Patch 3.3 (Trailer) Discussion (2.x - 3.2 Spoilers)

[Tenkuu]

I don't mind debating but when it takes 30+ minutes to draft a reply it's taking entirely too long. That's considerably more effort than I put into some of my college posts. I could be... you know... playing the game instead... but... goddamnit, here I am...

And if you don't enjoy it, you don't have to do it. I'm seriously not holding a gun to your head here. By all means, if you prefer to spend more time on playing the game, go do so. Otherwise, acknowledge that you're here of your own free will and tone down the verbal abuse. Don't act like you're better than me and doing me a favor by being here, because trust me, you're not. As for college (or rather university in my case), I find it far less inspiring than this game tbh, with the exception of a few classes.

Answering each topic separately is not looking at the whole of the argument, but dealing with it piecemeal instead. It's one topic.

Actually, understanding the parts of an argument is a big part of understanding the whole. It always works well for me.

The point is that in general, Japanese voice acting is more emotional than English because it's a stylistic choice, so complaining that the English dialogue lacks the emotion of the Japanese dialogue (and that it's a mark of the voice actors' ineptitude) is a flawed argument. They won't be the same because they have different styles.

Believe it or not most animated programs in Japan are, like in the West, for children. The ones produced for adults are few and far between. And again, the more experienced English voice actors do generally deliver solid performances and given good direction deliver great performances. Nobody who manages to get there treats it like a "Yeah, whatever" deal.

I agreed with you, didn't I, that the voice actors are not the ones to blame? It is merely a difference of attitude in the industry as a whole. When you are given a poor script and poorer working conditions, there is no way that the final product will be of quality. But no, it comes down to more than a stylistic choice, specifically because of the reasons I stated. And yes, there are English voice actors who delivery better performances than others, but ask fans, and you'll find that they are few and far between. To get an idea of whether they take it as seriously or not, just compare two interviews on the same show in both languages. There will rarely if ever be a discussion about the characters themselves in English; instead, the focus will usually be on the process itself.

Taking translation liberties is sometimes necessary. A literal translation rarely makes sense, and taking liberties with it can actually help in some cases. Case and point: Kefka from VI is just a psychotic moron in the Japanese version, but the English version made him considerably funnier, turning him into the much-beloved character he is here. He's never been as popular in Japan as he is in the West because he had a good localization. Is this a violation of the producer's "original vision?" Absolutely. But who says it can't be better?

As for whether or not less is expected of English voice actors... well, maybe. The industry isn't as big (partially thanks to the fact that Hollywood movies are often dubbed in foreign languages, and are a big part of said industry - instead of watching a Hollywood film in English with subtitles, they dub over the audio track. Heresy, I know.) but to say the voice actors take their jobs less seriously, or that less is expected of them, is a case-by-case basis. Sometimes they get the script ahead of time and can practice or prepare. Sometimes they don't. There's rarely someone else in the recording booth, but that's just a matter of scheduling (getting the whole ensemble together is oftentimes impractical) and the fact that, for foreign dubs of animated programs, matching the mouth movements with the dialogue is challenging enough as is. *Furthermore while I don't know I'm going to guess that most voice recording in Japan is in Tokyo, while it's spread out across various cities elsewhere (or at least in America). As for memorizing lines? In both languages they have the script either in hand or right in front of them...

Just checking, but are you seriously making a big distinction, character wise, between a psychotic moron and a psychotic clown? Because I'm pretty sure that "psychotic" is rather the key element here, and that seems to be the general consensus in all languages. See the difference between completely changing a character's personality and changing only certain aspects of it?

Scheduling is not really an excuse when work needs to be done, least of all if you want it to be done well. It also goes back to the idea that voice acting is more of a career in Japan: they put their all into it rather than put aside a tiny portion of time to go record their lines then come home. And sure, it may be impractical to get everyone together, but when it needs to be done, it should be. The recording in Japan taking place in Tokyo has pretty much nothing to do with anything though, considering that not all voice actors come from Tokyo in the first place, they make the effort to go there because they care enough about advancing their career. Also, translation itself is a process, and there are different ways of doing it that don't involve perfectly literal translation. However, when you take liberties, you're appropriating the work and putting your own spin on it, and I'm sorry to say, but sometimes this is just not ok when you essentially change the meaning of a sentence, the focus of a plot, or the personality of a character. These have all clearly been observed in FFXIV and they are the reason why most fans do not rely on the English version for detailed explanations.

If you think there are no crummy performances in Japanese, you just haven't heard enough performances. *And I implore you to take this neither personally nor the wrong way, but if you have to cross-reference the JP dialogue with the FR/EN text I seriously doubt you're in any sort of position to be judging the quality of the JP voice performances...

Of course there are bad performances in every language, but we're talking about an original Japanese work, so of course it's going to be better in Japanese. *And I implore you not to pretend that you haven't actually taken personal shots at me before. I may take some things personally, but I know how to read people. In fact, when you put on a fake face, that's when I can't read you through the falsehood. So be honest, that's all I ask.
As far as the actual quality of the Japanese performances go, it isn't just me that's in a position to judge it. Everyone has the ability to perceive emotion in voices and can tell when a performance sounds inauthentic. Not only that, but in fact, several other players have judged the English version's performances and found them lacking. Final note: the actual voice performance has nothing to do with the translation of the dialogue. I find both to be lacking in the English version for different reasons.

And here we get to the crux of the argument: the "original vision." Ahh. Simply put: it depends on the work. Old shows that are dubbed over and released these days are certainly not going to be the "original vision" (but again, who says they can't be as good as or better than the original?), but these days a lot of foreign dubs have input from the original producers ranging from casting input to requiring their approval to release it. With XIV, which is produced almost in tandem in all four languages, this is almost certainly the case. Case and point: Midgardsormr was rather chatty in Japanese, so at Yoshi-P's behest they made him brusque and imposing in English. Is this a violation of the "original vision?"

Are we talking about the same character here? Midgarsormr *was* imposing in the Japanese version and they made him sound much less serious in the English version. I feel like I'm reading a complete reversal of his actual portrayal in your argument. Also, the difference is not merely between Japanese and English Midgarsormr, it's between English and every other language. And guess what? Everyone, even American fans, noticed how out of character Midgarsormr seemed in the English version, and they went digging for the other versions to draw the comparison and actually understand what he was saying. So was it a good idea to change Midgarsormr's personality and lines in this case? Did it add to our understanding of the character? No. Instead, all it did was add to his entertainment value, and he was not even really taken seriously. In my case, I actually disliked him at first based on the English subtitles I read because he sounded like some moronic douchebag. Is that a good portrayal for an ancient dragon? I think not. And a good majority feel the same way.

Let's be clear here: there are four different languages and four possible interpretations, but only the English version consistently takes sometimes extreme liberties with its translation. Also, as I've said before, localization as it's used by the American team seems to be an excuse for a bad translation rather than a valid justification for acceptable changes from the original. When every other version is pointing the finger at yours and essentially asking why you're the only different one, your version is the faulty one, not every other one that disagrees with it. Heck, do I even need to point out how bad the English version makes Alphinaud appear? Not that he's exactly a favorite among Japanese players either, but he's portrayed as so much more arrogant and dismissive in the English version. Just a simple example from the very end of 2.55, right before the credit roll, when Alphinaud is thanking everyone for their support: in the Japanese version he thanks you personally as a guardian of Eorzea; in the English version, he makes some generalized statement about Eorzea having guardians and the thanks is completely removed. Maybe now you understand why the English version and some of its character changes seriously anger a good many people? The English version has a tendency to be minimalist and dismissive, whereas the Japanese version generally tends to acknowledge everyone individually.

I understand the base differences in the process *(as someone whose professed dream is to be a voice actor, do you really think I wouldn't?), I simply acknowledge there are going to be differences in the performances as a result and judge a given dub against its own language instead of trying to compare apples to oranges (so to speak). The English 2.0 release was not very good. They learned from that and it got much better over 2.x. I cannot vouch for the quality of the Japanese audio because I admittedly do not understand the language and by extension and am in no place to make a judgment, but again, there is nothing saying that the original audio track is going to be the best just because it's the original and that anything else is just a shoddy attempt to imitate it.

I never said you didn't understand them, I said that you didn't take them into consideration. We're *all* comparing the dubs to the original, but the difference with your argument is that you're trying to justify bad changes. The thing is, when you're bringing a Japanese property somewhere else, you still have to acknowledge that that's what it is: a Japanese property. You must retain the majority of its aesthetic otherwise you will inevitably not appeal to your target audience: those who are fans of Japanese properties. At least, unlike some English dubs, they didn't touch the music or outright cut out or change scenes. Even if you do not understand Japanese, or at least not fully, there are translations that exist, and there are also other versions where it's been made clear by fans who know this stuff better than us that the translation remained largely faithful to the original. As such, yes, you are in a position to judge which one is better: the one that is better is the one that explains what needs to be explained, doesn't take shortcuts, and doesn't omit important details. At this point, there are just so many things that are unclear in the English dub alone that fans have *needed* to turn to other versions for clarity. That's as clear an indication as any that the English dub is lacking.

Did not see said interview; a link would be nice. I'm going to chalk it up to being from 2.0, where that did seem to be the case but again, it got much better over 2.x because they learned what they did for 2.0 was not cutting it.

The recording process is different in English and Japanese. This is going to produce differences in the performances. That doesn't mean one is better or worse; they're just in different languages. Judge it against its own language, not another.

This is it. And yeah, I'm sure that it got better, but there are still changes being made that aren't necessary.

If you give it less time, of course it's going to be worse. And no, we're not judging it against its own language, because this is an evaluation of how well the English version holds up as a dub.

Being a voice actor outside of Japan is about the same, career-wise, as being one inside of it. Unless you're a veteran you don't get paid well and need to supplement your career with side jobs, and yes there are events for English voice actors if you go looking in the right places. Again, that Japanese voice actors are held in higher esteem than their Western counterparts is largely a myth propagated and perpetuated by nerds trying to make themselves feel cooler than they actually are because they're watching foreign cartoons (or playing games with a foreign audio track).

No offense, but in making an ignorant claim like that it's the same career-wise both in Japan and outside of it, you're the one who's sounding like, and I quote, a "nerd trying to make themselves feel cooler than they actually are". You're the one who cares about how cool they sound, all I care about is how much I can enjoy the game. I don't enjoy FFXIV with the English voice acting, so I don't play it with it. When the performances don't sound wooden, they tend to sound overacted. I can even refer you to a very recent example: I listened to Aymeric in the English trailer, and I knew what scene his lines were from, and I could not detect anywhere near the same amount of feeling as in the Japanese version, where you could practically hear his voice breaking as he talked about Estinien.

If English movies are best in English... then why do the Japanese dub over the English audio tracks (etc.)? *Why do the Final Mix versions of the Kingdom Hearts games always have the English audio track, when the Japanese was the original and said Final Mixes were released exclusively in Japan until the compilation PS3 releases? Why do some Japanese properties, such as Resident Evil, No More Heroes, Devil May Cry, and Metal Wolf Chaos have exclusively English audio tracks? Hmm... it's almost like the Japanese don't believe that Japanese properties are always going to be best in Japanese themselves, or are at least willing to observe (and sometimes appreciate) alternate interpretations of characters. So why do you hold this belief, and why aren't you willing?

Why else? American movies are translated to Japanese for the majority of the population that likely don't understand a language that is at least partially, if not fully, foreign to them. Why ask a question that you already know the answer to? As for Kingdom Hearts, I don't know it, so can't speak as to it. Also, please don't confuse Japanese properties made specifically with an originally English track with those that are made with originally Japanese ones. Now *that*, if anything, is comparing apples to oranges. At the same time, keep in mind that marketing and your target audience both play a large part in exactly how you handle the release of products. Oh and the one thing I do know about Kingdom Hearts is that it is not an exclusively Japanese production, but rather a collaboration between Japan and America. The fact that you're trying to undermine a valid argument about the value of an original product by ignoring this fact, and are instead using subterfuge to try to pretend that it's something other than what it actually is, proves to me how desperate you are at this point. Final note: all cultures appropriate some aspects of others, or are you now going to try to pretend that all anime involves purely Japanese culture? As such, it's hardly a surprise when some elements of another language are used. In some instances, English may sound more "cool" to the Japanese, or may simply be more appropriate depending on the context. So why can't *you* accept the value of an original foreign property in its original language?

Spoken dialogue and soundtracks are very different components of the overall feel. Saying changing one is the same as changing the other is, again, trying to make a figurative comparison between apples and oranges.

It really isn't. You tried to make the point yourself that English should somehow be considered better because some Japanese productions choose to include it in their music. Besides, music was merely used as an example in this case. The point was that in drastically changing any element of the original production, you're going to get a completely different feel for it. Music is a particularly good example because it is known to be what sets the mood in any given scene. If there is one element of FFXIV that everyone can agree is above par in every version, because it remains the same, it's the music. That is another reason why it makes the perfect example.

"Nerd" was a self-deprecating dig (though really the proper term is "geek"). Let's be honest: anyone playing this game is a nerd, I'm just self-aware enough to realize it and unashamed to admit it. (Seriously, I'm arguing the age old "dub vs. sub" with someone I don't even know... on the internet! It doesn't get much nerdier!) That people insist on perpetuating the myth that the original audio track will always be better is the real problem: case and point, this isn't an argument you really see anywhere outside the English fandom, or at least not to the same volume.

You think yourself good at turning an argument around, but sadly, you're not. You didn't use "nerd" as a self-deprecating dig, you used it to insult those who appreciate the value of an original foreign work in its original language. You're only now calling yourself one because you've been called out on using it improperly. Nice try though.

That's just a difference between cultures. Most shows (etc.) only run for a single season in Japan, and the ones that go on longer do tend to have role reprisals. The same is true in English.

I can recognize English voice actors based purely on their performances... usually, if I've heard them before. Say hi to Starscream for me next time you go chat with Alphinaud!

In both English and Japanese characters tend to be reduced to stereotypes when accents are used (Takarada from Kill la Kill!, anyone?).

Don't confuse accents with dialects and differences in levels of formalities. For instance, it's well known that those who are from Osaka speak a different dialect than those who grew up in Tokyo. As for the levels of formality, I can point you to one anime, my favorite, where there is a great variety of them. There are creatures from another world who are far older than our main characters, and tend to speak an antiquated and very formal version of Japanese. One of the main characters was raised in a strictly traditional Japanese home and his family owns a dojo. He also speaks a formal version of Japanese. Another of the main characters is a Chinese boy who is the eldest in a large family and was raised in Shinjuku: he speaks in a very casual and enthusiastic manner to everyone, and is sometimes even reprimanded for being too informal. Yet another one grew up in Osaka and so speaks in a Kansai dialect. If I look at a character like Thancred, his level of formality is generally low except perhaps during his stint as Nanamo's advisor and when he's trying to impress a woman. This reflects his upbringing as a poor Lominsan boy while also taking into account his Sharlayan education. He oftens ends his sentences with a "ze", "zo", "na" (his greeting to you when you meet all of the Scions for the first time is "yoroshiku na") or "sa". You can use this as a reference for just how casual he is.

I don't know the anime you're talking about, but if the character you're describing is meant to sound like an American, that's a different story. He may have been given an accent as the Japanese perceive it, but certainly there have been many examples in the past of badly rendered American accents of all sorts in the Japanese version of any given anime.

I'm not trying to be negative, I just don't like the fact replying to your posts takes the lion's share of my afternoon (and I work night shift). This has taken me literally two hours.

You have two choices: either take the time to properly reply by doing it all in one go or splitting your reply into several smaller ones that you may choose to write up at different times, or don't respond at all. Trust me, I don't need your haughty attitude and generally try to ignore it for the sake of responding to the actual content of your argument, but when you're being purposely antagonistic, I *will* fight back.

You're right - people like what they do for various reasons. So... why does any one language have to be superior? (Hint: it doesn't. They all have good and bad points, but if you refuse to listen to anything but the "original vision" you are closing yourself off to other interpretations of the same character, none of which are strictly "bad" or whatever purely because they aren't the same as, or an extremely close approximation of, the "original vision." This would make you a terrible theater critic.)

Guess what? I spoke from *my* perspective. My experience, my opinion, my tastes. You're the one who decided to metaphorically sigh dramatically and grandstand, not me. Please note that for several pages of this thread, you wrote replies that I didn't feel any need or interest to respond to, so I didn't. You're the one who seems to have this obsession with me. Guess what else? I've mentioned several times before that there are good dubs, but unlike you, I'm not obsessed with the English language, or even the Japanese one for that matter. I like to watch foreign movies when they happen to be on TV and their themes strongly interest me. I have an appreciation for almost all things foreign with the exception of a few languages that I don't enjoy. Japanese happens to be the language that coincides with most of my interests. I like their culture, some of their anime series, some of their music, several of their specific products (such as wall scrolls) and even some of their live action dramas.

If I weren't an apathetic and dispassionate 27-year old Schizoid with no acting experience past non-speaking roles in Nativity plays 20 years ago...

Maybe you've seen the recent meme going around on Tumblr about Oprah only becoming famous in her 30s? The gist of that meme was that you have to fail/be fired before you can become who you're meant to be.

BELATED EDIT
I understand the gist of your argument - that things are best in the original language they were produced in. I agree this is true in some cases - particularly films, where body language and subtle facial expressions are very important. However, when a character is animated (traditionally or CG) the lack of physical existence means their character is created purely by the actor, script, and director, especially when said character isn't necessarily Japanese by ethnicity, as is the case with this game. Meaning... that character doesn't exist except as given life by the actor, script, and director, so there's no "natural" language they should be speaking.

While you may think that my argument is only true in some cases, anime among other things is the best proof that it's actually true in *most* cases.

Do you think I perceive Thancred as Japanese just because I prefer him in the Japanese version? Thancred is a Lominsan regardless of what language he's presented in. It is his voice, his way of speaking and his personality quirks that make him Thancred for me. If any of those in any dub deviate from what I know about him, that is no longer Thancred to me. The same is true for all of the characters. The mockery that is made of some of them in the English makes me intensely dislike it, especially in the case of a character such as Midgarsormr who loses all semblance of a personality and instead becomes a stereotype. Just so you understand me correctly, this is where the strength of the Japanese version lies in FFXIV: all of the characters feel and sound natural and you can lose yourself in the story and completely forget that they're speaking in Japanese. Everything that needs to be explained is, there are no loose ends that leave you wondering what the heck is going on like with the English Midgarsormr, and cliffhangers actually make sense and are understood as such.

And again, while it is true that a translation and foreign dub may be a violation of the "original vision," the idea that it will always be and always be inferior is antiquated.

I never said translation was a violation of the original vision, at all. What I said was: a gross mistranslation does not properly convey the original intent of any given series, movie or whatever other media that it affects. If you change too much, it's no longer the same product even if the same name is on it. Though I mentioned Alphinaud as one of the best examples of a character who comes off as more annoying than he actually is in the English version, I can also cite the character quirks of Thancred that are more prevalent in the Japanese version and give the character more flavor. And of course, everyone knows about the mess that was the original presentation in English of Haurchefant. Using the term localization as an excuse to change context, for instance, is not all right, least of all when it only applies to the English version. All that localization means in that context is essentially Americanization.

A translation will absolutely always be inferior. It will never convey the same intent or give life to the characters in the same way. It will be changed to fit the context of the culture it's being translated for, so it will be inferior by default. *How* inferior is the real question though. I take Gundam Wing as one of the best examples of a really good English dub. It's not as good as the Japanese version, but for a dub, it's of quality and has good voice acting. As such, the Gundam Wing dub is not a great deal inferior to the Japanese version.