How would you like to hear your entertainment?

[OKeijiDragon]

When you play a game, watch a movie or/and an anime, in what language would you listen it to? How would you like your characters portrayed like? Look, stupid obvious question cause I know everyone's gonna say English, but let's say you its for artistic or [insert scenario] reasons.

For example, when I'm playing Mega Man X7, I usually dialog track to Japanese because sometimes I really do find the English dub track to be that god awful. I mean in MMX7, I'll bring out one line for you to sum it up: "BURN BURN BURN TO THE GROUND!!! BURN BURN BURN TO THE GROUND!!!" I mute the TY just so I can survive the terror.

In Anime, I would go for the if-available Japanese track, except for one particular show, Yu Yu Hakusho. Yusuke Urameshi's English VA, Justin Cook, really does know how to freaking do his job as an artist, that's all that has to be said. Plus the Opening and Ending songs sound awesome in English, IMO. I actually prefer YYH in English.

I actually watched a lot of movies in Spanish before, especially Holes and Bolt. For some reason, watching Holes is a lot more enjoyable in Spanish. =P

If you're wondering why I even ask you of this, is because recently I put together a video of Resident Evil about its unused Japanese dialogue track. At first, upon hearing the pieces of the JP track without the scenes, it wasn't very "cool", but then I spliced together scenes from the game with the unused track. To my surprise, the JP voices seemed more "natural" with the characters movement, and the intensity of the cut-scenes, especially Jill IMO. I mean, I know how god-awful and intentionally cheesy the dialogue is, hell I'm a fan of the Jill Sandwich, but I just couldn't stand hearing...

Enrico: Is that Jill?
Jill: Is that voice Enrico's?
Enrico: Yeah?
Jill: Your ALIVE!

What the f*/k? HE'S RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, YOU DUMB BROAD!!

And...

Barry: "WHAT! WHAT IS THIS?"
(There's a puddle of a red liquid in front of Jill and Barry)
Jill: "What is it?"
Barry: "BLOOD."

No Barry, it's spilled Tomato Soup. =P

Ah, what the hell. I love this game's dialogue XD. I wonder how things would have sounded in Japanese.

It's interesting how the characters are portrayed in other languages. Discuss.

[Dashe]

If a game has a French track, I'll always play that over the English OR the Japanese. Same for the subtitles. I'm bent on mastering the language, regardless of the quality of the voice acting, though of course the better the voice acting the easier it is to get the phonetics of the language.

I watch all my Disney movies in French too, even if it is Canadian French. Most of it's still understandable.

[Pitch]

I prefer to listen in a language I can understand. (pretty much just English, until they start releasing things in Ubbi Dubbi..) Or "not" listen at all..

I used to be one of those people who totally bashed english voice actors and would go on and on about how much "better" the acting is in Japanese, then one day it dawned on me: “What on earth do I know about Japanese voice acting?” For all I know they hate their voice actors as much as I couldn't stand ours. I still rather prefer the Japanese audio + English subtitles, but it's not anything to do with the voices being better; it's because I can disregard the voices entirely. It's more or less that I can't tell whether or not the voices are bad. And I think I enjoy reading the dialog more than hearing it.. but I'm probably just a little less than sane here, anyway.

Then there's an issue of context, because as it turns out watching something with subtitles is a good bit more work than watching something in your native tongue. If I want to watch something with the subtitles I have to constantly keep my eyes glued to the screen to watch for new words, if I don't want to have to keep going back. So, I guess, if possible, the first time I watch something I'll go for the Japanese + English subs, and all subsequent times in English (with English subs if I feel like it). With super high quality formats (MKV!! OGM!!) this is possible with the same file. ^_^

And of course, sometimes horrible horrible English voice acting can add to the entertainment value. Sit down and watch all the old MegaMan cartoon episodes. It'll drive you crazy at first, but after a while you'll love it. (don't listen to me, I'm crazy)

This is strictly for anime, for the most part. (Which I hardly watch any more.. watched Hellsing the other day though. That show was cool Video games always go in English. As for things looking more "natural" in Japanese, of course they do, that's how they're "naturally" made. Adaptations are rarely ever perfect, and as far as I know, they try to adjust the dialog to fit the movements, not the other way around, which may in turn contribute to the crappy acting.

[Musashi]

Pretty much what Green said. Especially the part about the old MegaMan cartoon.

[in·clover]

This is gonna sound really stupid, but I'd rather watch an animation or play a game with closed captions. I'm not deaf, I just don't trust anyone in the whole voice acting industry anywhere around the world to have any speaking talent. Look at the demographic and the type of people willing to do this stuff...

I prefer voice acting when it's done by people who primarily do live action. The first time I heard Patrick Stewart voice someone in a Miyazaki flick I nearly melted. He's got theater experience. He does method acting. He's an actual actor.

Personally I don't think you belong anywhere near a microphone unless you've got a resume with more than "voice over talent" on it.

[Captain Amadeus (Legendary Em)]

I used to just listen to things in english, but that changed when I started downloading episodes of Bleach in their original Japanese (with subtitles, of course). Now I can't watch a cartoon without occasionally looking down at the bottom of the screen to read it, even when I don't have closed captioning on.

I play Sonic games with the japanese voices now, and I've even played a little of Megaman 64 in it's native language as well. I just love the way the japanese sound, and it's one of the reason I'm such a mad J-Rock fan. Blame Showtaro Morikubo, the man behind Megaman X6's vocal tracks, and "Lazy Mind" on Megaman X7.

Recently, I've had to watch Bleach in english, and it is quite bizarre. The dub isn't as bad as I expected it to be though, and I think it is servicable.

[UNIT 0918]

For me, whatever language sounds "better" I'll prefer.

For example, I think the voice-acting for Valkyria Chronicles and Persona 4 sound much better in English. They're more expressive and natural sounding. Regarding Persona 4, I hate the annoying high pitched voice of Rise and Kuma/Teddie ending his sentences with "-kuma" in the Japanese version of the game.

Most anime sound horrible in English in my opinion, which is why I like to stick with Japanese voice-acting.

I prefer both languages equally if they're both equally good. That includes MegaMan Legends/RockMan DASH. I prefer some characters' lines in English, while other lines in Japanese.

I got a bunch of other reasons why I would prefer a language or another, but let's save that for later.

[Staulmaster]

Depends, I guess. For most movies and television shows, I'll watch it in English, if I'm in the mood for a laugh, I'll watch it in French. At first, I always hated going to see movies in French (my friends would always want to, so for a while I only saw movies with my family), but recently I've found that some French movie dubs are all right, some lines are even better than in English.

However, if the movie is of French origin, than I'll clearly watch it in French. I've haven't watched Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain in English, and I don't ever plan to.

As for anime, well, like everyone else, I prefer watching new anime in Japanese with English subtitles, I don't see how I can ever watch dubbed anime anymore, aside from when I don't take it too seriously, like with Pokémon and Digimon.

Jul 20, 2009 22:59:20 GMT -5 Dashe said:

I watch all my Disney movies in French too, even if it is Canadian French. Most of it's still understandable.

, I hope you're not referring to Québecois French, lol. If so, then cool! French is (imo) the most beautiful language in the world, but Québécois is kind of vulgar (well, especially if you're talking Joual, but regular Québécois isn't that bad, it could actually be considered more correct than the French spoken in France...oh, I seem to have gone off a bit on a tangent there... ).