So... Merlwyb will be voiced

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Originally Posted by Vilhem

Also, I'm a horrible person because everytime you post I spend a good few minutes staring at your sig's cat boobs. T.T

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Enjoy them while you can, gender-swap retcon is down the pike.

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Originally Posted by Obsy

Enjoy them while you can, gender-swap retcon is down the pike.

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Nooooooooooooooo T_T Dun switch to a boy cat!! We're already gonna have a mass infestation of them come release ><

When it comes to video games, I will always prefer to hear the dialogue in my native language. It makes me feel more immersed in the game to instantly hear and understand what's being said. If I have to read subtitles, it's an added barrier between me and the game world.

For example, the 1.0 Gridania opening with Yda and Papalymo had me in stitches! I don't think I would have found it nearly as humorous if it had been in another language. I still laugh and say every so often, "Oh, Rhalgar take you and your great beyond."

Besides, I can't say that Japanese is always done better. A friend of mine who is obsessed with anime tried to convince me the Japanese version of FFXIII had better voice acting by showing me the scene where Snow proposes to Serah. In what should have been a very intimate moment, he was screaming at her! It was very bizarre. I think your native language will have a better chance of taking cultural differences into account. So, I'll take English, thanks.

Only exception is anime that is dubbed very badly. I can only stand to watch Sailor Moon in Japanese with English subtitles. The English dub is terribly voiced and the plot is all mangled.

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Originally Posted by Vilhem

I don't mind the choices, and to each his own of course, but those that hold Japanese to some high pedestal really need to examine just why they have a weeabo fascination with it.

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Or maybe some (that have actually worked in the voice acting industry) know how to distinguish good voice acting from mediocre voice acting, and recognize that Japan simply has a much more solid tradition for voice overs that the US and Britain do, resulting in much higher quality overall.

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Why not praise the upcoming French or German voice overs? What's that? You don't speak those languages, so you don't care? Alright, I can accept the indifference.

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Having worked with voice acting in French and German as well (as several of the DVD productions I worked on were tri-lingual for the continental European market), there isn't much praise to be done towards the voice acting efforts normally done in those countries. They have a very strong subtitling tradition, that in turn prevented them from developing an equally strong voice acting school.

Maybe you should just realize that there are *objective* reasons why Japanese (or Italian for instance) voice overs are in general superior to American, British, German or French ones.

When it comes to art (and voice acting is an art) tradition plays a big role, and Japan has a much more solid tradition than the other countries mentioned. Conversely, they have a weaker tradition in live movie/TV acting than the US (for instance) and for the same reasons it shows.

On top of that there's an enormous difference in average budgets and in timings for voice acting (the time allocated to try each line is very important to final quality, and it's directly related to budget), as its given culturally a different importance, contributing to a large difference in technical quality.

There's also another important factor related to video games. In Japan voice acting video games (and anime) isn't seen as a secondary or less important job as it is in the west. When you check the cast of the average game in Japan you'll find a lot of star-level actors in it, because doing voice over for games (or anime) is considered a top-tier job that star-level actors don't shun.

In the west most star-level actors consider working on games beneath their level, so they won't do it, or will require a steep budget increase, which is why in 99.99% of cases when a Japanese game comes to the west star-level actors with a massive experience that acted in the original are replaced with mediocre actors or inexperienced ones at the beginning of their career, resulting in an evident decrease in quality.

Before you go ahead and call it "weaboo!", you may as well realize that you're being much more irrational than the average "weaboo".

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For the record, I thought the 1.0 voice acting was done very well. The only two problems I had were the faux-Brit accents (Crispin Freeman/Thancred, looking at you >_>) and the forced cracky lalafell voices of Papalymo and the miner twins. Mind you, the acting itself was great, just not the cracky falsetto-like tone XD

Apologies if this is all over the place, typing from phone. x.x

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The English voice acting of 1.0 was rather sloppy, with intentions and accents all over the place. Most probably it was rushed.

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Originally Posted by Rowyne

When it comes to video games, I will always prefer to hear the dialogue in my native language. It makes me feel more immersed in the game to instantly hear and understand what's being said. If I have to read subtitles, it's an added barrier between me and the game world.

For example, the 1.0 Gridania opening with Yda and Papalymo had me in stitches! I don't think I would have found it nearly as humorous if it had been in another language. I still laugh and say every so often, "Oh, Rhalgar take you and your great beyond."

Besides, I can't say that Japanese is always done better. A friend of mine who is obsessed with anime tried to convince me the Japanese version of FFXIII had better voice acting by showing me the scene where Snow proposes to Serah. In what should have been a very intimate moment, he was screaming at her! It was very bizarre. I think your native language will have a better chance of taking cultural differences into account. So, I'll take English, thanks.

Only exception is anime that is dubbed very badly. I can only stand to watch Sailor Moon in Japanese with English subtitles. The English dub is terribly voiced and the plot is all mangled.

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I agree! Yda and Papalymo were the best! I kinda say "Rhalgr take you and your great beyond" to Keith when he acts up xD

As for Sailor Moon..I think everyone can agree unanimously that it was destroyed. But this is something that makes it interesting: the ACTUAL voice acting was great. The characters weren't flat, or monotone. Their intonations and whatnot were excellent. (am referring to the first two seasons only btw: the shit that was the third and fourth season I tend to pretend they don't exist in English >_>)

The dialogue (cheesy valley girl 90s talk) and cuts/scripts, altered storylines are what destroyed the show in the English language adaptation, not shoddy voice acting.

Still, I find Sailor Moon memorable for one reason: The characters. Even though a lot of the dialogue was altered, the ESSENCE of the characters was still there. Serena/Usagi was still a clutz, Ami was a nerd, Rei was a bitch, Lita/Mako was a strong tomboy, Mina was a ditz. In Sailor Moon's case, I watch it in Spanish, since that is the language I saw it in when I was growing up. The Japanese version does nothing for me (and I get headaches hearing Usagi shriek and cry so much with her high pitched voice X.x)

And I agree with you on FF XIII! The only problem I had with XIII's dub was Vanille's accent...or lack thereof in some scenes. It's like the VA couldn't decide whether or not to use her accent for that day's session haha.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

Having worked with voice acting in French and German as well (as several of the DVD productions I worked on were tri-lingual for the continental European market), there isn't much praise to be done towards the voice acting efforts normally done in those countries. They have a very strong subtitling tradition, that in turn prevented them from developing an equally strong voice acting school.

Maybe you should just realize that there are *objective* reasons why Japanese (or Italian for instance) voice overs are in general superior to American, British, German or French ones.

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While I'm generally on ur side, this argument is kina invalid. When I've been in Germany I remember every movie being dubbed. Same goes with France as far as I know. So I'm pretty sure they've got some strong dubbing culture as well ;o

This is who Merlwyb reminds me of.
http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV...0,214,314_.jpg

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Originally Posted by Pancakes

While I'm generally on ur side, this argument is kina invalid. When I've been in Germany I remember every movie being dubbed. Same goes with France as far as I know. So I'm pretty sure they've got some strong dubbing culture as well ;o

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Voice acting culture isn't built in a year, or ten years, or even twenty years. France and Germany pretty much stuck with subtitling for a vast majority of content for a very long period before moving to voice acting.

On the other hand Japan and Italy moved to voice acting very early in the history of audio-visual production, creating a much stronger voice acting tradition over time, for which they reap the benefits now in terms of quality. other countries are playing catch-up.

Also for those arguing animations are based around Japanese keep in mind all players of 1.0 had to watch all cutscenes in English with their native language subbed in so I find it hard to believe that the animations were created for Japanese. Even with the new and improved multilingual voice-overs the language won't make much any difference with the body language at least for the English version so that argument is invalid in this circumstance.

It is just people bringing their anime bias into this game because it is developed in Japan, nothing more.

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Originally Posted by Keith_Dragoon

Also for those arguing animations are based around Japanese keep in mind all players of 1.0 had to watch all cutscenes in English with their native language subbed in so I find it hard to believe that the animations were created for Japanese. Even with the new and improved multilingual voice-overs the language won't make much any difference with the body language at least for the English version so that argument is invalid in this circumstance.

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That doesn't matter. Lip movement for games and animation is extremely generic. Basically every language can be easily adapted to it given a decent scriptwriter.

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It is just people bringing their anime bias into this game because it is developed in Japan, nothing more.

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No. In general it's just people recognizing that some countries have a more solid voice acting tradition than others, creating a very large quality gap.

I'm sorry, but anyone saying that American/British voice acting is generally on par (even more so for games) with Japanese voice acting simply lacks the technical tools to judge. It's a really ridiculous statement.

Some may have an "anime bias", but correlation doesn't imply causation. The difference in quality exists, and it's very visible.

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Originally Posted by Keith_Dragoon

This

As someone incapable of reading subtitles or understanding of Japanese I fail to see why it is always held in such high regard as if it some holy language which must be worshipped by all. I have a friend who speaks the language fluently and has even taught English in Japan and she doesn't even act as if Japanese is the alpha language and even prefers some dubs over subs.

You are entitled to your opinion, as I am to mine but quit pretending this other language that most of you cannot even speak is superior. It is no different than French, German, itallian or Spanish, just another way of saying the same damn thing nothing more.

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I don't hold Japanese to be some Holy grail, or what ever other hyperbolic attempt to dismiss others' preference one wishes to throw out. It doesn't matter what language the original is in, I tend to prefer it to English dubs because too often English voice actors treat whatever it is as if they are doing voices for Scooby Doo. It's annoying, like they are trying too hard.

Those that I do find well done tend to use live action actors for voice overs. Hell, even the English native language games and animated shows that seem to have the better voice acting do too. Granted, that is a generalization, and I readily acknowledge that, but for me it holds true more often than not.

That, and it's harder to tell bad voice acting when you aren't as familiar with the language to know just how horrible it really is.

Voice-acting will be done by Fernehalwes, of course.

But yes, looking forward to seeing how it'll turn out. Hopefully they make the accents so that they're not cheesy.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

Or maybe some (that have actually worked in the voice acting industry) know how to distinguish good voice acting from mediocre voice acting, and recognize that Japan simply has a much more solid tradition for voice overs that the US and Britain do, resulting in much higher quality overall.

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That's nice if Japanese have better voice talent, but it does shit all for me if I can't understand what they're saying. If I wanted to read subtitles I'd just assume not have voice acting at all.

It's a good thing we have options. You folks that like how Japanese voices sound compared to everything else can listen to something you may or may not understand while us folks that prefer to hear something in our native language can do so as well.

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Originally Posted by Orophin

That's nice if Japanese have better voice talent, but it does shit all for me if I can't understand what they're saying. If I wanted to read subtitles I'd just assume not have voice acting at all.

It's a good thing we have options. You folks that like how Japanese voices sound compared to everything else can listen to something you may or may not understand while us folks that prefer to hear something in our native language can do so as well.

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So I'm not sure where the problem is, since no one here argued that everyone should listen to the Japanese track with subtitles?

I too irrationally hate English voices by default

http://youtu.be/Fk3uXwn_OQg

I expect it'll be better than this, and 1.0 was fine to me for what it was.

/puts on Gaius van Baelsar face

=.= You were unwise to come here....

*blows up half of Mor Dhona*

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Originally Posted by Soukyuu

The reason for that imho is largely because in Japan, anime is not seen as something solely "for kids" and also no opinion that "kids won't notice anyway" if the voice acting is bad. Not to say all non-Japanese voice acting is bad. The majority is though, especially for anime.

For me, it's also the fact the voice actors often don't make any effort to pronounce foreign names properly.

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I think that's less on the voice actors (though the lack of voice acting schools has not helped) and more on the sound directors. Then again, I expect all directors to be like Nabeshin in PuniPuni Poemi, where he hits them every time they get a line wrong and tells them to do it from the top. >.>

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Originally Posted by Vilhem

Oh Skye...<3 We shall make happy puddles of bliss when we hear Thanny voiced, won't we? T.T /high5



I'm not arguing anime here, nor the production of it. I'm quite aware of the differences that need to be made with script changes to match flapping mouths and whatnot, which can result in quirky and clunky dubs. Once upon a time, I too watched anime, and had about equal dub and sub. Some are hit, some are miss, I will give you that, BUT..the point I am trying to make is that people treat the Japanese and their language as if they're some omnipotent existence on this Earth and that anything in Japanese will always be vastly superior (not just anime, as evidenced by this very thread), even when production elements and high quality dub voice actors are streamlined; because to these people, their minds are ALREADY made up that anything non-Japanese will suck. Then they will watch or listen to said non-Japanese thing and find reasons to validate their worshiping of the Japanese language and its superiority. Lol

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Thing is, most mainstream anime/games are either: Japanese or English. If you're playing on a Nintendo console or Sony console, chances are it's one of the two for most games. So it's not that Japanese is held "above all", it's the simple fact most gaming and anime media that's mainstream is Japanese.

If it was Chinese or Korean you'd be pissy about people holding those languages over English or French.

Not worried, SE has always done an good job with voice acting in games in each language IMO. I mean, Balthier in English? Sploosh!!!

I do also understand the people that prefer JP voice with subs. Animes like Soul Eater and Full Metal Alchemist always seemed substantially better performed by the JP voice actors. For everygood one there is a bad one I think. Anyone watch trunks go SSJ in subbed DBZ, highest voice ever.

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Originally Posted by Vilhem

I don't mind the choices, and to each his own of course, but those that hold Japanese to some high pedestal really need to examine just why they have a weeabo fascination with it.

(Speaking generally here)

Why not praise the upcoming French or German voice overs? What's that? You don't speak those languages, so you don't care? Alright, I can accept the indifference.

So, why then, is Japanese the exception? Because a bunch of you only know it from anime? What makes Japanese voice acting "better" than any other foreign language dub? This is the kind of thing that really confuses me, really.

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I know you said you were talking generally, but let me reply anyway; Warning, long post.

I absolutely ADORE the way Japanese sounds. I am constantly improving my language skills to be fluent in it. It just sounds great to me, this fascination started even before I understood one word of it, and before I got into anime.

English (my 3rd language) sounds good to me too, while for example German (my 2nd language) is on my least liked list, sound and grammar-wise. Russian (not part of the voicing, but my first language) I dislike grammar-wise, but like sound-wise. Especially swearing has much higher impact in Russian than every other language I know.

Coming back to why Japanese voice acting is superior for anime is because as I already said, the Japanese pour their hearts into voice acting and it's generally seen as a respectable job in Japan. In the West, pure voice actors are not really anything great. Or do you know anyone aspiring to be a voice actor when they grow up? There are enough young people in Japan who do.

And since Japanese companies don't skimp on voice acting, they also get voice actors who are known in their scene for being good. There are people who might decide to give a completely unknown franchise a try just because one of their favorite voice actors are voicing a character. I never heard of something like that here in the West.

Now, in the West, companies who import and localize for example JRPGs or anime, often want to do that with the lowest budget possible, and end up skimping on the voice actors. There ARE good voice actors in the West. Look at big movies getting localized, the voice acting is top-notch in German, for example. They even have set voice actors for big actors, so that one actor sounds the same across all localized movies.

But that's speaking about blockbusters with a huge budget. Anime never gets such a high budget, so sometimes the companies even end up using their regular employees who have no voice acting education to do the voice acting. Untrained personnel doesn't really contribute to the end product having a high quality, don't you agree?

Recently anime has been becoming more popular and budgets started rising as a result, so the chance to get a decent dub is rising as well. However, for someone who is already nearly fluent in Japanese and absolutely adores the sound of it... why would they risk getting stuck with a bad localization (meaning completely changed) or a bad dub (why does that girl suddenly sound like she's being f***ed in a normal fighting scene)?

Exaggerated examples? Not really. Take a look at ar tonelico 2, a pretty niche JRPG. In the process of it's localization by NISA, a lot of the scenes had their meaning changed, sometimes making the characters say stuff completely opposite of what they were supposed to say. And to make things worse, near the end of the game they even seemingly started using machine translation in some parts, maiming the meaning even further.

Let's look at that random fighting scene next. The reaction to getting hit/falling sounds somehow completely natural in Japanese (= impression of the person getting hurt). In English, the same scene had an obscene amount of moaning that didn't fit - at all (= impression of the person enjoying the situation, which obviously wasn't the case).

Another aspect of foreign dubs is that voice actors don't really care about pronouncing character names correctly. Or rather, they pronounce them applying phonetics of their language instead of keeping the original pronunciation. This hurts the overall impression for someone used to the correct one and is very distracting.

So, I prefer Japanese for things originating from Japan because it is the language the content was written in - no risk of meaning intended by the author being lost. If the content originates from a country which language I understand, I will try to watch it in that language. As a bonus, I also get all the unaltered puns and jokes, something that is insanely hard to localize without losing the meaning.

That should give enough reasons why I want to have an option to set voice to Japanese without having to change my client language. I know more about Japan than just what you get from anime. I'm not putting it on a pedestal and claiming Japanese can do no wrong, they're human like me and you.

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Originally Posted by Soukyuu

Stuffs

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And again, I'm not so concerned with anime in this topic, as of course, the shows are made in Japan with Japanese people in mind.

I wasn't referring to you specifically in my post, but moreso those people that don't speak a lick of Japanese or don't bother to learn words past "KAWAII" or "KUSO" or "BAKA", holding the language in some high regard to appear more cultured or trying to fit into a niche or whatever. These are the same people that cry when anime companies even subtitle something, because they didn't use a specific Japanese word they've been reading/hearing all the time in scanlations or fansubs. They pass judgement on English authenticity when they have no knowledge of the Japanese language and only have a fansubber/scanlation as their "source".

Persons such as yourself, that want to immerse themselves in the language and culture BEYOND just anime and games I respect greatly. There is nothing wrong with wanting to learn about different cultures at all, and learning any language is only beneficial and opens many many doors.

I think people are missing the point with my posts tho :/ While weeabos annoy me yes, I'm not by any means "mad" or "raging" lol. I guess I just worry more than anything. I've many friends around me who do this sort of thing, with one so far as to wanting to BE Japanese, because she grew up watching anime and jpop singers. By BEING Japanese, I don't mean just immersing in the culture or learning the language, its the thought of wanting to shed her own culture (and get surgery to look more Asian) and integrate herself into their society as if she was Japanese all along. And I'm sure she's not the only one out there x.x

I had my time with the whole anime/game obsession too, but I came out of it and realized there was a lot more to Japan than just that. I still want to go there someday, but I hardly think of it as some sort of high-society community that I must belong to to be special. I just enjoy it for what it is now. One good thing that came out of that though, is that I taught myself how to read and write hiragana, katakana, and some basic kanji, and pick up some vocabulary and sentence structure in spoken language, and its helping out tremendously right now infact, since I'm working on subtitling the Live Letter using Rein's script.

Love all. <.<

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Originally Posted by Vilhem

And again, I'm not so concerned with anime in this topic, as of course, the shows are made in Japan with Japanese people in mind.

I wasn't referring to you specifically in my post, but moreso those people that don't speak a lick of Japanese or don't bother to learn words past "KAWAII" or "KUSO" or "BAKA", holding the language in some high regard to appear more cultured or trying to fit into a niche or whatever. These are the same people that cry when anime companies even subtitle something, because they didn't use a specific Japanese word they've been reading/hearing all the time in scanlations or fansubs. They pass judgement on English authenticity when they have no knowledge of the Japanese language and only have a fansubber/scanlation as their "source".

Persons such as yourself, that want to immerse themselves in the language and culture BEYOND just anime and games I respect greatly. There is nothing wrong with wanting to learn about different cultures at all, and learning any language is only beneficial and opens many many doors.

I think people are missing the point with my posts tho :/ While weeabos annoy me yes, I'm not by any means "mad" or "raging" lol. I guess I just worry more than anything. I've many friends around me who do this sort of thing, with one so far as to wanting to BE Japanese, because she grew up watching anime and jpop singers. By BEING Japanese, I don't mean just immersing in the culture or learning the language, its the thought of wanting to shed her own culture (and get surgery to look more Asian) and integrate herself into their society as if she was Japanese all along. And I'm sure she's not the only one out there x.x

I had my time with the whole anime/game obsession too, but I came out of it and realized there was a lot more to Japan than just that. I still want to go there someday, but I hardly think of it as some sort of high-society community that I must belong to to be special. I just enjoy it for what it is now. One good thing that came out of that though, is that I taught myself how to read and write hiragana, katakana, and some basic kanji, and pick up some vocabulary and sentence structure in spoken language, and its helping out tremendously right now infact, since I'm working on subtitling the Live Letter using Rein's script.

Love all. <.<

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So you're basically ranting entirely off topic.

I get it.


This doesn't change the fact that Japan has a much more solid voice acting tradition than any major western country, and many people appreciate Japanese voice acting because of its general quality, that is simply unparaleled.

I think when something is imported to another region/culture and redubbed there are people that are conscious of the originating culture it was created by/for and can feel a disconnect between the voice and the characters animation. Any media will feel more genuine when it is performed in its original language. A ton of western created / focused games have fantastic VO, the Arkham games? Bioshock? F'ing wonderful VO all around.

Subtitles allows the original art to remain intact with the dialogue delivery and proper inflections the creator or director envisioned. Is it required to enjoy the art? Nope. It is just a nice bonus for people that want to take that extra step into the culture, or hipsters....

I think Vilhelm is just raging against "Otaku" Hipsters :D

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Originally Posted by Abriael

Stuff

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Only going to reply to you this once. I'm purposely ignoring you, because based on past threads, you like to have an air of superiority, and pass off your opinions as facts, which is what you're doing here. Arguing, discussing, debating with you is completely pointless because you're completely grounded in your beliefs that anything that comes out of your head is fact, and not your own subjective opinion.

You can state you worked in the "industry" for years, just like you stated you had experience in networking in that trash thread back in December. You like to talk, a lot, but I've yet to be convinced of your "credentials", nor do I really care to be convinced any longer.

I don't hate you or anything like that, I just don't feel like turning this into a 20 page endless drabble where you get on your soapbox and pretty much pass off everything you say as fact. Anyway...

I find myself listening to the sides of others in here who are posting simpler, more honest opinions, (like Soukyuu). I'd like to have a discussion with you one day, but not when you're up on your pedestal looking down at us plebs. :p

Now stop distracting me or this video won't get done >.>

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Originally Posted by OrionInerghem

http://youtu.be/Fk3uXwn_OQg

I expect it'll be better than this, and 1.0 was fine to me for what it was.

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Wait wait wait you did not like the Darth Vader voice? come on that had to be the best voice over CS in 1.0.

But ya i do expect better for 2.0

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Originally Posted by Vilhem

Only going to reply to you this once. I'm purposely ignoring you, because based on past threads, you like to have an air of superiority, and pass off your opinions as facts, which is what you're doing here. Arguing, discussing, debating with you is completely pointless because you're completely grounded in your beliefs that anything that comes out of your head is fact, and not your own subjective opinion.

You can state you worked in the "industry" for years, just like you stated you had experience in networking in that trash thread back in December. You like to talk, a lot, but I've yet to be convinced of your "credentials", nor do I really care to be convinced any longer.

I don't hate you or anything like that, I just don't feel like turning this into a 20 page endless drabble where you get on your soapbox and pretty much pass off everything you say as fact. Anyway...

I find myself listening to the sides of others in here who are posting simpler, more honest opinions, (like Soukyuu). I'd like to have a discussion with you one day, but not when you're up on your pedestal looking down at us plebs. :p

Now stop distracting me or this video won't get done >.>

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Basically you don't like admitting that some people may simply know better than you about some topics and may simply speak out of experience. That's fair, i'm sure it burns.

You can go ahead raging irrationally about "weaboos" if it floats your boat (the funniest part is that you debuted in this thread insulting and labeling others, and then you complain when you're told).

Facts remain facts, whether you like them or not, and whether you believe my credentials or not, my arguments speak by themselves.

Obviously you can resort to the evident copout of ignoring the topic at hand and just attacking me on the personal level as you just did, but that doesn't really help your point, if you ever had one.

All I can say is, if Patrick Stewart, Steven Blum, David Hayter, Eddie Deezen, Tara Strong, and Billy West aren't Louisoix, Thancred, Raubahn, Papalymo, Yda, and Bahamut respectively, then this game will fail.

This is a fact. You want your game to succeed? You put Patrick Stewart, Steven Blum, David Hayter, Eddie Deezen, Tara Strong, and Billy West in it.

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Originally Posted by Denmo

All I can say is, if Patrick Stewart, Steven Blum, David Hayter, Eddie Deezen, Tara Strong, and Billy West aren't Louisoix, Thancred, Raubahn, Papalymo, Yda, and Bahamut respectively, then this game will fail.

This is a fact. You want your game to succeed? You put Patrick Stewart, Steven Blum, David Hayter, Eddie Deezen, Tara Strong, and Billy West in it.

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I suddenly want to hear Billy West come from Bahamut... I don't know why...

But really... suddenly all I see in this thread are silly little human children... play nice now or we will have to fetch the switch...

The cat is bemused =-.-=

You forgot nolan north as everyone else!

MERLWYB WILL BE VOICED!?!?!?

Oh Merlwyb! Seduce me with your sexy voice!












Stop looking at me that way, everyone! I'm not creepy! I swear! O_O

Merlwyb will be voiced by Meryl Streep, and not just because their names are so similar.

...okay, yes it is.

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Originally Posted by Kagato

MERLWYB WILL BE VOICED!?!?!?

Oh Merlwyb! Seduce me with your sexy voice!


Stop looking at me that way, everyone! I'm not creepy! I swear! O_O

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*dons Merlwyb voice* Hey babeh..

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Originally Posted by Vilhem

*dons Merlwyb voice* Hey babeh..

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*dons Thancred voice* Oh please love, I invented seduction!


*smoke bomb and hides* o.o;

I was thinking maybe someone like Susan Duerdan, an Emma Honeywell type voice (The Last Remnant)
but it appears she already did voices for the release version?

She's not the monk from the Gridania storyline is she? ;v

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Originally Posted by Mudd

I was thinking maybe someone like Susan Duerdan, an Emma Honeywell type voice (The Last Remnant)
but it appears she already did voices for the release version?

She's not the monk from the Gridania storyline is she? ;v

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She sounds more like Y'shtola actually D:

We've talked a lot about the skill of voice actors, but not directors.

In the majority of works that I have watched in both languages, Japanese will often come out on top, but not always. When a different language has suceeded in winning my adoration, it is because they have done something right.

The ability of a voice actor to properly understand the plot, circumstances of what they are saying and what it means can be felt in the quality of their performance. And their ability to do this relies upon the director being able to properly convey this to their actor. It is the difference between being "angry" or being "angry at someone because they are planning to hurt someone that the audience won't yet know is your brother till season 2". Foreign language translation directors will always have it harder, because they didn't write the bloody thing in the first place, but admittedly they are getting better.

Also, Abriael, are you fluent in German? I don't intend to criticise your experience, but I'm keen for some extra perspective. With many languages, particularly German, fluency in a language deeply affects one's perspective of emotion expressed through it.
When I was living in Germany, I experienced a dubbing industry that I thought did things rather well based off its experience dubbing mainstream film, not just cartoons. Of course I was a young teenager at the time, so it might be a bit of childhood nostalgia talking.

Either way, I'm gonna give English and (if it exists) German a whirl. If they make me cringe due to poor performances, then I'll switch over to Japanese.

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Originally Posted by Catapult

We've talked a lot about the skill of voice actors, but not directors.

In the majority of works that I have watched in both languages, Japanese will often come out on top, but not always. When a different language has suceeded in winning my adoration, it is because they have done something right.

The ability of a voice actor to properly understand the plot, circumstances of what they are saying and what it means can be felt in the quality of their performance. And their ability to do this relies upon the director being able to properly convey this to their actor. It is the difference between being "angry" or being "angry at someone because they are planning to hurt someone that the audience won't yet know is your brother till season 2". Foreign language translation directors will always have it harder, because they didn't write the bloody thing in the first place, but admittedly they are getting better.

Also, Abriael, are you fluent in German? I don't intend to criticise your experience, but I'm keen for some extra perspective. With many languages, particularly German, fluency in a language deeply affects one's perspective of emotion expressed through it.
When I was living in Germany, I experienced a dubbing industry that I thought did things rather well based off its experience dubbing mainstream film, not just cartoons. Of course I was a young teenager at the time, so it might be a bit of childhood nostalgia talking.

Either way, I'm gonna give English and (if it exists) German a whirl. If they make me cringe due to poor performances, then I'll switch over to Japanese.

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Contrary to popular belief directors are normally good across the board. I didn't really meet many that cared for doing a sloppy job in any country. Of course there are good ones and a bit worse/less experienced ones, but it's rare for someone to become a director without being very passionate about the job.

The biggest problem is the aforementioned tendency to use medium/low tier actors (both in quality and experience) for voice acting in the West, while star-level actors think voice acting (especially for games and animation, unless it's top-tier animation like Disney) is beneath them and will most of the times not accept a role at all.

In Japan Voice acting, including anime and games (actually anime and games more than the rest) is considered a top tier job, so you'll see star-level actors doing MORE voice acting for anime and games than they do voice acting for live action or even live action itself. Being chosen for the best games and anime is an honor even for the biggest stars and for the most experienced voices. Which is one of the primary reasons why Japanese voice acting simply can't be compared to other countries, especially for games and anime.

There's also another VERY important factor, which is budgeting. A higher budget doesn't just impact the quality of the actors, but a crucial factor that many don't consider: how many lines have to be recorded during a shift.

A lower budget means that the actors have to complete the script in fewer hours (you pay the studio and the actors (partly for actors, as in most country their fee is a mixed calculation between hours and number of lines) by the hour or by the shift, that is a fixed number of hours, depending on country and studio), which means that they have to pull more lines faster.

This means that they have less "takes" at their disposal to get the same line right, which inevitably brings to a lower quality job. In the west games and animation are considered less important jobs, so lower budgets are dedicated to their voice acting, which means less hours, more lines per hour, less takes to get things right and a worse job.

This is also influenced by the experience of the actors mentioned above. A more experienced VA can get each line right much quicker than an inexperienced one, and often a director is forced, when dealing with less experienced ones, to just settle with what he can even if he's not completely satisfied, because sitting on the same line too long would cause an overflow of the allocated hours, with an increase of the necessary hours that studio administrations and clients really don't like to hear about.

Since in Japan you can get star-level and veteran actors for voice acting easily (much more than in the west) and those actors actually built their whole career on voice overs and aren't just live action and drama actors lent to voice acting in-between jobs, they have more experienced in voice acting, and even with the same budget they can normally get the lines "right" quicker, because that's their main line of work and that's what they're used to.

Of course there's also a matter of pride. In Japan Voice Actors are extremely proud of their job on games and anime, because in Japan games and anime are considered top-tier audio-visual production, as opposed at the rest of the world, where they're considered less. When an actor is proud of what he's doing, he'll automatically give more, be faster, study the characters on his own time more and so forth.

There's also another factor that doesn't have much to do with actors at all, and that's the quality of the script and how "hands on" the scriptwriter is with voice acting.

This is something still very rare in the West, where most often the scriptwriter just drops the script on the studio and forgets about it.

The best workflow for localization and voice acting is having writing the script split between two different professional figures. First the translator (which should always be a native speaker in the original language) translates the original script in the target language, doing a very literal translation with notations. Then there's a second professional figure that normally is referred to as the scriptwriter proper or sometimes the "adapter" (depending on country), that should always be a native speaker in the target language but is possibly very knowledgeable in the culture of the original language (which was my primary practical role when I did this job, besides overall supervision) converts the literal translation into the final script, turning literal expression into ones that sound better and/or more elegant and/or more fitting to the characters in the target language. He also does the lip sync.

I don't know what's SE's procedure with this, but very good localization companies will send the scriptwriter to supervise voice acting (shouldering an additional cost, because of course you have to pay him for that, and if he's not paid by the hour, you can't use him for other projects, and voice acting takes a lot of time). This helps a LOT, as he has a much clearer vision of the characters, their feelings and the story (voice actors very often act the lines in the most convenient order, which is NOT necessarily the right chronological order, and they often are in the room by themselves, and not with the counterpart they're actually talking to), he also can correct pronunciations of names on the fly, explain to the actors necessary cultural nuances and even correct lines on the fly, for instance when the original lip sync doesn't fit and a line is really too long or too short to be acted correctly (and it happens, since the scriptwriter most of the times isn't an actor, so when he "tests" the line during scriptwriting he can recite it too fast or too slow compared to the actual actor).

This is extremely beneficial to the overall quality of voice acting, but it comes with a problem. It has a cost. Not only for the scriptwriter himself, but also because having the scriptwriter in the studio doing the job I described means that the process will inevitably take more time as he correct mistakes that the director would miss or gives information that the director wouldn't know. More time means more lines acted in the same amount of time, and more money spent for actors and studio.

Unfortunately both having scriptwriting split between translator and scriptwriter proper, and having the scriptwriter supervise voice acting is still very rare in the west.

Basically there are a large number of factors that play into Japan's excellence in voice acting. Some I explained in my previous posts, some in this, there are more, and most of them are linked and influence each other. They have to do with how voice acting is seen, budgets, workflows and mentality. This doesn't mean that western voice actors are terrible, and western quality is gradually improving, but there's still a long way to go before they can be considered even in the same order of magnitude.

And no. Not fluent in German. I do have some knowledge of the language, but of course when I worked for the German market I had to work with professionals from Germany, as my role (for Germany and France) was overall supervision.

Even without knowing the language, you do get used to its sound, and while I never told that German voice actors do an abysmal job in general, they don't do an exceptional job as well. There are some very good ones, but they are rarer than in other countries, and the work pacing to which they are used doesn't really allow for top quality, unless we're talking about top tier Hollywood movies.

But hey, we have some wondering about my "credentials" more than about what I write, so i guess everyone is free to disbelieve what I say. After all we're just "weaboos" no? :rolleyes:

No, not all weaboos, just people being interested and analytical and having our personal preferences. :)

Very good points there about budgets and scriptwriting. I at least have faith they won't mess up the script.

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Originally Posted by Catapult

No, not all weaboos, just people being interested and analytical and having our personal preferences. :)

Very good points there about budgets and scriptwriting. I at least have faith they won't mess up the script.

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Depends mostly on the procedures, and honestly I'm not privy in the details of what SE does. I do think the localization team does a lovely job with the localization proper (even if I'm personally more leaning towards a slightly more literal style, but that's nuances and mostly a matter of taste/philosophy). Unfortunately when it comes to voice acting, depending on what SE's workflow is, it may very well be out of their hands.

I would love to hear what their favored procedures are, but I'm not sure they'd be willing to share. Maybe we'll know more with the further posts on the developer blog.