So... Merlwyb will be voiced

[Abriael]

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

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.

[Felis]

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.

In germany you find subs only on DVD, Blueray and games .
Every serie, every movie, every documentation is dubbed in the german TV, no matter from which country.

The problem is only that the best voice actors works for the movies, while for animes the studios hire cheaper voice actors.

[Kallera]

In germany you find subs only on DVD, Blueray and games .
Every serie, every movie, every documentation is dubbed in the german TV, no matter from which country.

The problem is only that the best voice actors works for the movies, while for animes the studios hire cheaper voice actors.

Is that why Spanish dubs tend to have voices that sound too similar?

[Abriael]

In germany you find subs only on DVD, Blueray and games .
Every serie, every movie, every documentation is dubbed in the german TV, no matter from which country.

The problem is only that the best voice actors works for the movies, while for animes the studios hire cheaper voice actors.

i'm not talking about nowadays, but a couple decades ago.

[Loggos]

On another note, to be honest I'm hoping for a feature that is not very flattering to SE and their voice acting efforts but I really hope we'll be able to turn of voices but keep the background noises, as we had it in the 1.0-CSes.
I am really sorry that I sound so ignorant here and I do appreciate SE's efforts but with many of the characters being around for a year or more I have already formed quite an accurate picture of them, also in voice and speaking manners.
I don't really want to mute everything (like turning off my speakers) because just having music and background sounds already helped me a lot appreciating the cutscenes. I actually heard all the relevant voices/dialogues in my head.
I'm hoping for this because in some primary cases (when it comes to chars that I like a lot like Merlwyb, Kan-E-Senna, Y'shtola or Raubahn) I already have voices in my head that fit my understanding of the characters perfectly (perfect for me).
Not to have anybody dub them might therefore stabilise my immersion much more than having voice actors. Because if the voice actors - and they might do an awesome job nonetheless - are off too much of how I imagine a character to be then it would just sort of break my image of the character and with this break my immersion (yes, that sounds really comical but as sad and corny as it is - it's true v.v ).
Of course there is the possibility that I love the voice actors but in case that I don't I'd rather have the option to enjoy the story with my own imagination (but not cutting out all the sound - I really enjoy the music and background sound design).

I have no idea if anything regarding this issue was stated. If so, can anyone provide me a source and if not so, could a dev give an answer to this?
That would be really great!

[Soukyuu]

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.

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.

[Vilhem]

Stuffs

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. <.<

[Abriael]

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. <.<

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.

[Vilhem]

Stuff

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.

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

[Soukyuu]

Vil, I saw you weren't addressing me personally, I just felt like answering anyway :P

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

Haha what? Seriously? I do see the Japanese culture as attractive as it coincides with my personal values quite a lot. Of course it's not without faults, none is. I also don't understand how one can get the idea they can become Japanese. You can be knowledgeable about their culture and be able to integrate yourself into their society, but ultimately, you will always stay a foreigner (albeit integrated).

Anyway, anime are one thing, games are another. SE did a decent job so far (even though I hated the laughing scene in FFX :P) and since the US/UK/DE/FR/JP offices(?) seem to be working together and have contact to the original story writers, they should be able to ask what the writers meant to express with a certain scene. I see no problems here, the rest is up to the voice actors to express those feelings correctly and naturally.