like dubbing is going to cease anyway, so who the hell cares. Why whine about it.
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Logged Neao has 177 Posts (+13/-0 Karma) |
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| DevilRy
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Being the most important can't be seen in the eyes |
God bless America... :beaten:
Look, if it takes you more than a split second to read subtitles then the education system has failed you.
Oh, and "putting it in my native language so I can understand what the hell is going on," is definitely dumbing it down.
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Logged DevilRy has 435 Posts (+23/-0 Karma) |
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How did preferring things in my language become "God bless America and no place else!". Japanese prefer things in Japanese. Germans rather read German. Hispanics are more comfortable speaking their native language. So because I prefer my games to be in the language I understand I'm a bigot but everyone else gets to slide? Ok, that makes rational sense. I hate it when people put "America" in their biased replies as a scapegoat. Makes me feel like I'm on trial for shit I had nothing to do with. For example I did not force Atlus to not include sub-titles nor do I eat babies and love everything about the war on terrorism. To judge any person just by their nationality is short sighted and foolish.
I'd say subtitles may have been a good choice but frankly I hate squinting at the screen. If the voice actors in the dubbed version were as bad as say those in the first Resident Evil game I'd understand the bitch fest. As it stands it was a near flawless translation.
Sorry I'm an uneducated bigoted hick. I promise the next time you encounter me I'll speak all languages fluently and be a social debutante.
« Last Edit: August 23, 2007, 10:58:59 AM by nightsavior »
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Logged nightsavior has 156 Posts (+10/-0 Karma) |
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God bless America... :beaten:
Look, if it takes you more than a split second to read subtitles then the education system has failed you.
What the hell? I said I get distracted by the subtitles. Not that it takes me a while to read them. Even if I read them already, I continue reading it. That's why I said I try to catch myself on that, it annoys the hell out of me. It's like a habit I developed somehow, even though I don't watch with subtitles a lot.
Your inability to understand what I said makes your response ironic.
« Last Edit: August 23, 2007, 01:21:16 PM by Neao »
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Logged Neao has 177 Posts (+13/-0 Karma) |
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That and what does preferring a game dubbed have to do with America? If I was French I rather have a copy of Persona in French. it has nothing to do with thinking "my language" is great. It's just what I grew up with. It's harder to enjoy something when there is a bit of a communication barrier and since I have bad eyes that need a new prescription for contacts subtitles make it hard on me. The game is sorta text heavy as it is without the inclusion of sub-titles.
Persona 3 is very culture heavy even without people speaking in Japanese. These are kids that go to events like the festival of masks, attend school 6 days out of the week, and eat sushi instead of pizza. It's not like Atlus changed any cultural aesthetics just to make north America happy.
For people that want to truly get to learn another language they should take private lessons instead of relying on video-games. While rpgs can be educational their main purpose is to be fun.
« Last Edit: August 23, 2007, 05:20:46 PM by nightsavior »
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Logged nightsavior has 156 Posts (+10/-0 Karma) |
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I don't know. He wasn't making much sense. He just made himself look more idiotic because he responded to something with conviction he read wrong in the first place. I'm going to listen to anything dubbed anyway. So why the hell should I care? Unless dubbing is going to stop, which it never will.
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Logged Neao has 177 Posts (+13/-0 Karma) |
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| DevilRy
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Being the most important can't be seen in the eyes |
Your inability to understand what I said makes your response ironic.
Dude... You just completely proved my point. Even if I didn't understand your original post, it wouldn't have been ironic. You may want to look that one up in the dictionary.
In any case, far be it from me to distract you guys from your love for mediocre crap. You all assume that I'm demanding something from you or something. I don't care if you're too blind to read subtitles or have attention deficit issues and text distracts you. They sound like excuses to me. It just seems to me that it isn't ridiculous to demand from North American distributors that they don't dub everything, or at least present the option of hearing the original audio track.
And I'm sorry for insinuating that you may be dumb for preferring to watch things dubbed. Sometimes I get a little bitchy and preachy but seriously, it just seems like a no-brainer to me.
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Logged DevilRy has 435 Posts (+23/-0 Karma) |
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Actually it would have been. You said I was uneducated, yet you couldn't comprehend what I was saying in a post. Thus, you were showing your lack of education. Why do you think you're so much better than us because you like subs over dubs? I never said "Only give dubs, let the art be destroyed by translators!"
« Last Edit: August 24, 2007, 07:49:00 PM by Neao »
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Logged Neao has 177 Posts (+13/-0 Karma) |
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Subs and dubs? I don't see how preferring one over another makes someone lazy or uneducated. In general anyone that enjoys rpgs has a pretty high intelligence. Wanting to learn other languages is something that appeals to some but not to others. It has nothing to do with thinking one's country is better then another. I don't know why this turned into a thread of national bias and random slamming. Nowhere did Neao,Tony,or I say "America fuck yeah!" We just commented that the "dubbed" version of Persona 3 was exceptionally well done. Is that some type of fascism?
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Logged nightsavior has 156 Posts (+10/-0 Karma) |
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Well, personally, none of my point had to do with intelligence or anything else . I watch foreign films on a regular basis, it's not really a difficult thing.
Yet, you have to admit that the average person has far more of an emotional connection with their own language for a variety of reasons. I don't know Japanese, so what I get out of that specially in a video game (as opposed to a film with full facial reactions and body language) in that language is simply not as strong as what I will get out of it in English. Even here, direct comparison of a 2 hour movie to a 80 hour game is pretty difficult... particularly combined with a novel's worth of text. It just forms more of a "comfort zone".
For me, most of this comes down to company choices and simply that if the choice has to be made the average company is going to realize that the average person is most comfortable with their own language. This is true of any country. Japanese games have English or French characters speaking Japanese, they translate English games into their own languages. Certainly there are exceptions on both sides. In Japan's examples should one say "God Bless Japan!"?
As small as Atlus is, every one knows they want to sell as many copies as possible. It seems clear that 1.) Sony expects English language in their games and 2.) something prevented Atlus from putting both in here. They've done both before, Disgaea is an example of that.
Assuming they cannot do both, a US company publishing a game in the US is simply going to go with an English only dub as opposed to a Japanese only dub. I certainly would prefer to have the choice, but a company is never going to go with Japanese only in any country other than Japan if they want to try to appeal to the mass market. And considering they did an exceptional job with it, the implication by the creator of this patch that anything else simply "sucks" by default is, in my opinion, at least as short sighted and oblivious as someone wanting only extreme English localizations (I've read reviews wishing even the names were Americanized, which I'm not supportive of).
Doesn't mean I just want English or I just want Japanese. It doesn't mean I expect companies to appeal to my non-existent "ENGLISH RULES FUCKING FOREIGNERS!" mindset either and do nothing else. It just means from a business perspective I certainly understand the reasonings for going with the former here if they're not going to (or able to do) do both of them. Both is definitely the best way to go, I would say.
Beyond that though, people can prefer what they want to and I do think this was a cool thing to do. I just don't think the "dubs always suck!" mindset is necessarily smart, but neither is the "subs always suck!" mindset either lol.
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Logged Tony has 485 Posts (+10/-0 Karma) |
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Also dubbed or not Japan got Fes and we didn't. I know it wasn't entirely intentional but still when you are a "westerner fan" aching for the additional content you feel like you got the shaft and the Japanese are giggling while ranting "Japan fuck yeah! We get additional content and the western countries can kiss our asses now!" I'm not ungrateful mind you. We were lucky to get P3 in the first place considering all the controversial red tape it had to surpass when information on it first leaked out.
Tony is right about the language thing. When I hear characters with good voice talent behind them speaking in my dialect I feel like I'm more drawn into the story despite the obvious cultural differences portrayed in the game. If it was all spoken in Japanese I'd have to squint to read sub titles and add that text atop the already huge amounts of text throughout the story. Due to having to concentrate extra hard the game would not be nearly as enjoyable to me. Besides like I said the game is obviously "Japan related" to the max regardless of what language is spoken so I do not see how the P3 dub makes it less "as it was meant to be experienced!"
Be grateful they didn't completely revamp some of the characters and change a lot of cultural symbolism like they did in Persona Revelations.
« Last Edit: August 27, 2007, 03:22:35 AM by nightsavior »
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Logged nightsavior has 156 Posts (+10/-0 Karma) |
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It's funny how years ago in Persona Revelations, ATLUS, even changed some character's skin tone to black just so it would look Americanized, while today Persona 3 even got honorings such as Senpai, San, Kun, etc.
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Logged ShinByakki has 110 Posts (+10/-0 Karma) |
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I don't think people had a problem with Mark being black. I think the problem was Atlus over-did the "stereo-types" associated with black people to the point Mark came off as a blatant racial slur . I heard his Japanese counter-part in the unchanged version of Revelations was less annoying.
Regardless it was smart of Atlus not to change any cultural atmosphere in P3. It would have been lame if the characters ate pizza instead of sushi,went to school only 5 days a week, and attended church while spouting the national anthem. I get the feeling a Persona game set in the heartland of America would suck unless it was in a liberal city like New York or somewhere in California.
If Persona 3 had an awful dub I'd be the first to rant but it didn't and the characters despite speaking in English still acted like teenagers from Japan. Nothing was lost in the translation save for the additional material we didn't get that is in Persona Fes. (short for Festival.)
« Last Edit: August 27, 2007, 01:19:42 PM by nightsavior »
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Logged nightsavior has 156 Posts (+10/-0 Karma) |
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